College of Charleston Associate Professor of violin and Director of Strings Lee-Chin Siow is ready to wow audiences once again, eight months after a car accident that broke her left arm. Siow will return to the stage during the opening concert of the 7th season of Charleston Music Fest this Friday, November 30, 2012. The show will begin at 8:00 p.m. in the Recital Hall of the Simons Center for the Arts. Get tickets.
“Having performed since I was 7 or 8 years old, this was a very traumatic accident,” Siow says. “I was on my way to represent the College and present a lecture at the American String Teachers National Conference in Atlanta, and when I got out of my car after the accident, someone told me not to move my arm. The bone was sticking out! In the beginning, my left arm was so weak, even playing a scale was hard. I spent a lot of time just doing the basics, working on one note at a time.
Siow is lauded by the American Record Guide as “a distinguished cultural asset of international stature.” She is the gold medal winner of the 1994 Henryk Szeryng International Violin Competition and has performed in more than 20 countries across the world, from Carnegie Hall to Japan’s Osaka Symphony Hall.
“I feel so blessed that I can play the violin again, knowing that many people can’t go back to doing what they love after such injuries. I look forward to playing again on the 30th,” she says. The concert, Curtis Night – Lee-Chin & Friends, will feature two world renowned musicians: cellist Peter Stumpf and pianist Beatrice Long. The trio will perform popular masterworks by Ludwig van Beethoven and Richard Strauss, Paul Schoenfield’s energetic and jazzy Café Music, and Ralph Vaughan Williams’ “Six Studies in English Folk Song.”
Charleston Music Fest is co-founded and co-directed by Siow and cello professor Natalia Khoma and aims to inspire students and the community with high quality chamber music, performed by world-class artists. After the concert, the audience is invited to meet the artists and enjoy desserts prepared by Charleston Chef Robert Dickson. For more information, visit http://CharlestonMusicFest.com.