Violinist Lee Soobin Places Third at Wieniawski International Competition

Performed Wieniawski's Violin Concerto No. 1 in the final

Violinist Lee Soobin placed third at the 17th Henryk Wieniawski International Violin Competition, her agency Credia said on the 23rd. Lee will receive prize money of 15,000 euros (approximately 22 million won).

At the final on the 22nd local time at the Adam Mickiewicz University Auditorium in Poznan, Poland, Lee performed Wieniawski's Violin Concerto No. 1 with the Poznan Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Lukasz Borowicz, earning third place. Ukraine's Bohdan Luts won, while China's Li Jinju placed second.

Violinist Lee Subin. Credia (c)Shin-joong Kim

From the first through third rounds, Lee performed works by Bach and Wieniawski, as well as Ravel, Ysaye and Szymanowski. She advanced to the final after performing the Sibelius Violin Concerto in the semifinal.

This year's competition was open to young violinists aged 18 to 30. After the first, second and third rounds and the semifinal, which began on the 9th, Lee, Luts and Li advanced to the final. The prizewinners will perform at a concert in Poznan on the 23rd.

Established in 1935, the Wieniawski International Violin Competition was founded in honor of Polish violinist and composer Henryk Wieniawski. A founding member of the UNESCO-affiliated World Federation of International Music Competitions (WFIMC), it is considered one of the world's oldest international violin competitions. It is generally held every five years.

Notable past prizewinners include Ginette Neveu, David Oistrakh and Igor Oistrakh. Among Korean performers, Han Sujin placed joint second in 2001, Yoon Soyoung won in 2011, and Kim Bomsori placed joint second in 2016.

Born in 2000, Lee made her debut at the Kumho Prodigy Concert in 2010. She won the David Oistrakh International Violin Competition in Moscow in 2013 and the Young Concert Artists Auditions in New York in 2014. She has continued to achieve success on the international stage, winning a prize at the Indianapolis Violin Competition in 2022 and placing third at the Montreal International Music Competition in 2023.

She has given solo recitals at Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center in New York, and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. She has also performed with the Oregon Symphony, the Orchestra of St. Luke's and the Montreal Symphony. Since September 2025, she has been a resident musician at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel in Belgium.

Lee studied with the late Professor Kim Nam-yun at the Korea National Institute for the Gifted in Arts and the Korea National University of Arts, and with Miriam Fried at the New England Conservatory. She currently plays a 1794 Giuseppe Guarneri Cremona violin with support from the Kumho Cultural Foundation.

Violinist Kyung-wha Chung, Lee's longtime mentor, congratulated her, saying, "I am truly proud of violinist Lee Soobin, who has confidently demonstrated her own profound and refined musical world on the vast stage of the world." She added, "This achievement will be not an end, but a starting point for moving toward broader musical horizons."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.