ABOUT VIRTUOSO FIESTA
Virtuoso Fiesta, founded by two friends from Yale, Ruda Lee (left) and Lora Chow (right), is a dynamic organization with a passion for classical music and a commitment to innovation. Their core missions include pushing the boundaries of classical music through inspiration, capturing contemporary social issues through music, and connecting communities worldwide. With their work, Virtuoso Fiesta aims to revolutionize classical music, inspire change, and create a vibrant and inclusive world through music.
Meet the Team
Our Directors
Ruda Lee
Co-founder and Artistic Director
Internationally acclaimed violinist Ruda Lee made her concerto debut at the age of 6 where she was the youngest winner of the World Symphony Orchestra Competition. Born in Seoul, South Korea, her stage-career started with great success of receiving the first and grand prizes including Seoul President Award, Strad Magazine Award, Music Journal Competition, KCO Competition, Music Education Newspaper Competition, Korea Mozart Competition, Young Soloist Competition among others. She had a winner recital at Carnegie Hall in 2014 and a year after performed the J.F.Kennedy Center Honors Gala 2015 in Washington D.C. where she played with Yo Yo Ma and Pamela Frank with President Obama in the audience which was nationally televised in the United States.
Awarded a full scholarship from Yale University School of Music, Ruda has served as a co-concertmaster of Yale Philharmonia and has toured with maestro John Adams at the Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall in New York. She has performed under the batons of renowned conductors such as Valery Gergiev, Krzysztof Penderecki, Peter Oundjian, Andris Nelsons, and worked with esteemed artists including Shmuel Ashkenasi, Kyung-Wha Chung, Joseph Silverstein, Igor Ozim, Syoko Aki, Cho-Liang Lin, Lynn Harrel, Emerson String Quartet, Brantano String Quartet, Tokyo String Quartet among others.
Ruda travels around the world as a versatile soloist and active chamber player performing at prestigious festivals such as Tanglewood, Kronberg, Norfolk, Banff, Great Mountain in PyeongChang, Tongyeong, Taipei, HK Chamber Music Festival, HK Arts Festival, and the recent Vivaldi Festival in Venice-Italy, where her performances of four concertos by Vivaldi received great acclaim. She is currently the Artistic Director of ‘Young Virtuosi HK’, focusing on crafting creative stages and pioneering a project that transcends boundaries and connects the world.
Lora Chow
Co-founder and Executive Director
Born in Hong Kong, Lora Chow is an award-winning composer and soprano graduated magna cum laude from Yale with a double major in Music and Economics. She later studied composition with Hollywood composers Patrick Kirst, Lawrence Shragge and Christopher Young. Lora has created numerous piano improvisations and has composed a variety of orchestral, chamber, vocal and solo piano music. Her composition “Exsultate, Jubilate for Soprano and Orchestra” was premiered by the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra in 2018 and won the Audience Award. Her orchestral pieces "Awakening" and “Sympathy” were premiered by the HK Phil in 2024 and 2019, respectively, with her performing the solo voice, piano and harp parts. Her music has also been premiered by the Orchestra della Toscana, Sofia Sinfonietta, Budapest Art Orchestra and many renowned musicians. Her scores are published by the Universal Edition
As the youngest singer in Yale Schola Cantorum, Lora toured with world-renowned conductors Masaaki Suzuki and Simon Carrington in Europe, the U.S. and Asia. She has also performed various roles in operas, including Cherubino in Le Nozze di Figaro with the New York Lyric Opera Theatre, Zelatrice in Suor Angelica at Operafestival di Roma, Second Lady in The Magic Flute at the Bethesda Summer Music Festival, Adina (cover) in L’elisir d’amore with Varna State Opera, Isabella in L’Italiana in Algeri and Mrs. Grose in The Turn of the Screw with the Opera Theatre of Yale College, and Asdrubale in Scipione Affricano and Speranza in L’Orfeo with the Yale Baroque Opera Project. She has sung in masterclasses by Maestro Helmuth Rilling, soprano Sumi Jo, Camilla Tilling and Anna Shafajinskaia, and studied voice with Olga Makarina, Rao Lan and Janna Baty.
Lora has won many awards, such as the Chigiana Film Scoring Award for Best Storytelling, CASH Music Fund, Cole Porter Fellowship in Music and Theater, the Louis Sudler Creative and Performing Arts Award, the Curtis Recital Plate, the Katie Lees Award for Musicianship and the Anita Hewitt-Jones Composition Prize. Currently, Lora serves as the Soprano Fellow of the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra Chorus, the Co-Founder of the Yale Alumni Chamber Music Society of Hong Kong, and the Vice-Chairwoman of SingFest.
