Described by Strad Magazine as “exuberant… seductive… with bravura and oodles of personality”, Korean-born British violinist Joo Yeon Sir is winner of the prestigious Arts Club Karl Jenkins Classical Music Award, in association with Classic FM, and the Royal College of Music’s President’s Award. She has performed at the Royal Albert Hall with Sir Karl Jenkins and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal Festival Hall, Wigmore Hall, Manchester Bridgewater Hall, Fairfield Halls and at St. James’s Palace for HRH The Prince of Wales. She regularly appears on BBC Radio 3 and Classic FM.
Her repertoire is striking and diverse. She has played concertos by Mozart, Mendelssohn, Barber, Dvorak, Sibelius, Walton, Bruch and Brahms; other concerto repertoire includes Haydn, Beethoven and Tchaikovsky, and a particular interest in 20th century works - Prokofiev, Khachaturian, Korngold, Elgar, Britten, Schnittke, Shostakovich and Nielsen. In recital, she is equally at home in solo violin repertoire (Bach, Ysaÿe, Kreisler and Paganini) as she is in close collaboration with piano or guitar (the latter as one half of the Snowden-Sir Duo). Her collaboration with Sir Karl Jenkins has already resulted in two works especially written for her unique sound and personality - Lament for the Valley (which became part of his choral work Cantata Memoria) and Chatterbox! (originally for violin/piano, but now also orchestrated for violin/string orchestra).
Aged sixteen, Joo Yeon was overall Grand Prix Laureate at the Nedyalka Simeonova International Violin Competition in Bulgaria. After studying at the Royal College of Music, with Dr Felix Andrievsky, in 2015-6 she was selected for the St John’s Smith Square Young Artist Residency. She has also been a Tillett Trust Young Artist and the grateful recipient of many awards, from the Royal Philharmonic Society, Making Music and others.
Also a composer, Joo Yeon is a former winner of the coveted BBC/Guardian Young Composer of the Year and her works have been premiered and performed at the Wigmore Hall and on BBC Radio 3. Her latest work, written for herself and duo guitar partner, Laura Snowden, was premiered on BBC Radio 3 to celebrate International Women’s Day 2017.
The 2016-2017 season saw the release of two discs: the Deutsche Grammophon CD and world premiere of Sir Karl Jenkins’ Cantata Memoria – For the Children, recorded with Sinfonia Cymru, and her first solo CD - Suites and Fantasies - with her duo partner Irina Andrievsky, which was released to great critical acclaim by Rubicon: “A dazzling debut…Joo Yeon Sir melds technical assurance with rare artistic sensibility” The Guardian. Her second disc, with music by Stravinsky, Bartok and Vladigerov (also with Rubicon), is due for release in spring 2019.
Last season saw a busy residency at the Lichfield Festival, where she performed the complete Paganini Caprices for the first time, along with a world premiere by Ninfea Cruttwell-Reade, concerto performances in Prague and at St John’s, Smith Square and The Lark Ascending at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, as well as recitals in London and in Cheltenham.
This season sees her debut with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, playing the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, plus concertos by Glazunov, Prokofiev, Bruch, Barber and Elgar, alongside recitals in London and at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. Joo Yeon plays on a Matteo Goffriller violin provided by Georg von Opel.
Irina Andrievsky was born Upha, Russia. She received her first piano lessons at the age of seven, winning first prize in the Ufa piano competition at the age of 10. At the age of 11 she went to Moscow to study at the Central Music School for Specially Gifted Children, a branch of the Tchaikovsky Conservatory, where she would later graduate with distinction and receive her doctorate. Among her teachers were Professors E Malinin, L Timofeeva and M Mijlumoff. She was among the winners of International Piano Competitions in Italy. In 1991 Irina immigrated to Israel and continued her music career, mainly performing solo recitals and chamber music. She performed in the 'Radio France and Montpellier' Festival in France, as well as other prestigious Chamber Music Festivals worldwide. For the past 14 years Andrievsky has developed an impressive career as a piano teacher in Israel, raising a generation of promising young pianists, until she moved to England. Since then, she participated in mastercourses and festivals in France, UK, Russia and Israel, and gave solo and duo recitals with different instrumentalists; she possesses a very broad duo and accompaniment repertoire for violin, viola and cello. At present Irina is actively associated with Royal College of Music in London.
Free recital (retiring collection)