By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
When pianist Soyeon Kate Lee, who performs around the world and teaches at Juilliard School, listens the teenage contestants at this weekend piano competition at BGSU, she sees fellow travelers.
“Even though I’m at a very different point at present, we are on the same journey nonetheless, so there is an immediate sense of connectedness,” she wrote in an email to BG Independent this week.
Lee will be the guest artist in this weekend’s David D. Dubois Piano Festival and Competition.
While on campus she will conduct a master class Friday afternoon with BGSU music students, perform a free recital on Saturday at 8 p.m. in Bryan Recital Hall, and then on Sunday morning serve as a judge in the competition’s finals.
Asked in an email interview about how she approaches judging she replied: “Firstly, I am proud of each person who has the immense courage to get up and play — to be judged no less!”
Lee who started piano lessons as a child in Korea, wrote of her own experience: “I did the bulk of my competing during my late teens and twenties. Competitions are exhilarating, nerve-wrecking, and deflating, all at once. If I could back to my competing self now, I would have taken a very different approach to it and maybe saved myself some heartaches. But, we all experience things fully at a particular time and place in our development, and we can all benefit in some way from the intense process of competing and preparing.”
Twenty-five teenage pianists, from eight states and Ontario, have been selected as semifinalists for the 15th annual Dubois competition. (See list below.) They will be vying for monetary prizes — $3,000 for first, $2,000 second place, and $1,000 third. Each pianist must prepare a 20-30 minute program with at least three pieces, including a movement from a classical ear sonata. The music must be memorized, except pieces composed after 1945.
“For me, the most compelling performances are when I feel there is very little gap between the pianist and the music,” Lee wrote. “We should strive to be the best translators of this text — so not to distort the text to fit our story, but to internalize the text (music) so deeply, that without trying to affect it in some way, the result is genuine and sincere, and therefore moving.”
Lee started taking piano lessons was a child in Korea and continued when her parents moved to the United States.“I started learning Debussy’s ‘Children’s Corner’ suite — I was about 11 — and I remember the ‘Serenade of the Doll’ moving me to tears. It was probably then that I realized my connection to music.”
But at this point, she did not have a piano in her home. Her parents were “very easy going” and didn’t push her to practice. Also, she noted, “I did not grow up in an environment where I was aware of what many young pianists do.”
When she started learning more difficult pieces that required more practicing, her teacher, Marina Lupinacci, let her come to her house to play.
Lee went on to study at the Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan and that’s where she found her calling as a professional musician. She went on to win the Naumburg International Piano Competition and the Concert Artist Guild International Competition.
As a performer, Lee believes it is important not just to master the classics but to expand the repertoire.
Saturday’s recital will include “Mother Moon Songs,” which Lee commissioned from her friend Paola Prestini. The composition reflects the two women’s experiences of motherhood. “It’s so rewarding to be part of expanding our literature.”
(Prestini was the guest composer at last fall’s New Music Festival on campus.)
The other pieces are staples of the repertoire. She will bookend the concert with Impressionist compositions — opening with three Preludes by Claude Debussy and closing with Maurice Ravel’s “La Valse.”
In between, she will perform “Kreisleriana” by Robert Schumann and Sonata No.2 in B-flat minor by Frédéric Chopin.
Her belief in the importance of music is reflected in her role as a judge as much as her role as a performer.
“I try to listen with an open mind — and I probably care a bit less about few things that might go wrong, and much more about what makes live performances so essential in our world today — commitment, conviction, passion, sincerity.”
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Dubois Piano Competition semifinalists:
- Erik Jacoby – New Albany, Ohio
- Megan Lo – Richmond Hill, Ontario
- Jacques Chercover – Mt. Pleasant, Michigan
- Daniel Robbins – The Woodlands, Texas
- Alice Siqi Wan – Monmouth Junction, New Jersey
- Saya Uegima – Uniontown, Ohio
- Yunen Gu – Oakville, Ontario
- Jerry Chang – St. Louis, Missouri
- Caroline Su – McLean, Virginia
- Kento Sugiyama – Iowa City, Iowa
- Evan Dan – Solon, Ohio
- Mia Safdie – Interlochen, Michigan
- Melanie Klepper – Columbus, Ohio
- Henry Shao – Sylvania, Ohio
- Aidan Cheng – Whitchurch-Stouffville, Ontario
- Andrew Nan – Sugar Land, Texas
- Jacob Rockower – Palo Alto, California
- Ryan Li – Troy, Michigan
- Dongjoo Shin – Frisco, Texas
- Andrey Bakalov – Reynoldsburg, Ohio
- Chris Hao – Spring, Texas
- Alexander Burrow – Ann Arbor, Michigan
- Helena Kim – Wayne, New Jersey
- Faith Lee – Grand Rapids, Michigan
- Isaac Sung – Grand Rapids, Michigan
