“I am incredibly excited to be coming back home and to play with Camerata. I haven’t been home in a very long time, and it feels like the right time to be coming back for these concerts. I am incredibly grateful that I am able to return home and get to look forward to playing with everybody again.”

Learn more about Catherina Lee, who joins us as a special guest for Viva Violin!

“Camerata approaches music making in a non self-serving way and it is always a pleasure to collaborate with musicians that put the music first […] I am incredibly excited to be coming back home and to play with Camerata […] and look forward to playing with everybody again.”  

Catherina Lee started playing the violin when she was very young and was very found of her instrument, as it allowed her to express herself and to enter a completely different world. She remembers that, at the time, it was the only activity that made sense to her. 

“It was the most fun that I had while growing up and realising I wanted to continue playing for the rest of my life because of that!”  

“I saw a cartoon on a VHS tape with a man playing while all of these colours poured out of his violin until the entire screen was filled. That was the first moment when I told my mum that I’d like to learn how to play the violin.”

She trained extensively under Camerata’s founder Elizabeth Morgan AM who, to this date, she considers as her first serious violin teacher and the person she looks up to the most in her life. Elizabeth taught her a lot about violin playing and music, and was dedicated to giving Catherina experiences on stage – which led her to play an arrangement of Liebesleid by Fritz Kreisler for violin and string orchestra with Camerata when she was very young. Catherina is very excited to collaborate with Camerata’s musicians again, as she says “[she] believe[s] that Camerata is a unique orchestra that shares values that Elizabeth teaches to all of her students.” 

Catherina is currently based in Vienna, where she made her solo debut, which was received with great acclaim. She is enjoying the amount of cultural events that are on every night in Vienna, listening to rehearsals and seeing concerts, which have been wonderful ways for her to learn from incredible artists including from classical music luminaries such as Steven Isserlis. She says that in the next ten years, she is looking forward to being even more curious and to developing even more as a musician. 

Read more about Catherina career so far here.

Experience Catherina’s virtuosic performance in Viva Violin on 4 (Toowomba) and 5 (Brisbane) August!