Join us on Saturday, November 6, 7:30pm at Sterling High School for our fall concert. A Belated Celebration will explore two of Beethoven’s works in this observance of his 250th birthday. Pianist Marian Lee will be soloist in the composer’s Third Piano Concerto with the orchestra. The orchestra will then perform Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, the most spirited of his nine symphonies. Dr. Lee has performed worldwide, and teaches on faculty at St. Ambrose University in Davenport.
In partnership with Community State Bank, we are offering a bus that will pick up in Clinton, Fulton, and Morrison, please call 563-219-8084 for bus reservations!
Advance tickets are available here, pick them up at the ticket table when you arrive.
Artist Biography
Marian Lee made her New York City debut at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall as winner of the Artists International Award and has appeared as soloist and with orchestra internationally in Austria, Belgium, Italy, France, Norway, Russia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Poland, Brazil, Byelorussia, Estonia, Hong Kong, Thailand, as well as in Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center’s Millenium Stage, Seattle’s Benaroya Hall, Moscow’s Tchaikovsky Hall and Rachmaninoff Hall, and the Hermitage Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, Russia. In liaison with the U.S. State Department, Lee also received numerous grants in support of performances of American contemporary music abroad and is a former Fulbright and International Research and Exchange (IREX) scholar.
Marian Lee is frequently invited to perform at international contemporary music festivals and has given numerous world and U.S. premieres by contemporary composers from Russia, France, the Baltic republics and the United States. Recent professional activities include performing as concerto soloist with the Quad City Symphony Orchestra, violin and piano duos with Philadelphia Orchestra concertmaster David Kim, Frank Almond, (former) concertmaster of the Milwaukee Symphony and Naha Greenholz, concertmaster of Madison and Quad City Symphony Orchestras. She has also held master classes in Hong Kong, Delaware, Louisiana, Alabama, Illinois and Iowa and has the distinct honor of being the first female solo pianist to perform on Iowa Public Radio’s Steinway Café, which is available to watch on YouTube.
Marian made her initial concert debut in high school performing with Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra and Flint Symphony Orchestra in Michigan. She entered The Juilliard School as a scholarship student receiving a Bachelor of Music under the guidance of Gyorgy Sandor, whose own piano professor was Bela Bartok at the Liszt Academy in Hungary and is the author “On Piano Playing: Motion, Sound, and Expression,” a staple in the piano pedagogy literature. She went on to receive a Master of Music degree in piano performance with Seymour Lipkin, winner of the prestigious Rachmaninoff Competition and artistic director of Kneisel Hall Chamber Festival. Subsequently, she was awarded the coveted Fulbright Grant to study with Naum Shtarkman, a Tchaikovsky competition laureate, at the Moscow Conservatory in what was then the Soviet Union. During her three-year stay, Dr. Lee witnessed the fall of the Soviet Union and toured extensively within the former USSR. Upon her return to the United States, Dr. Lee completed her doctoral degree at the Peabody Conservatory of Music at The Johns Hopkins University with Boris Slutsky, the youngest winner of the William Kapell Competition in College Park, Maryland.
Dr. Lee previously taught at the University of Delaware before moving to the Quad Cities. She also taught at the University of Iowa as a sabbatical replacement for Dr. Ksenia Nosikova. In 2012, Marian Lee moved to Davenport, Iowa and is currently the associate professor in piano and serves as head of the keyboard area at St. Ambrose University. As an active teacher and frequent adjudicator, Dr. Lee is a proud member of the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA), National Federation of Music Teachers (FMTA), the Iowa Music Teachers Association (IMTA), Quad City Music Teachers Association (QCMTA), and was past president of the Delaware Music Teachers Association (DSMTA). Marian Lee is the founder and director of St. Ambrose University’s Summer Piano Camp for 9-12th grade pianists.