The Cascade Symphony Orchestra begins its new season on Oct. 22 with a performance by Yesong Sophie Lee, 15, a Jackson High School freshman who made her professional debut last year with Grammy Award winning violinist Joshua Bell.
Plan ahead if you want to attend next weekend’s performance. Tickets are being snapped up quickly.
Lee began taking violin lessons when she was 4, amazed, she said, at the sound that the instrument could produce.
At age 8 she soloed with the Seattle Symphony.
In 2015, Lee was selected for the Cascade Symphony’s annual Rising Star program, which recognizes youth of unusual talent.
She won first prize at the 2016 Menuhin International Junior Violin Competition in London.
She has performed in Berlin, Geneva, London and Poland.
Lee will be performing Sibelius’ Violin Concerto in D minor, a composition that’s one of her favorites. “That’s the first concerto I wanted to play,” she said.
While admitting to some pre-performance butterflies backstage, once the music starts things change.
“A lot of it is a mental battle,” she said. Her goal onstage, she said, “is to focus on making sure every single note is what you want it to be.”
Lee said she’s looking forward to playing with the orchestra she first played with at age 11. “I had so much fun,” she said. “To play on my hometown stage is really nice.”
The program also includes performances of Suppe’s Light Cavalry Overture and Kalinnikov’s Symphony No.1 in G Minor.
A pre-concert lecture begins at 6:30 p.m.
Sharon Salyer: 425-339-3486 or salyer@heraldnet.com.
If you go
What: Cascade Symphony Orchestra with Yesong Sophie Lee on violin
Where: Edmonds Center for the Arts, 410 Fourth Ave. N, Edmonds
When: 7:30 p.m. Oct 22
Tickets: adults $27, students $15 and youth $10
More: 425-275-9595 or www.cascadesymphony.org
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