Sydney Jenna Lee was born in 1996 in the USA. At the age of six, she began her cello studies with SooYoun Lee. Two years later, she was accepted into The Juilliard School’s Precollege Division. Currently, she is the Emily W. Sunstein Annual Fellow, studying at the Curtis Institute of Music with Carter Brey and Peter Wiley. 

Sydney has attended the Aspen Music Festival and School with the Ruth Coates Roush Scholarship, the Meadowmount School of Music, the Morningside Music Bridge program, the MusicAlp International Music Academy, the Sejong International Music Festival, the Sommerliche Musikakademie Wohldorf-Ohlstedt in Hamburg, and Les Rencontres Musicales Internationales en Wallonie in Wavre, Belgium where she received a full scholarship. In 2018, she was selected as an active participant in the Kronberg Academy cello masterclasses. She receives a scholarship from the International Music Academy Liechtenstein and takes part in the intensive music weeks and activities of the academy held there. 

Sydney captured the 1st prize in the “10th International Cello Competition Antonio Janigro” and won the 2nd prize in the 2014 “Lennox International Young Artists Competition”. In 2015, she was a National YoungArts finalist and was named a Presidential Scholar in the Arts in 2015 by the White House Commission on Presidential Scholars.

Sydney made her orchestral debut with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Hong in Heinz Hall at the age of fourteen. By joining Curtis on Tour, she played in cities across Asia and the United States as well as in Europe. 

Sydney has been featured on NPR’s From the Top, a national radio broadcast, performing at the Palladium Center of Performing Arts in Carmel, Indiana, as well as at the Croatian TV Istra. She was featured on the sensational YouTube release of From the Top’s first animated music video, Passacaglia Powerhouse Sibling Duo, which was performed together with her cellist brother, Noah Lee.

Sydney is a Board of Director and co-regional director of the Philadelphia chapter of the Back to Bach Project, a national initiative meant to inspire and encourage young school children to learn musical instruments and instill a love of music in them. 

Sydney Lee plays on a 1730 J. F. Guidantus cello, on generous loan from The Curtis Institute of Music.