The winner of the Royal Philharmonic Society Emily Anderson Prize Award 2007, Joo Yeon Sir (17) was born in Seoul, Korea in 1990, where she began her musical studies at the age of five on the piano; violin lessons followed a year later. At the age of six, her piano performance at the Mozart Spring Festival was broadcast on national TV, and she appeared as soloist with the Korean Philharmonic Orchestra at the age of seven as a result of winning first prize at the Korean Philharmonic Orchestra Competition. She was a major prize winner at numerous national competitions in Korea, including, at the age of six, first prize at the prestigious Eumyoun Music Magazine Piano Competition.
Since she was ten she has been living in London, and has been studying with Dr. Felix Andrievsky at the Purcell School of Music. She has performed at various venues across the UK and abroad, including solo and chamber recitals at the Wigmore Hall, Brittens Theatre (Royal College of Music), Bishopsgate Great Hall and recently in the presence of HRH the Prince of Wales for the Elgar Society at St. James’s Palace. She has also given concerts as soloist with orchestras, and recently led the Purcell School Symphony Orchestra in Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. She has attended master classes given by Alexander Arenkow, Gyorgy Pauk, Sylvia Rosenberg and Ida Haendel.
Joo Yeon has been a major prize winner at national and international competitions. In 2006, at the age of sixteen, she became overall Grand Prix Laureate at the Nedjalka Simeonova International Violin Competition in Haskovo, Bulgaria; her performance and interview were broadcast on Radio Bulgaria (BNR). In 2008 she received two Gold Medals from the Marlow Festival International Concerto Competition.
In the UK she has won many Young Musician titles, including Harlow Rotary Club Young Musician of the Year 2005 and 2006, Rotary District Young Musician of the Year 2007 and Sevenoaks Young Musician of the Year 2007, which resulted in a performance with orchestra of the Tchaikovsky Concerto in the summer of 2007. Other prizes for performance include ‘the most outstanding performance in the string section’ at the Ealing Festival, the Challenge Cup and President’s Prize at the North London Festival, the June Clements Memorial Medal from the Sevenoaks Three Arts Festival, and most recently the ‘Prix de l’Hospitalité Musicale 2007’ from Masters de Belesbat, which followed a recital engagement in France. She was the recipient of the Duke of Devonshire Award at the Eastbourne Symphony Orchestra Young Soloist Competition both in 2007 and 2008, being the youngest finalist in both years, and was awarded the Colonel Howes Award and the May and Norman Cox Memorial Award. She was supported by the John E. Mortimer Award from the Philharmonia Orchestra/Martin Musical Scholarship Fund in 2007.
As a composer, she has won several awards, including first prize and the title of BBC/Guardian Young Composer of the Year 2005 at the age of fourteen for her composition Conflict in Time, which has been performed at the Wigmore Hall and the Cadogan Hall by Endymion, and has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3. She studies composition with Simon Speare and Alison Cox, and she has written music for several school projects, such as the “Birtwistle Games” Festival at the South Bank Centre and “Nash Inventions” in collaboration with the Nash Ensemble. Her most recent work, Cold Dark Matter; an Exploded View for orchestra, inspired by Cornelia Parker’s sculpture, was the winner of the Purcell School Composition Competition in 2007, and was performed by the Purcell School Symphony Orchestra at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London in February 2008.
Joo Yeon has been invited to perform with the Brandenburg Sinfonia in Reading in November, and to give a solo lunchtime recital at the Bishopsgate Great Hall, London in December, amongst other concerts. Her engagements in 2009 include a performance of the Brahms Violin Concerto with the Ealing Symphony Orchestra as a result of winning first prize at the recent Ealing Festival Concerto Competition.
June 2008