The Boston Symphony Orchestra has appointed Korean-Canadian conductor Earl Lee, 37, as the orchestra’s new Assistant Conductor for a two-year term beginning with the 2021–22 season. He succeeds former Assistant Conductor Yu-An Chang whose term with the BSO ended in 2020. Mr. Lee will be one of two Assistant Conductors; he joins Anna Rakitina whose tenure continues through 2023.
In addition to leading his own performances with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Earl Lee will assist BSO Music Director Andris Nelsons and guest conductors in their work preparing the orchestra for performances at Symphony Hall and Tanglewood and on tours, nationally and internationally, as well as for their annual appearances at Carnegie Hall.
Earl Lee is completing his tenure this month with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, where he has held the position of Associate Conductor since September 2018. Previously Resident Conductor of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra from 2015 to 2018, Lee has performed for audiences worldwide as both a conductor and cellist.
He received the 2021 Solti Foundation U.S Career Assistance Award and, in 2018, the 50th Anniversary Heinz Unger Award from the Ontario Arts Council. In 2013, he was one of two recipients of the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Scholarship, chosen by Kurt Masur to study Mendelssohn’s music and life in Leipzig. That same year, Lee was awarded the Ansbacher Fellowship by the American Austrian Foundation and members of the Vienna Philharmonic and spent six weeks at the Salzburg Festival in Austria.