VC Artist Dover Quartet Announces New Member

Violist Julianne Lee will join the two-time GRAMMY-nominated string quartet as of September 2023

Violist Julianne Lee will take up her new role following the departure of Dover Quartet’s founding violist Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt in August 2022, and Hezekiah Leung’s season-long appointment in the group until August 2023.

Additionally, she will join the Curtis Institute of Music’s faculty from the 2023/24 academic year as a part of the quartet’s Ensemble-in-Residence position at the school. The Dover Quartet also comprises violinists Joel Link and Bryan Lee, and cellist Camden Shaw.

A seasoned violinist as well as a viola player, Julianne holds the assistant principal second violin position at the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) and principal second violin with the Boston Pops Orchestra. She joined the BSO’s violin section in 2006 and was its acting assistant concertmaster between 2013 and 2015. She also served as the principal second violin of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra from 2017 to 2019 and was the second violinist of the Johannes String Quartet. 

She has appeared solo with orchestras in Germany, the U.S., and South Korea, and performed at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Chamber Music at the Banff Centre, Aspen Music Festival, and the Marlboro Music Festival.

A graduate of the Conservatoire Supérieur de Paris with a unanimous first prize, she holds degrees from CIM and the New England Conservatory (NEC). As an educator, she is a faculty member at the NEC Preparatory School and the Berklee College of Music.

“We are thrilled to welcome Curtis alumna Julianne Lee back to the school as she joins our faculty and the Dover Quartet,” said CIM’s president and CEO, Roberto Díaz. 

“Throughout Curtis’s nearly 100-year history, we have emphasized training young musicians to excel at chamber music, in addition to orchestral and solo repertoire, which makes the Curtis experience so unique,” Díaz continued. “I am delighted to see Julianne and the quartet carry on this legacy, and inspire generations of students and audiences.”

“To say it was ‘love at first sound’ might sound silly, but that’s exactly what we experienced when we first read with Julianne,” Camden Shaw said on behalf of the quartet. “There was the uncanny feeling that we had already played together for years; and yet at the same time, the group sounded uniquely fresh and inspired.

“We are so fortunate and grateful to be welcoming her into our family and look forward to taking the Dover Quartet to new musical heights!” 

(PC: Roy Cox)

The Dover Quartet was founded at CIM in 2008. Its name is an homage to Dover Beach, composed by fellow CIM alumnus Samuel Barber. The group has since been named one of the greatest string quartets of the last 100 years by BBC Music Magazine and was nominated twice at the 65th GRAMMY Awards.

Also holding residencies with the Kennedy Center, Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University, Artosphere, and the Amelia Island Chamber Music Festival, the quartet was a prizewinner at the Banff International String Quartet, Fischoff Chamber Music, and Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competitions. Its other accolades include the Avery Fisher Career Grant, Chamber Music America’s Cleveland Quartet Award, and Lincoln Center’s Hunt Family Award.

Members of the quartet have studied at CIM, Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, and NEC, where their mentors comprised Shmuel Ashkenasi, Victor Danchenko, Joseph DePasquale, James Dunham, Norman Fischer, Kenneth Goldsmith, Kim Kashkashian, Joseph Silverstein, Arnold Steinhardt, Michael Tree, Donald Weilerstein, and Peter Wiley. 

The group’s upcoming projects involve a Europe tour and collaborations with artists Edgar Meyer, Joseph Conyers, Haochen Zhang, Emanuel Ax, Inon Barnaton, Ray Chen, Escher String Quartet, Bridget Kibbey, Anthony McGill, and the Pavel Haas Quartet.