Dr. Vanessa Wei
Lee University’s School of Music will present Dr. Vanessa Wei, assistant professor of piano, and cellist Dr. Amy Catron in a recital on Tuesday, April 7, at 7:30 p.m. in Squires Recital Hall, in Lee’s Humanities Building.
The performance will feature Beethoven’s “Cello Sonata No. 1 in F Major” and “Cello Sonata No. 3 in A Major,” as well as “Variations for Cello and Piano” on “See the Conqu’ring Hero Comes” from Judas Maccabaeus.
“After completing the Beethoven piano sonatas, I felt compelled to continue his chamber music,” said Dr. Wei. “The cello sonatas reveal a different side of Beethoven – intimate, conversational, and deeply human. Performing with Dr. Catron to present the complete cycle allows us to share not only masterworks of the repertoire, but also the remarkable artistic dialogue between piano and cello that Beethoven helped define.”
Dr. Wei is an assistant professor of piano with a record of distinction and acclaim in solo piano performance and in collaboration with musicians of note. At Lee, she teaches courses such as applied piano, piano seminars, and piano for ministry. Prior to Lee, she served as a guest professor at China West Normal University, piano faculty at New Tampa Piano and Pedagogy Academy, and worked in various piano teaching assistant instructional roles at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
She earned a Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a Master of Music from the Cleveland Institute of Music, and a Bachelor of Music from the China Conservatory of Music.
Dr. Catron is an accomplished cellist, researcher, and pedagogue, and she currently serves as string area coordinator and assistant teaching professor of cello at Mississippi State University, where she teaches applied cello, chamber music, string methods, and string pedagogy. She has appeared as a soloist with the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra (Florida), the Illinois Symphony Chamber Orchestra, Sinfonia da Camera, the Illini Symphony, and the Baroque Artists of Champaign-Urbana. She previously served as a member of the Naples Philharmonic, and her CD, “Particles and Prayer,” earned a silver medal in the Global Music Awards in 2019.
An active scholar, Dr. Catron has presented research at the International Society for Music Education, the International Symposium for Sociology in Music Education, and the College Music Society National Conference, among others. She holds performance degrees from the Eastman School of Music and the University of Akron, as well as a Doctor of Musical Arts in music education from Boston University.
The recital is free, non-ticketed, and open to the public. Livestream viewing will be available at leeu.live.
For more information about the concert, contact the Lee University School of Music at (423) 614-8240 or email music@leeuniversity.edu.
Dr. Amy Catron