Music Director/Resident Conductor

Lim Soon Lee joined the National University of Singapore Concert Orchestra in April 1994 as Music Director/Resident Conductor. Under his drive and leadership, the Orchestra was inaugurated as the National University of Singapore Symphony Orchestra in September 1995. His dedication to nurturing young music talents in Singapore speaks for itself in his enthusiasm for undergraduates to have access to the arts and to pursue aesthetic development.

Soon Lee's musical journey began at the age of eight with the piano and violin under the tutelage of Singapore musicians and instructors Goh Soon Tioe, Tan Kah Chin, Teo Kian Seng, Moses Wang, and Vivien Goh. He obtained his Licentiate of the Royal Schools of Music for violin and viola and was awarded the First Prize in the Viola Open Section at the Singapore National Music Competition in 1981.

Under a Public Service Commission/Singapore Symphony Orchestra Scholarship, he graduated in 1983 with a Bachelor of Music (Distinction) from the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester, New York, where he studied the viola under Atar Arad and Francis Tursi, and completed a two-year conducting course with David Effron and Donald Hunsberger. In the summers of 1984 and 1986, Soon Lee served as Principal Violist at Germany's Heidelberg Music Festival and was awarded a scholarship to study the viola under Kim Kashkashian at the Lausanne Academy of Music in Switzerland. From 1987 to 1997, he was with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra as Sub-Principal Violist, and was Singapore's only representative in the 1988 World Philharmonic Orchestra in Montreal, Canada.

Soon Lee has been associated with many orchestras worldwide, having conducted the New World Symphony Orchestra in Miami, the Plyzen Radio Symphony Orchestra of the Czech Republic, the Bakersfield Orchestra in California and the KLPac Sinfonietta in Malaysia. In Singapore, he has also directed the Singapore Symphony Orchestra on several occasions including the 17th SEA Games at the Singapore National Stadium and the World Trade Organisation First Ministerial Conference at the Sentosa Musical Fountain.

In 1995, Soon Lee was awarded the Jean Frederic Perrenoud Prize with a Certificate of Distinction in Orchestral Conducting at the 4th Vienna International Music Competition and was the finalist for the Outstanding Young Persons of Singapore Award conferred by the Orchid Jayceettes of Singapore in recognition of his contribution to social development in Singapore.

Currently, the Music Director/Resident Conductor of the Singapore National Youth Orchestra and the Associate Principal of String Performance at the School of the Arts Singapore (SOTA), Soon Lee continues to live his passion for the development of the local youth music scene.