Soyeon Kate Lee
Biography
downloadFirst prize winner of the Naumburg International Piano Competition and the Concert Artist Guild International Competition, Korean-American pianist Soyeon Kate Lee has been lauded by The New York Times as a pianist with “a huge, richly varied sound, a lively imagination and a firm sense of style,” and by the Washington Post for her “stunning command of the keyboard.”
Highlights of recent seasons include appearances at the National Gallery, Library of Congress, Gina Bachauer Concerts, Purdue Convocations, Music@Menlo, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center on tour, San Francisco Performances, Camerata Pacifica tour, Chamber Music Chicago, and the Cleveland Art Museum. She was a member of Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society’s Bowers program, and is a regular participant in numerous chamber music festivals including the Great Lakes, Santa Fe and Music Mountain Chamber Music Festivals. Ms. Lee has collaborated with conductors Carlos Miguel Prieto, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Jahja Ling, and Jorge Mester with the London, San Diego, Hawaii, Louisiana, Naples symphony orchestras among others.
She has commissioned works by prominent composers and has given world premieres of works written by Frederic Rzewski, Marc-André Hamelin, Alexander Goehr, Gabriela Lena Frank, Texu Kim, and Huang Ruo.
As a Naxos recording artist, her discography spans a wide range of repertoire from two volumes of Scarlatti Sonatas, Liszt Opera Transcriptions, two volumes of Scriabin, and Clementi Sonatas. Ms. Lee’s recording of Re!nvented under the E1/Entertainment One (formerly Koch Classics) label garnered her a feature review in the Gramophone Magazine and the Classical Recording Foundation’s Young Artist of the Year Award.
A second prize and Mozart Prize winner of the 2003 Cleveland International Piano Competition and a laureate of the Santander International Piano Competition in Spain, Ms. Lee has worked extensively with Richard Goode, Robert McDonald, Ursula Oppens, and Jerome Lowenthal. A graduate of The Juilliard School, Ms. Lee was awarded the William Petschek Piano Debut Award at Lincoln Center and the Arthur Rubinstein Award and received her Doctor of Musical Arts from The Graduate Center, City University of New York.
In 2022, Soyeon Kate Lee joined the piano faculty at the Juilliard School, and serves on the piano faculty at the Bowdoin International Music Festival during the summers. She resides in New York with her husband, pianist Ran Dank, and their two children, Noah and Ella.
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Videos

- Pianist Soyeon Kate Lee performs at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. Scriabin; Prelude and Nocturne for the Left Hand, Op. and Impromptu, Op.12, No.2. Thursday July 18, 2013. In Santa Fe New Mexico at the St. Francis Auditorium. Audio and Video by Allegro Recordings, Matthew Snyder producer and engineer.
- Pianist Soyeon Kate Lee performs at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. Janacek, Piano Sonata 1.X.1905. Thursday July 18, 2013. In Santa Fe New Mexico at the St. Francis Auditorium. Audio and Video by Allegro Recordings, Matthew Snyder producer and engineer.
- Pianists Soyeon Kate Lee and Ran Dank play Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" at Le Poisson Rouge.
News
- Soyeon Kate Lee with orchestras and in recital
- Soyeon Kate Lee and Ran Dank; in solo and duo concerts throughout the season
- Soyeon Kate Lee performs recitals in New York and Charleston, and plays Mozart with the Hawaii Symphony