Soyeon Kate Lee

First prize winner of the 2010 Naumburg International Piano Competition and the 2004 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 Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, Bowdoin International Music Festival, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Music@Menlo, Monterey Bay Chamber Music, and performances with the Eugene Symphony.  She also returned to the Hawaii Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Carlos Miguel Prieto, and collaborated in concert with the Escher and Daedalus String Quartets.

Lee has been rapturously received as guest soloist with the Cleveland Orchestra and the London Symphony Orchestra, as well as the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, San Diego Symphony, symphony orchestras of Columbus, Bangor, Boca Raton, Eugene, Wyoming, Bozeman, Hawaii, Wheeling, Cheyenne, Napa Valley, Scottsdale, Abilene, Naples, Santa Fe and Shreveport in the United States; the Daejeon Philharmonic Orchestra (South Korea), Ulsan Symphony Orchestra (South Korea), Orquesta de Valencia (Spain) and the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional (Dominican Republic), including performances under the batons of Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Jahja Ling, Jorge Mester and Otto-Werner Mueller.

Past recital appearances include New York City programs at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall and Weill Recital Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, Lincoln Center for the Performing Art’s Alice Tully Hall, Washington’s Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Cleveland’s Severance Hall, the Ravinia Festival’s “Rising Stars” series, Auditorio de Musica de Nacional in Madrid—part of a 13-city tour of Spain, tour of the Hawaiian Islands, Krannert Center, Herbst Theatre, and Finland’s Maanta Music Festival.

An active chamber musician, Soyeon Kate Lee frequently collaborates in many chamber music festivals throughout the United States, including the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival and Music Mountain, and has been a member of the coveted Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society Two program where her performance of the Mozart Piano Trio was broadcast on PBS Live from Lincoln Center.

A Naxos recording artist, her discography spans Scarlatti Sonatas, Liszt Opera Transcriptions and two volumes of Scriabin works, with upcoming releases of Clementi Sonatas, as well as another volume of Scarlatti 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, Soyeon has worked extensively with Richard Goode, Robert McDonald, Ursula Oppens, and Jerome Lowenthal. A graduate of The Juilliard School, Ms. Lee was awarded every prize given to a pianist at Juilliard, including the William Petschek Piano Debut Award at Lincoln Center and the Arthur Rubinstein Award.

Along with her husband, pianist Ran Dank, Lee is the co-founder and artistic director of Music by the Glass, a concert series dedicated to bringing together young professionals in New York City.

Soyeon Kate Lee is now the first woman of Asian descent to join the Piano faculty at the Juilliard School. She is also an associate professor of music in piano at the Cincinnati-College Conservatory of Music, where she received the 2021 University of Cincinnati Mrs. A.B. “Dolly” Cohen Award for excellence in teaching, and serves on the piano faculty at the Bowdoin International Music Festival.

​During the 20​22-23 season performances include appearances at the Music Academy of the West, Zipper Hall at Colburn, Huntington Library, and Ventura Museum with Camerata Pacifica in October and November 2023, Chamber Music Chicago, Chamber Music Monterey Bay, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center on Tour at Saratoga Springs, Lakeside Chautauqua in August 2023, and a recital at Randolph College.