Program and Artist Biography

Born in Seoul, Korea, in 1986, Ko-Eun Lee began her piano studies at age three. At age 7 she entered the preparatory division of the Korea National University of Arts School of Music and at age 12, she attended the Yewon Arts Middle School in Seoul, where she studied under Choong Mo Kang. She later attended Walnut Hill School and New England Conservatory's prep school and studied with Wha-Kyung Byun. From 2004 to 2010, she studied with Jerome Lowenthal at the Juilliard School for her bachelor of music and master of music degrees.

Lee has many accolades to her credit. As a 10-year-old, she won first prize at the Joanna Hodges International Piano Competition and was named Most Promising Young Artist. She performed as a soloist with the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra in a concert which was later aired on public television in the U.S. In 1998 she played with the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra in Spain and the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra in Jerusalem, conducted by Lawrence Foster. Each performance was broadcast live on radio. She has given numerous recitals at various venues, including the Walnut Hill School and the Juilliard School and in Spain and Korea. A compact disc was recorded live at the Kumho Gallery Hall in Seoul, Korea, on the Kukje label.

In the summer of 1999, Lee won the piano competition at the Aspen Music Festival and performed with the Aspen Concert Orchestra under the direction of renowned pianist and teacher Leon Fleisher. She performed with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under conductor Christopher Wilkins and received the Cornelius A. and Muriel P. Wood Award. She won the Williams Chorale Bacardi Fallon scholarship competition. She has toured South America and Boston playing Saint-Saens's Concerto No. 2 with New England Youth Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Benjamin Zander. Lee also has played Beethoven's Concerto No. 1 with the Longwood Symphony Orchestra and performed Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 with the Brockton Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Jonathan Cohler. She has received a special prize for Chopin Etudes Opus 25 from E¬competition.

In March 2009, she won second prize in the Gina Bachauer Competition held at the Juilliard School, a competition performance which was broadcast on WQXR. In April 2009, she was awarded first prize and Jan Gorbaty memorial prize (for the best performance of Chopin's works) at the Kosciuszko Foundation National Chopin Piano Competition and performed at the gala 60th celebration of the anniversary of the Kosciuszko Foundation Chopin Competition at Carnegie Weill Recital Hall. She was invited to give a solo recital at Mount Holyoke College in March 2010. In August 2010 she had a solo recital at the Sordoni Theater which was a broadcast on radio. She was the winner of the World Piano Competition in Cincinnati in 2010. As a first prize winner, her concert engagements include three solo recitals in Cincinnati as well as a solo recital at Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center in the 2011–12 season.