Winner of the 2022 Sir Georg Solti Conducting Award, Earl Lee is in his second season as music director of the Ann Arbor Symphony and in his third season as assistant conductor of the Boston Symphony, which he has led in subscription concerts at Symphony Hall and Tanglewood. He was previously associate conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony, resident conductor of the Toronto Symphony, and director of the Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra and Pittsburgh Youth Symphony. He made his San Francisco Symphony debut in February 2022.

This past season, Mr. Lee’s guest conducting engagements included the Vancouver Symphony, Calgary Philharmonic, Winnipeg Symphony, Colorado Springs Philharmonic, and Florida Orchestra. He has also appeared with the New York Philharmonic, Seoul Philharmonic, Hawaii Symphony, Edmonton Symphony, Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, and Sejong Soloists. In 2022, he led Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw Orchestra as a participant in the Ammodo masterclasses led by Fabio Luisi.

As a cellist, Mr. Lee has performed at Marlboro Music Festival, Music from Angel Fire, Caramoor Rising Stars, and Ravinia’s Steans Institute, and has toured as a member of the East Coast Chamber Orchestra, Musicians from Marlboro, and with Gary Burton and Chick Corea as a guest member of the Harlem String Quartet.

Mr. Lee was the recipient of the Heinz Unger Award from the Ontario Arts Council, a Solti Career Assistance Award, a Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Scholarship by Kurt Masur, and the Ansbacher Fellowship by the American Austrian Foundation and members of the Vienna Philharmonic. He studied cello at the Curtis Institute of Music and the Juilliard School, and conducting at Manhattan School of Music and New England Conservatory. He lives in New York with his wife and their daughter.

Stella Chen won first prize at the 2019 Queen Elisabeth International Competition, and was awarded a 2020 Avery Fisher Career Grant and Lincoln Center Emerging Artist Award. She recently made debuts with the New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Baltimore Symphony, and Belgian National Orchestra, and appeared at the Vienna Musikverein and Berlin Philharmonie.

In recital, recent appearances include Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Phillips Collection, and Rockport Music. She appears frequently with Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center both in New York and on tour. Highlights this season include the US premiere of Jörg Widmann’s Second Violin Concerto under the direction of the composer, and the world premiere of a new violin concerto written for her by Jon Cziner.

For her all-Schubert debut album, released in March 2023 on the Apple Music label Platoon, Ms. Chen was named Young Artist of the Year at the Gramophone Awards. She is also the inaugural recipient of the Robert Levin Award from Harvard University, where she was inspired by Robert Levin himself. Teachers and mentors have included Donald Weilerstein, Itzhak Perlman, Miriam Fried, and Catherine Cho. She received her doctorate from the Juilliard School, where she serves as teaching assistant to her longtime mentor Li Lin. She plays the 1720 “General Kyd” Stradivarius violin, on generous loan from Dr. Ryuji Ueno and Rare Violins In Consortium, Artists and Benefactors Collaborative, and the 1708 “Huggins” Stradivarius courtesy of the Nippon Music Foundation.