Biography

Chee-Yun performs regularly with the world's foremost orchestras, including the Philadelphia Orchestra, the London Philharmonic, and the Toronto, Houston, Seattle, Pittsburgh and National symphony orchestras. Additionally, she has appeared with the Atlanta Symphony, the Orchestra of St. Luke's (at Alice Tully Hall) and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and has performed with such distinguished conductors as Hans Graf, James DePriest, Jesus Lopez-Cobos, Michael Tilson Thomas, Krzysztof Penderecki, Neeme Järvi, Pinchas Zukerman and Manfred Honeck. Internationally, Chee-Yun has toured with the Haifa Symphony, the Hong Kong Philharmonic, Germany's Braunschweig Orchestra and the MDR Radio Leipzig and performed with the St. Petersburg Camerata, the Bamberg Philharmonic, the Bilbao Symphony, the London Festival Orchestra, the Nagoya Philharmonic, KBS Symphony Orchestra and the Seoul Philharmonic. Recent orchestral highlights include her tours of the United States with the San Francisco Symphony (Michael Tilson Thomas conducting), and Japan with the NHK Symphony.

As a recitalist, Chee-Yun has performed in many major US cities including New York, Chicago, Washington, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Atlanta. Career highlights include appearances at the Kennedy Center's "Salute to Slava" gala honoring Mstislav Rostropovich, the Mostly Mozart Festival's tour to Japan, a performance with Michael Tilson Thomas in the inaugural season of Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall, and the US premiere of the Penderecki Sonata No. 2 with pianist Barry Douglas. Other recent highlights include tours of the US with the San Francisco Symphony, tours of Japan with the NHK Symphony and the Tokyo Metropolitan Orchestra, and a performance at the American Ballet Theatre's fall gala. Firmly committed to chamber music, Chee-Yun has toured with "Music from Marlboro" and appears frequently with Spoleto USA, a project she has been associated with since its inception. Additional chamber music appearances include the Ravinia, Aspen, Bravo! Vail Valley, La Jolla, Caramoor, Green Music, Santa Fe and Bridgewater festivals in the US, the Great Mountains Music Festival in South Korea, the Clandeboye Festival with Camerata Ireland in Northern Ireland, the Opera Theatre and Music Festival in Lucca, Italy, the Colmar Festival in France, and the Beethoven and Penderecki festivals in Poland. Most recently, Chee-Yun performed Leon Kirchner's Piano Trio No. 2 at the Great Lakes Festival with pianist Jeremy Denk and cellist Andrés Diaz, deemed by the The Detroit Free Press, "a spectacularly confident and expressive performance of recording quality."

Chee-Yun has received exceptional acclaim as a recording artist since the release of her debut album of virtuoso encore pieces in 1993. Her recent recording of the Penderecki Violin Concerto No. 2 on Naxos was acclaimed as "an engrossing, masterly performance" (The Strad Magazine) and "a performance of staggering virtuosity and musicality" (American Record Guide). Her releases on the Denon label include Mendelssohn's E Minor Violin Concerto, Vieuxtemps' Violin Concerto No. 5, Lalo's Symphonie Espagnole, and Saint-Saëns' Violin Concerto No. 3, with the London Philharmonic under the direction of Maestro Lopez-Cobos, a disc of three French violin sonatas (Debussy, Saint-Saëns and Fauré), and the violin sonatas of Szymanowski and Franck. Her most recent Denon disc features the violin sonatas of Brahms and Strauss. Two compilation discs, Vocalise d'amour, and The Very Best of Chee-Yun, feature highlights of Chee-Yun's earlier recordings. In May 2007, Chee-Yun recorded the Beethoven Triple Concerto with Camerata Ireland, pianist Barry Douglas and cellist Andrés Diaz, for release in December 2007. This season, Chee-Yun will record with guitarist Jose Maria Gallardo Del Rey for Universal/Korea.

Chee-Yun has been heard frequently on National Public Radio's Performance Today and on WQXR and WNYC radio in New York City. She has also been featured on KTV, a children's program on the cable network CNBC, Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion", on Public Radio International and numerous syndicated and local radio programs across the United States and abroad. She has appeared on PBS as a special guest on Victor Borge Then and Now 3, in a live broadcast at Spivey Hall in Atlanta concurrent with the Olympic Games, and on ESPN performing the theme for the X Games.

Chee-Yun's first public performance at age 8 took place in her native Seoul after she won the Grand Prize of the Korean Times Competition. At 13, she came to the United States and was invited to perform the Vieuxtemps Concerto No. 5 in a Young People's Concert with the New York Philharmonic. Two years later, she appeared as soloist with the New York String Orchestra under Alexander Schneider at Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center. In Korea, Chee-Yun studied with Nam Yun Kim. In the United States, she has worked with Dorothy DeLay, Hyo Kang, Daniel Phillips and Felix Galimir (chamber music) at The Juilliard School.

In addition to her active performance and recording schedule, Chee-Yun is a dedicated and enthusiastic educator.  She gives master classes around the world and has held several teaching posts at notable music schools and universities.  Her past faculty positions have included serving as the resident Starling Soloist and Adjunct Professor of Violin at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, and Visiting Professor of Music (Violin) at Indiana University School of Music.  In August 2007, she was appointed Artist-in-Residence and Professor of Violin at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

Chee-Yun plays the Stradivarius "Ex-Strauss" (Cremona, 1708), which is on loan to her from Samsung.