Four Hands, One Heart: A Piano Duet by Dr. Lina Yoo Min Lee & Dr. Kaju Lee

Peer Gynt Suite No.1 by Edvard Grieg

Petite Suite  by Claude Debussy

Fantasia in F minor  by  Franz Schubert

Chunan Samgeori (Chunan Three-Way Intersection)  by Unhoe Park

Hungarian Dance by  Johannes Brahms

Lina Lee, primo

Kaju Lee, secondo

Pianist Kaju Lee has built a national and international career, performing solo and collaborative repertoire in Australia, Austria, Canada, the Philippines, South Africa, South Korea, and throughout the United States. Her performances have been broadcast by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), Radio Korea (Seattle, Washington), WRGC (NPR in Milledgeville, Georgia), and the Busan Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation in South Korea. Recent significant performances include the Mozart Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, No. 9 in E-flat Major, K. 271, with the KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic Orchestra, South Africa's premier orchestra, in Durban City Hall (South Africa). The classical web magazine ArtSMart, which covers the arts in Durban and surrounding areas in South Africa, stated of this performance:"Kaju Lee delivered this rapid and brilliant music with skill and aplomb. Her performance was delicate and it was much to the taste of the audience, and she and the orchestra were given prolonged applause at the end."

Currently, Dr. Lee is Assistant Professor of Piano Pedagogy and Collaborative Piano at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville, where she oversees the keyboard area and teaches Applied Piano, Piano Pedagogy, Class Piano and Collaborative Piano.  She recently launched the UW-Platteville Collegiate chapter of MTNA (Music Teachers National Association), for which she serves as faculty advisor.  She is also on the piano faculty at the prestigious Interlochen Arts Camp and serves as the MTNA Composition Competition and Young Artist Competition Wisconsin State Coordinator. She has taught and/or collaborated at Georgia College (Milledgeville, Georgia), Sam Houston State University (Huntsville, Texas), the Texas Young Artists Competition, the Atlanta Flute Club, the Patti and Allan Herbert Frost School of Music Program (Salzburg, Austria), the Choral Symphony Society in New York City, and the Pre-College Division of the Manhattan School of Music.  She has been invited to adjudicate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Beethoven Piano Competition and Shain Competition for Woodwind Piano Duos, MTNA South Carolina State’s Performance Competition, Wisconsin Music Teachers National Association’s Badger Competition, South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts & Humanities’ Piano Competition, and Houston Music Teachers Association’s Piano Competition, among others. 

In 2022, she recorded a CD with Daniel Rowland (tuba) of commissioned works, titled Widening Circles, and a CD titled 100 Years of Music for Cello and Piano with New Zealand cellist Emily Duffill. 

Lee completed her Doctor of Musical Arts in Collaborative Piano at the University of Colorado-Boulder, where she studied with internationally-renowned teacher Anne Epperson. She also holds degrees from the Manhattan School of Music and McGill University in Montréal. 

For more information, visit www.kajuleepiano.com and follow the UW-Platteville Piano Studio on Instagram: @uwp_pioneerpiano

Lina Yoo-Min Lee is a highly prolific pianist and proactive pedagogue renowned worldwide for her captivating and insightful expressionist style. She has performed extensively both in the US and abroad, gracing prestigious venues such as Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, Boston Symphony Hall, and Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall. Her most recent piano solo recital, “Music by Women,” held at Carnegie Hall in October 2022, received high acclaim for her exquisite interpretation of an eclectic program and powerful pianistic virtuosity. Broadcasting her concerts through platforms like WFMT, WQXR, WORT, Medici.tv, and YouTube has further expanded her reach to audiences around the world. Her piano solo digital album, “Memories,” featuring live performances of works by renowned composers, garnered praise from both the New York Concert Review and MBN, a major broadcasting network in South Korea.

Lee is also known for her extensive collaborations with internationally renowned singers and instrumentalists as a vivid collaborative pianist. She has performed at prestigious venues and actively engages with underserved communities, sharing her talents and passion for music. Lee has collaborated with members of the Madison Symphony Orchestra and the Sheboygan Symphony Orchestra and is enthusiastic about interdisciplinary collaborations with other artists. Her commitment to diverse collaboration has led her to participate in numerous music festivals, including the Aspen Music Festival, the Bowdoin International Music Festival, and the Stanford Summer Seminar, working with esteemed musicians such as Joaquin Valedepnas, Donald Weilerstein, Hamish Milne, Hung-Kuan Chen, Julian Martin, Anne Epperson, and Virginia Weckstrom.

In the 2023-2024 season, she returned to Carnegie Hall for a solo performance in May 2023 and actively collaborated with her flutist, featuring underrepresented works by Chen Yi, William Grant Still, Dominic Valadez, Eric Delgado, and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. She also performed piano four hands, featuring a wide range of genres from Baroque to contemporary. Her performance of the piano concerto “Fantasie Tropical” by Haitian composer Justin Elie with the University of Minnesota Duluth Orchestra in 2024 was very successful.

In the 2024-2025 season, Lee will present a variety of solo and collaborative programs. She has already kicked off the season with performances of Stravinsky and Bolling in a piano and percussion quartet at the University of Minnesota and the University of Wisconsin-Superior. In addition to her piano duo tour with Kaju, she is scheduled to tour with singer Jennifer Lien, premiering and performing three commissioned song cycles by Asian American composers, set to Asian American texts. Additionally, she will embark on a solo recital tour across various states in the U.S.

As a passionate pedagogue and educator, Lee actively teaches piano and presents her research internationally. She has given lectures, masterclasses, workshops, and presentations at prestigious institutions such as Stanford University, the University of Kansas, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Platteville, Seoul National University in Korea, the National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy, and the European Piano Teachers Association International Conference. Lee has also been invited to adjudicate competitions and serve on juries for national auditions and exams, including the 2022 Sejong Music Competition and the MTNA Piano Competitions.

Community engagement and arts outreach hold a special place in Lee’s heart. She is dedicated to promoting the works of underrepresented and historically marginalized composers. She founded and served as the Artistic Director of the DEIB Festival in Madison, Wisconsin, focusing on diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, as well as leadership, collaboration, and community engagement. Additionally, she actively supports providing high-quality music education and performances to underserved communities and children with disabilities. Lee regularly teaches piano for communities and is involved with Love in Music, a non-profit organization that offers free opportunities for young children from underserved communities to learn classical instruments through musically trained volunteers. She is also the Chair of Madison Area Music Educators, a non-profit organization fostering growth and enrichment in the local community’s cultural and artistic life.

Lee’s educational background includes training at Walnut Hill School for the Arts and New England Conservatory’s Preparatory School. She holds a B.M. in Piano Performance and M.M. degrees in Piano Performance and Pedagogy from the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, where she was awarded various scholarships. She further pursued her studies and earned a D.M.A. in Piano Performance and Pedagogy from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a full scholarship and the Jeanette Ross Award.

Currently, Lee serves as an Assistant Professor of Piano at the University of Minnesota Duluth. Before this, she served on the piano faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and taught at the Peabody Preparatory School of the Johns Hopkins University through the piano pedagogy program.

more information: www.lina-yoominlee.com