15-year-old Jeri Lee and 22-year-old Meng Zou won the cello and violin divisions respectively
The violin and cello division finals of the Schoenfeld International String Competition took place on 23 July in Harbin, China. Contestants performed a concerto with the Harbin Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Jindong Cai.
In the violin division, 22-year-old Meng Zou from China won the $30,000 first prize and a gold medal. He performed the Sibelius Violin Concerto. In second place was 24-year-old Bo Cui also from China, who received $15,000 and a silver medal, followed by 22-year-old American Audrey Park in third place, who received a bronze medal and $8,000. Bo Cui also won the Best Performance of a Chinese New Work prize.
At only 15 years old, Korean cellist Jeri Lee won first prize in the cello division. She receives $30,000 and a gold medal. Lee performed Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme. 26-year-old Matthias Balzat from New Zealand came in second, receving a silver medal and $15,000 and 19-year-old Russian Bogdan Efremov came third, receiving a bronze medal and $8,000. Runing Li won the Best Performance of a Chinese New Work prize.
Born in China in 2002, Meng Zou studied at the Sichuan Conservatory of Music with Li Kaixiang from 2014 to 2020. He made his orchestral debut alongside the SCOM Symphony Orchestra in 2014. Other competition success includes first place at the 2023 Singapore National Piano and Violin Competition and third prize at the Classic Violin Olympus International Competition Tokyo. He has taken part in masterclses with Shlomo Mintz, Midori, Vadim Gluzman and others. Since 2020, he has been studying at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music under Qian Zhou.
Korean cellist Jeri Lee studied as a pre-college student at the Korea National Institute for the Gifted in Arts and Yewon Middle School. She has won first prize at the 2022 Ysaÿe International Junior Competition and 2022 London Concerto Competition, as well as other international competitions, and was the youngest cello semi-finalist in the history of the George Enescu International Competition in 2024.
Lee has performed at venues such as Carnegie Hall and Suntory Hall and with orchestras including the Kyiv Virtuosi, Seoul Virtuosi, Yewon Chamber Orchestra and Zagreb Philharmonic. She has taken masterclasses with Zlatomir Fung, Ophélie Gaillard, Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt, Frans Helmerson, among others. She is currently studying with Kangho Lee, Jeongju Choi, James Kim and Jungran Lee.
This year’s competition jury was chaired by Augustin Dumay and Arto Noras, and comprised Sergey Antonov, Anne Gastinel, Xenia Jankovic, Natalia Pavlutskaya, Alasdair Tait, James Cuddeford, Roman Kim, Jennifer Koh, Vineta Sareika, Tianwa Yang, Lina Yu, with Wei He and Li Sheng serving as the distinguished artist panel.
The competition was founded by sisters violinist Alice Schoenfeld and cellist Eleonore Schoenfeld, who co-founded the Schoenfeld International Music Society. They were among the first internationally recognised musicians to visit communist China after formal diplomatic relations with the US began in the 1980s. More than a hundred Chinese string students studying abroad received scholarship support on their recommendation.
The competition is sponsored by Harbin Modern Culture & Tourism Investment Group Co., Ltd. 哈尔滨马迭尔文化旅游投资集团有限公司.
Read: Chamber music prizes awarded at the Schoenfeld International String Competition
Read: Winners announced at Vienna’s Violins & Soul Competition
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