Mark Yee

Cello Session 1 and 2

Hailed for his rich tone and charismatic playing, Korean-American cellist, MARK YEE has a career as a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral performer. As winner of the Cleveland Institute of Music concerto competition, Mr.

Yee performed the Dvorak Cello Concerto with the CIM symphony orchestra. This led to an invitation to perform Tchaikovsky Rococo Variations with the National Repertory Orchestra. In 2014, Mr. Yee was invited to participated in the 50th anniversary distinguished alumni “Shooting Stars” concert for the Sarasota Music Festival. He has performed at such prestigious concert halls across the country such as Carnegie, Alice Tully Halls, Lincoln, and Kennedy Centers.

Mr. Yee festivals experience have been at International Musicians Seminar Prussia Cove, Norfolk, Sarasota, ENCORE, Meadowmount, and was a festival fellow at Aspen and Bowdoin Music Festival. In addition to his appearances as a soloist and recitalist, Mr. Yee performs regularly as a chamber musician. An avid chamber musician, he has performed with distinguished artist such as Robert Levin, Mikhail Kopelman, Oleh Krysa, James Buswell, Pamela Frank, Kim Kashkashian, Emma Tahmizian, and members of the Juilliard, Cleveland, Tokyo, Artis, Ying, and Cavani string quartets. He was part of the Yee-Matathias-Cheli piano trio, which was closely mentored by violinist Sylvia Rosenberg from the Juilliard School and has performed in master classes at the Lincoln Center for pianist Jeremy Denk and Menahem Pressler.

Mr. Yee is passionate teacher for the past 15 years has maintained a full cello studio with 50 students; his students regularly the winners of the local concerto competitions and are the top ranks with the Texas All-Region, All-State orchestras. He was artistic director of TexasCellos Houston and taught with TexasCellos in Dallas. He has also done serval livestreams with the online platform with Tonebase Cello. His students have graduated and gone to Stanford, Harvard, MIT, NYU, Rice, University of Texas, Eastman, Oberlin, NEC, and Juilliard. Mr. Yee is an active freelance cellist, performing with the San Antonio Philharmonic, Houston Grand Opera, Houston Ballet Orchestra, and Mercury Chamber Orchestra.

Mr. Yee graduated from the Eastman School of Music with a Masters of Music on a full-tuition scholarship and received a Performer Certificate while being a teaching assistant to Steven Doane and Rosemary Elliott. Mr. Yee finished his Bachelors of Music at the Manhattan School of Music under Clive Greensmith, former cellist of the Tokyo Quartet. His principal teachers have been with Richard Aaron, Desmond Hoebig, Richard Weiss, Christopher French, and Lynn Harrell. Outside of music, he’s known for his abilities as a Korean Barbecue Chef specialist, avid cyclist, and enjoys training yearly tradition of finishes the IRONMAN triathlons. He resides in Sugar Land, TX with his family and his loyal pug, Hercules.