Constance Kuo-Yuan LEE

Piano

Professor at the Taipei National University of the Arts – Taiwan.

Artistic advisor of the National Culture & Arts Foundation and the National Performing Arts Center.

Constance Lee is a leading pianist and professor who was one of the first Taiwanese privileged to work with great musicians such as Maestro Kempff and Russian pianists Stanislav Neuhaus and Dimitri Baschkirov.

German Maestro Wilhelm Kempff praised her as an « extraordinarily gifted young pianist” and the Austrian legendary Pianist Bruno Seidlhofer compliments her for her “brilliant technique, high musicality and liveliness”.

Constance Lee was one of the young prodigies, who after winning the National Young Music Talent Competition, was sent to Austria and was accepted by the Vienna University of Music and Drama, where she studied with prominent professors Dieter Weber and Hans Graf and obtained her Concert Soloist Diploma with Highest Distinction. She also received an “Artist of Outstanding Merit” Award from the Austrian Ministry of Culture.

In Canada, she played in a Beethoven Soirée for Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, performed in Quebec Ministry of Culture’s World Peace Cultural Week and performed in the Canadian National Film Board’s music documentary, which was filmed in Moscow and presented in the Montreal International Film Festival.

Upon her return to Asia, she became Professor at the Taipei National University of the Arts and actively pursued her career. She has given numerous solo recitals, performed with many well-known musicians in Austria, Germany, Italy, France, Canada, United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and played with orchestras such as the Hong Kong Symphony Orchestra, the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra, the Taiwan Symphony Orchestra, the Taipei City Orchestra and the Taipei Chinese Orchestra. She has also taken part in the Macau Music Festival, the Hong Kong Arts Festival, the Asia Pacific Art Festival, the Taipei Art Festival, the Taiwan International Piano Festival, the Lyon Music Festival in France and the Euro Music Festival in Germany.

A versatile artist, Constance Lee also explored the new performing arts scene by creating with other artists an experimental music-theatre production entitled “The Outrageous Essays by Three Outspoken Women” and a music-dance performance named after Scriabin’s “Desir et Danse”. She has collaborated with the Hong Kong City Contemporary Dance Company and Taiwan Cloud Gate Dance Company to play Stravinsky’s two-piano version of the “Rite of Spring” and she recorded her own improvisations for acclaimed Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien’s films “Three Times” and “Le Voyage du Ballon Rouge”. She also released CDs entitled «Les Prénoms de Paris I & II» and «A Life of Improvisation».

Over the years Constance Lee has taught many award-winning students, she has been invited as a Jury Member at International and National Music Competitions and is regularly invited to give Concerts and Masterclasses at the Lyon International Music Academy in France, the Euro Music Festival & Academy in Germany, the Chetham International Summer School for Pianists in England and the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts. She is an artistic advisor of the National Culture & Arts Foundation and the National Performing Arts Center.