Described as "a musical phenomenon" (Pianiste), Lisa Yui enjoys a multifaceted musical career as pianist, lecturer, teacher, author, and musical director. Since making her concerto debut at the age of seven, Ms. Yui has performed throughout North America, Europe, and Asia as a recitalist and soloist with orchestra. She is the top prizewinner of the Senigallia International Piano Competition in Italy, the 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 and has twice been the recipient of a Canada Council Scholarship.
Ms. Yui has worked with such prominent orchestras as the Tokyo Symphony, Polish National Radio, Toronto Symphony, Edmonton Symphony, the Montreal Metropolitan Orchestra, and the Krakow State Philharmonic. Her performances have been broadcast on WQXR (New York), CBC (Canadian Broadcast Corporation) national radio, CJRT-FM (Ontario, Canada), and STV (Sapporo, Japan). She has performed at Suntory Hall in Tokyo, Roy Thompson Hall in Toronto, Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, among other major concert venues around the world.
In 2005 Ms. Yui was chosen from over 1000 applicants as one of the few Canadian artists to participate in the World Exposition in Aichi, Japan, where she hosted in English, Japanese, and French. She performed a program of works by Liszt, Ravel, and Canadian composers François Morel and Colin McPhee. She has been invited twice to be the featured guest artist on the 101 Days Around the World Tour of the Japanese cruise ship Nipponmaru.
As a lecturer and performer, Ms. Yui originated The Lives of the Piano, Manhattan School of Music's first piano lecture/concert series, now in its twelfth season. She has lectured at the Juilliard School, Kunitachi Music University, Washington and Lee University, and the University of Alberta, among other colleges and venues. In 2005, Ms. Yui produced a nine-part lecture/concert series in New York, "Beethoven at Yamaha," in which 30 eminent pianists, including Frederic Rzewski, Frederic Chiu, Jed Distler, Jerome Lowenthal, and Ms. Yui, performed. The following year, she produced "Liszt at Yamaha," appearing along with 30 guest scholars and artists, among them Alan Walker, Leslie Howard, Thomas Mastroianni, and Jerome Lowenthal. She has performed, lectured and given masterclasses in various music conferences, including the MTNA National Conference and NAMM Show in California.
Lisa Yui has worked extensively with the Yamaha Disklavier, having given numerous performances, including a solo recital of music for four hands, two pianos, and piano and orchestra, as well as long-distance "Remote Lessons" (click here to read article in the Juilliard Journal). A short documentary on her work with the Disklavier, sponsored by Cisco, was filmed by Jae Choe in 2008 (click here to watch).
Ms. Yui's recent CD of the music of Carl Maria von Weber and Jan Ladislav Dussek was awarded the highest rating, the "Pianiste Maestro," by the French music magazine, Pianiste. (click here to watch the promotional video).
Ms. Yui received her bachelor's degree at the Juilliard School, where she worked in the studio of Oxana Yablonskaya and was teaching assistant to author, professor, and pianist David Dubal. She received her master's and doctor of musical arts degree at Manhattan School of Music, where she studied with Byron Janis and Marc Silverman. She was the recipient of both the Rubinstein Award, given to the most promising graduate, and, in 2005, the Helen Cohn DMA Award. Ms. Yui wrote her dissertation on the virtuosic 19th-century pianist Marie Pleyel.
Ms. Yui's principal teachers and mentors include Giovanni Valentini, as well as Edna Golandsky, David Dubal, and Leonid Hambro. In addition, she has participated in master classes with Emanuel Ax, Alicia de Larrocha, Conrad Hansen, Leon Fleisher, Eugene Istomin, and Anton Kuerti.
In addition to producing The Lives of the Piano series at Manhattan School of Music, Ms. Yui is the director of the Ensemble 212 Young Artist Competition Series. She has served as department chair of the Music Advancement Program at the Juilliard School and has taught a course on the social history of the piano at Marymount Manhattan College for many years. She currently teaches graduate piano literature and keyboard skills at Manhattan School of Music and studio piano at John J. Cali School of Music at Montclair State University, while maintaining a private piano studio in Manhattan.
Lisa Yui is a Yamaha Artist.
