Renowned teen violinist returns for Masterworks series

By Kristen Peterson

Friday, April 3, 2009 | 2 a.m.

About a year and a half ago a 15-year-old violinist named Shannon Lee came to town and blew away listeners while performing works by Bach, Vitali, Kreisler and Bazzini.

Then came Prokofiev, Chopin and Wieniawski for the encore.

The impressive recital in an Anthem Country Club home was part of the Las Vegas Philharmonic’s Connoisseur Series. It was the first time a Las Vegas audience had seen Lee and it was quite a treat. Lee is back to perform Paganini’s Violin Concerto No. 1 on Saturday with the Las Vegas Philharmonic as part of its fourth Masterworks concert of the season.

Lee, who was born in Canada and lives in Texas, began playing violin at age 4 and debuted with the Dallas Symphony when she was 12.

The month after her Las Vegas recital, she performed with the Nuremberg Philharmonic Orchestra in Germany. Her first CD, “Introducing Shannon Lee,” was released in the summer on Telarc, and she’s since performed with the West Virginia Symphony, the Nashville Symphony, an assortment of symphonies throughout Texas and music director David Itkin’s Arkansas Symphony Orchestra.

Itkin, who joined the Las Vegas Philharmonic in 2007, is also conductor of the Abilene Philharmonic Orchestra and the University of North Texas Symphony Orchestra. Lee was his first soloist for Las Vegas Philharmonic’s 2007 Connoisseur Series. Itkin selected her within two days of his becoming music director here and it didn’t take him long to schedule her in with the symphony.

The Paganini piece, sandwiched between Mozart’s overture to “Don Giovanni” and Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony (a brilliant effort to outsmart the Soviet government), almost promises an exhilarating evening.