Lee gives prized violin to School of Music
Dec. 5, 2002
KALAMAZOO -- Hung Peng Lee, Western Michigan University assistant professor emeritus of social studies, has donated a 220-year-old Augustine Chappuy violin to the WMU School of Music.
Lee made the donation after reading an article in WMU's faculty and staff newsletter, Western News, about the first recipient of a $24,000 scholarship for string music students established by the Fetzer Institute of Kalamazoo. According to Lee, the violin dates from 1781. It has been in his possession since 1968, when he purchased it from a friend. Augustine Chappuy was an eighteenth century French violinmaker.
Now residing in Hawaii, Lee was a member of the social studies faculty from 1970 until his retirement in 1984. In a 1971 recital at WMU, which featured Lee and four music students, Lee played two popular songs from his native China, one on a traditional Chinese bamboo flute, and the other on his Chappuy violin.
The School of Music recently announced the second recipient of a four-year $24,000 Rhea Fetzer Scholarship. Freshman Katherine J. "Katie" Lampen, a viola player from Grand Rapids, Mich., joins sophomore Kristen Tanner, a violinist from Delaware, Ohio, as the first two Fetzer Scholarship recipients.
Media contact: Thom Myers, 269 387-8400, thomas.myers@wmich.edu