For Jean Lee, the College of Music always felt like a second home even before she enrolled at Michigan State University in the late 1990s and graduated with her bachelor’s in music education in 2004.

Starting spring semester 2023, the MSU alumna came back to campus as the new instructor and coordinator of String Music Education in the Music Education Area of the College of Music.

“MSU has always been a big part of my life,” said Lee. “As a young girl I took music lessons here, and I have core memories of playing concerts with the MSU Symphony as a high school student. I’ve always been made to feel like I belong here.”

As the newest member of the Music Education faculty, Lee will teach string pedagogy and string methods courses, and rebuild the string music education program through outreach aimed at student recruitment and retention. She’s a skilled violinist, with teaching experience spanning two decades of leading orchestras at Okemos Public Schools and other educational settings.

Lee has taken student orchestras on concert tours in Germany, Austria, France, and China, and has directed orchestras at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp in Twin Lakes, Michigan, the Michigan Chapter of the American Strings Teachers Association String Camp in Howell, Michigan, and the New England Music Camp in Sidney, Maine. She is a highly sought-after clinician, conductor, Suzuki violin teacher, and adjudicator throughout the Midwest.   

“We are pleased to add a string specialist to the music education team. Jean has extensive experience teaching orchestras, so she brings that depth of teaching experience to our students,” said Karen Salvador, associate professor and chair of  MSU Music Education. “She’s an ideal fit because she not only brings orchestral education expertise, but she also has great ideas for recruiting and retaining talented string music education students.”

Campus connections

Lee grew up immersed in university culture. The daughter of Korean immigrants, her father was a graduate student at MSU when she was born, and the family lived in Spartan Village. When she was six, her parents became small business owners, purchasing Twichell’s Cleaners and Tailors directly across from campus.

“The Spartan Marching Band had their uniforms cleaned and altered at Twichell’s for many years,” said Lee. “It was a huge point of pride for my parents to have that connection with MSU, and specifically with the College of Music.”

Lee credits her parents with nurturing her early interests and affinity for music. Recognizing her aptitude, her mother and father started her with piano and violin lessons in early elementary school. Starting in middle school, she took piano lessons from Professor of Piano and Chair of the Keyboard Area Deborah Moriarty. Before becoming an MSU freshman, she had already played several years in the MSU Symphony.

While at MSU, Lee took violin lessons from Associate Professor of Violin I-Fu Wang. She also shared her knowledge of traditional Korean folk music and taught Korean Samulnori drumming to fellow students and community members.

Lee said her life experiences at MSU as well as her undergraduate education strengthened her desire to teach and help students realize their full potential through music.

“I have always been more interested in the process of creating music, and my personality type is one that likes to uplift, encourage, and motivate others,” she said. “My student teaching experience through MSU showed me I was on the right path and made me see how much I love working with students.”

In addition to applying her expertise as a strings educator and orchestra director, Lee is formulating strategies and outreach programs to attract string musicians to careers in music education.

“I am excited about seeing what’s happening in string programs across Michigan and to promote strings music education at MSU,” she said. “I’m also incredibly excited about teaching and training a new generation of orchestra teachers and applied studio teachers. Most of all, I am thrilled to be able to say that string music education is back at MSU, and that we are going to build it back bigger and better than ever before.”