Violinist Michelle Lee returns to her hometown for her first concert performance in Decatur since she launched her professional career several years ago.

Lee will be the violin soloist when the Millikin-Decatur Symphony Orchestra performs its opening-night concert Saturday in Kirkland Fine Arts Center. The concert is the first subscription show of the season.

Lee, who currently resides in New Haven, Conn., is looking forward to performing solo in Decatur. Solos are rare for her, as she often performs with a quartet or ensemble.

"I'm very honored that the symphony asked me to play with them," she said. "It's always nice to go home and see family ¦ and play for your hometown crowd."

"Some of the audience members will know Michelle since she was a kid," said orchestra conductor Michael Luxner. "If you're a musician in Decatur, Michelle is one of those people who you've followed and see her career blossom."

Lee, 30, began violin studies at age 2½ with Mary Nagy in Decatur.

The daughter of Dr. Francis and Veronica Lee, Michelle Lee completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she won numerous accolades, including the university's concerto competition, the Paul Rolland Memorial Award and the Thomas J. Smith Scholarship Auditions. She was also a recipient of the John D. and Fern K. Armstrong Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Performance.

As an eighth-grader at Thomas Jefferson Middle School, she won the Herald & Review Regional Spelling Bee, advancing to national competition in Washington, D.C.

Lee holds a master's degree in music and an artist diploma from Yale University.

She recently married Decatur native Andrew Elliott and currently plays with the Haven String Quartet. She also works with Music Haven, a nonprofit organization devoted to mentoring and teaching music to urban youth in New Haven.

"It's very important and becoming more and more important," she said of the organization, "not only with encouraging the youth, but to build audiences for classical music."

Lee will perform two showpieces by French composers: Maurice Ravel's "Tzigane" and Camille Saint-Saens' "Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso."

"Michelle's pieces are virtuoso and really shows off her gifts," Luxner said. "Michelle brings a huge talent and a very commanding stage presence and a good feeling from the hometown crowd."

The program also includes the orchestra playing Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky's "Romeo and Juliet" and its modern counterpart, Leonard Bernstein's Symphonic Dances from "West Side Story."

"The music we're playing is not a medley of songs, its music from the Broadway adaptation of 'West Side Story,' " Luxner said. "It doesn't tell the story in chronological order.

"It's a great program with lush and romantic tunes. It has melodies everyone knows."

WHAT: Millikin-Decatur Symphony Orchestra's Opening Night, with Michelle Lee, violin.

WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 4.

WHERE: Kirkland Fine Arts Center, Millikin University.

TICKETS: $16.50, $13; call the Kirkland Box Office at 424-6318 or online at www.millikin.edu/kirkland

EXTRA: A free concert preview featuring Lee will be at 6:45 p.m. Saturday in the Kirkland Lecture Room.

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