All three cellists are alumni of the Philadelphia school
The Philadelphia-based Curtis Institute of Music has announced three new cello faculty appointments. The three cellists, all of which are past students of the school, are Nicholas Canellakis (class of 2006), Yumi Kendall (class of 2004) and Christine Jeonghyoun Lee (class of 2013). They will begin their new roles in autumn 2024, at the beginning of the school’s centennial year.
About his appointment, Canellakis said: ’I can’t express enough how much pride and joy I feel to now be joining the school as a member of the cello faculty, alongside my mentor Peter Wiley, Gary Hoffman, and my fellow new faculty Yumi and Christine. I’m honoured and humbled to be a part of Curtis’s extraordinary legacy, and to carry on everything I’ve learned to the next generation of musicians.’
Canellakis is an artist of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and has performed as a soloist in venues such as Wigmore Hall, the Alice Tully Hall, Carnegie Hall and Seoul Arts Center, among others. He has appeared at festivals such as the Ravinia Festival, Music@Menlo, La Jolla, Moab Music Festival and Chamberfest Cleveland. Recent concerto appearances include peformances with the Virginia, Albany, Delaware and Stamford symphonies, the Erie Philharmonic, the New Haven Symphony as artist-in-residence, and the American Symphony Orchestra. Canellakis is also the artistic director of Chamber Music Sedona in Arizona.
Kendall is the Philadelphia Orchestra’s assistant principal cello. She won the role in 2004 at the age of 22 while in her final year at the Curtis Institute. In 2013 she was awarded the orchestra’s C. Hartman Kuhn Award. As an orchestral and chamber musician, she has played at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, the Kimmel Center, Suntory Hall, and Vienna’s Musikverein. She has performed with the East Coast Chamber Orchestra, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, and has played as a soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, and others.
Lee joined the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s cello section in August 2023. She is a winner of the International Isang Yun Competition and a laureate of the Queen Elisabeth Competition. She is the artistic director of the ’We’ve got your Bach’ project, which facilitated music performances during the Covid pandemic. With a passion for community work, she has organised charity concerts and fundraisers, and raised funds for building a mobile library for underprivileged children in North Philadelphia.
Read: Shaping a century of music: Curtis Institute centenary
Read: My Experience: violinist Maya Anjali Buchanan, Curtis Institute of Music
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