At first glance Alexander Lee seems like any other 14-year-old freshman at Trinity High School. He enjoys hanging out with friends, likes listening to classic rock music, and is fond of the Beatles and Queen. He tackles his homework assignments seriously, and is thinking ahead to college. It is after his typical day at school that the similarity ends.
Alexander Lee plays the violin. Most nights of the week and through weekends, Alex is either rehearsing or playing a concert or recital. When there aren’t concerts or recitals, Lee can be found practicing or taking lessons. It’s all part of the demanding routine that can turn an aspirant into a professional concert violinist. And those who have heard him and have taught him believe he can achieve that and more.
“Ten years from now, he could be playing in one of the big symphony orchestras, he could be teaching in a college, or he could be in a string quartet,” says Eugene Phillips, his teacher, who is retired from the Pittsburgh Symphony and Carnegie Mellon University. “But he will be in a very advanced cadre [of violinists].” Phillips should know. He is considered one of the finest teachers in the country.
Lee’s introduction to string instruments came at the age of five, when after hearing one of the Pittsburgh Symphony’s “Fiddle Sticks” concerts, he decided he wanted to play the bass. From a practical standpoint a violin was the more logical instrument to begin his training on strings. It was a perfect match.
“All string instruments are hard, but it came pretty naturally,” Lee says of his early experience with a scaled-down instrument, a 1/8th size violin. From the beginning Lee developed a morning regimen. He would get up early, practice on his violin while his mother accompanied on piano, then go off to his elementary classes at Trinity East. “It was something he really wanted to do,” Mrs. Lee remembers. “He even took his violin with him on vacation.”
“I wanted to practice because it was something new and exciting,” Lee notes. “I started at about a half-hour a day, then an hour, soon it was an hour-and-a-half.” Currently, Lee spends about two-and-a-half hours at practice, sometimes followed by a lesson or a performance.
His concert schedule is already booked through May 2007, performing individual recitals or as a member of one of several groups. For example, he not only is concertmaster of the Trinity High School orchestra as a freshman, but he also is first violinist for the Pittsburgh Youth Symphony, was concertmaster for the Three Rivers Young People’s Orchestra, and most recently was assistant concertmaster with the PMEA Honors String Orchestra. He has also performed in numerous ensembles.
Considering his first recital was at age six, it is not surprising that he remembers being “excited, and not nervous... Just the glory to get up and play before an audience was great.”
Alex had the talent and ability to work hard, recalls John McCarthy, his first violin teacher, who is director and founder of the Trinity High School Orchestra. “You need both of those qualities to succeed. He was also fortunate enough to have parents that saw to it that the time was put in productively, and they consider music study to be very important.”
Phillips echoes similar sentiments about Lee. “He is very talented as a musician, and he is very smart. When he gets into a piece of music, he’s really expressing what he feels about the music, and he’s able to project that,” he says. “It depends on how much [a student] works. I’ve had talented kids where it takes years for them to develop. At 14, Alex is sailing along beautifully.”
Lee’s most recent accomplishments have included a spell as assistant concertmaster in the Pennsylvania Music Educators’ Association Honors String Orchestra, and performing regularly with the Pittsburgh Youth Symphony. The audition for the latter required a strenuous audition that included excerpts from concertos by Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart and Mendelssohn. “It was quite a challenge,” he says.
On many weekends it is not unusual for Lee to perform a recital, play a concert with a chamber group, and then attend rehearsal with the Youth Symphony. It’s all part of a day’s work for someone who hopes to make music his career.
“I want to continue to get better on the violin, and then look to enter a conservatory or a college with a conservatory, where I can get two degrees---one in music and one in something else,” he says. “I’ve been looking at both Juilliard and Curtiss School of Music.”
As most young athletes admire and attempt to emulate their professional sports idols, Lee has taken the same kind of approach to professional violinists. Not surprisingly, he lists Itzhak Perlman. “His music is always so perfect and beautiful and so musical,” he says. “but there are others out there too, like Hillary Hahn and Gil Shahan, who are really expressive.”
Few doubt that he will be successful in the future. “Alex has a very compelling approach to music,” says Phillips. “He projects what he feels and can do on the instrument. I’ve given him some very advanced things, and he’s accomplished them. He will be a very fine violinist.”
