Sinae Lee

South Korean-born pianist Sinae Lee leads a busy life as a soloist, chamber musician and lecturer at Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (RCS) in Glasgow, UK. Since her UK début with Royal Scottish National Orchestra (RSNO), playing Brahms Piano Concerto No.1, she has also played with Korean Symphony Orchestra, St. James Orchestra, Glasgow Orchestral Society as well as RCS Orchestra and Wind Ensemble. She has frequently appeared in concerts in New York, St. Petersburg, Riga, London, Edinburgh and Glasgow as well as cities in her native Korea such as Seoul, Suwon and Busan.

In Korea, she studied piano at Yewon School and Seoul Arts High School. While studying in Seoul, she won many prestigious prizes, such as the Chung-Ang Daily Newspaper competition, and the Korean Music Association for Overseas competitors. After graduating Seoul National University with Distinction, Sinae was offered a place to study at RCS with a full scholarship awarded by the Inches Carr Trust, obtaining her MMus with Distinction one year later. Her prizewinning career continued in UK where she won the London Intercollegiate Beethoven competition as well as numerous RCS Prizes including A.Ramsay-Calder Debussy Prize, Bach Prize, Governors' Recital Prize, Concerto Competition Prize, Ian D.Watt Award and the Dunbar-Geber Prize. Sinae studied piano with Hwa-Young Yi, Hyoung-Joon Chang in Korea, and Philip Jenkins in UK.

As a keen collaborator, She has been enjoying chamber music performances with pianists Aaron Shorr, Fali Pavri, Jonathan Plowright, Victor Sangiorgio and James Willshire as well as violinists Ilya Gringolts, Andrea Gajic and Justine Watts, violist Andrew Berridge and cellist Alison Wells. Sinae has also been in demand for giving world premieres for solo piano and ensemble works by composers including Marek Pasieczny, Gordon McPherson, Rory Boyle, Vera Stanojevic, Alasdair Spratt, Jay Capperauld, James Wilson, Richard Greer and Ewan Ferguson. In July 2016, Sinae recorded an original composition by Jay Capperauld’s ‘Swan Lake’ for BBC Arts documentary film. Sinae is a pianist for Glasgow New Music Expedition (GNME), a contemporary music ensemble led by Jessica Cottis.

Sinae’s past prize adjudications include Eurovision Young Musicians Semi-Finals in Festival Theatre in Edinburgh, Yamaha Music Foundation of Europe Piano Scholarships at Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM), BBC Young Musician of the Year (preliminary round) at City Hall (Glasgow), Scottish International Youth Piano Competition, A Ramsay-Calder Debussy Prize, Walcer Prize, Peter Lindsay Miller Prize for Piano Duo, Beethoven Prize for Junior Conservatoire at RCS.

In 2006, Sinae recorded Karol Szymanowski’s complete piano works on four CDs, released by Divine Art Record Company. These recordings marked the first complete CD set, including the posthumously published Prelude in C sharp minor. This marked her début recording and received highly-acclaimed reviews from Gramophone (Recommended Recording), BBC Music Magazine (Benchmark Recording), MusicWeb International (Recording of the Month, November 2006), Pianist Magazine (Recommended Recording), All Music Guide (Classical Editors’ Best of the Year2007) and Res Musica. Some of the pieces from her Szymanowski CDs have been broadcasted on BBC Radio 3, Radio New Zealand and Busan KBS TV. In 2011, Sinae performed the complete Années de Pèlerinage by Liszt in the UK and Korea, celebrating the composer’s 200th anniversary. A studio recording was released by Nimbus Alliance in July 2012 and received rave reviews from The Classical Reviewer (Best of 2012) and MusicWeb International (Recording of the Month, April 2014).