Lisa Yui
Top prize winner of the Senigallia International Piano Competition in Italy, the first Super Classics International Auditions in Tokyo, the Toronto Symphony Concerto Competition, the Edmonton Symphony Concerto Competition and the Canadian Consulate Women’s Club Piano Competition in New York, pianist Lisa Yui has regularly performed as soloist and recitalist throughout North America, Europe and Asia. She is a two-time recipient of the Canada Council Scholarship.
Since making her concerto debut at the age of seven, Ms. Yui has worked with such prominent orchestras as the Tokyo Symphony, Polish National Radio, Toronto Symphony, Edmonton Symphony, and the Montreal Metropolitan Orchestras, and the Krakow State Philharmonic. Lisa was invited twice as the feature guest artist on the Japanese cruise ship, Nipponmaru: 101 Days Around the World Tour. Her performances have been broadcast on WQXR (New York), CBC (Canadian Broadcast Corporation) national radio, CJRT-FM (Ontario, Canada), and STV (Sapporo, Japan).
In 2005 Ms. Yui was chosen from over 1000 applicants as one of the few Canadian artists (along with Alanis Morrisette!) to participate in the World Exposition in Aichi, Japan, where she performed in the Expo Hall Classical Showcase a program of works by Liszt, Ravel, and Canadian composers, Francois Morel and Colin McPhee (“Balinese Ceremonial Music” for two pianos – the second “pianist” being a Yamaha Disklavier, previously recorded by Ms. Yui), and hosted in English, Japanese, and French.
As a lecturer, Ms. Yui has been invited to various colleges and venues, including the Juilliard School, Kunitachi Music University, Washington and Lee University, and the University of Alberta. In spring 2005, Ms. Yui was the producer and lecturer in “Beethoven at Yamaha,” a nine-part lecture/concert series in New York, where she also performed among 30 eminent pianists, including Frederic Rzewski, Frederic Chiu, Jed Distler, and Jerome Lowenthal. In 2006, she organized “Liszt at Yamaha,” where she lectured and performed among 30 guest scholars and artists, among them Alan Walker, Leslie Howard, Thomas Mastroianni, and Jerome Lowenthal.
Lisa Yui has worked extensively with the Yamaha Disklavier, having given numerous long-distance “Remote Lessons” and performances using the instruments, including a solo recital of music for four hands, two pianos, and piano and orchestra. A short documentary on her work with the Disklavier, sponsored by Cisco, was filmed by Jae Choe in 2008.
Ms. Yui received her bachelor’s degree at the Juilliard School, working in the studio of Oxana Yablonskaya and as teaching assistant to author, professor, and pianist David Dubal. After studying with Byron Janis and Marc Silverman at Manhattan School of Music, she received her master’s degree from the school, which awarded her its Rubinstein Award, given to the most promising graduate. Ms. Yui received her doctor of musical arts degree and the Helen Cohn DMA Award from the school in 2005, writing her dissertation on the life of the virtuosic 19th-century pianist Marie Pleyel.
Ms Yui has participated in the master classes of numerous prestigious musicians, including Emanuel Ax, Alicia de Larrocha, Leon Fleisher, Eugene Istomin, and Anton Kuerti. Her principal teachers and mentors include Edna Golandsky, Giovanni Valentini, David Dubal, Leonid Hambro, and Conrad Hansen.
Ms. Yui is the producer, performer, and lecturer of The Lives of the Piano, Manhattan School of Music’s first piano lecture concert series, now in its tenth season, as well as director of Ensemble 212 Young Artist Competition Series. She has served as department chair of the Music Advancement Program at the Juilliard School and has taught for many years a course on the social history of the piano at Marymount Manhattan College. Currently she teaches graduate piano literature and keyboard skills at Manhattan School of Music while maintaining a private piano studio in Manhattan.
Lisa Yui is a Yamaha Artist.
