Ran Dank & Soyeon Kate Lee

Program

Liszt Les Preludes

Marc-Andre Hamelin: Tango (four hands)

Ravel La valse

Mozart Andante ck 315 for flute and 2 pianos

Gershwin/Grainger: Porgy and Bess

Biographies

Ran Dank

Technically dazzling and intellectually probing artistry exemplify Ran Dank‘s pianism and musicality—captivating audiences and critics alike.

Notable performances during Mr. Dank’s 2019/2020 season include appearances at the National Gallery in DC, the Hawaii Concert Society, Purdue Convocations, Gina Bachauer Concert Series, two consecutive recitals at the Pro Musica series in San Miguel de Allende in Mexico, and a collaboration with Jayce Ogren and the Westchester Philharmonic. In addition, he returns to the Chanel Chamber Music Festival in Tokyo and to the Portland Symphony for a performance of Saint Saens’ 2nd Piano Concerto under the baton of Eckart Preu.

Ran’s recent performances have included recitals at the San Francisco Performances Series, Gilmore, Ravinia, Carnegie Hall’s Zankel and Weill Halls, Steinway Hall, Gardner Museum, Kennedy Center, Town Hall, Yale School of Music, Philips Collection, Morgan Library, Pro Musica in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, Portland Ovations, and have garnered critical acclaim from the New York Times and The Washington Post. Mr. Dank has performed as a soloist with the orchestras of Cleveland, Sydney, St. Luke’s, Portland, Eugene, Toledo, Hawaii, Kansas City, Vermont, Charleston, Jerusalem, Valencia, Phoenix, Hilton Head, among others, working under the batons such as Michael Stern, Jahja Ling, Michael Christie, Kirill Karabits, Jun Märkl, Pinchas Zukerman, Jorge Mester, Jaime Laredo, and Ken-David Masur. His chamber music festival appearances have included Santa Fe, Seattle, Chanel in Tokyo, Great Lakes, Bridgehampton, Cooperstown, Mänttä, Bowdoin, Maverick, Skaneateles, and Montreal, and he has collaborated with luminaries of the field such as Paul Watkins, Augustin Hadelich, Eugene Drucker, Jaime Laredo, Sharon Robinson, James Ehnes, and The Orion, Shanghai, Takács, and Dover String Quartets. Mr. Dank’s recent performance of the monumental set of variations “The People United Will Never Be Defeated!” at the University of Chicago has been selected as one of the top ten performances of 2017 by the Chicago Classical Review.

Mr. Dank is an ardent advocate for contemporary music, and has performed in recent seasons Kevin Puts’ piano concerto “Night,” the Tobias Picker concerto, “Keys to the City,” Frederic Rzewski’s “The People United Will Never Be Defeated,” William Bolcom’s Pulitzer-winning set of “Twelve New Etudes,” and has given, alongside pianist and wife, Soyeon Kate Lee, the world premieres of Frederic Rzewski’s “Four Hands,” and Alexander Goehr’s “Seven Impromptus.” This season Mr. Dank and Soyeon Kate lee will feature the world premiere of multiple grammy-nominated pianist and composer’s Marc-André Hamelin’s “Tango” for piano four-hands.

Ran Dank and Soyeon Kate Lee have established a series of concerts, Music by the Glass, held in a New York SoHo art gallery, where the audience of young professionals listen, mix and mingle with performing artists who play solo pieces and chamber works accompanied by treats sweet and savory, paired with wines by the glass.

Ran Dank is the recipient of numerous honors, including the Naumburg Piano Competition and the Sydney International Piano Competition, and First Prize winner of the Hilton Head International Piano Competition.

Soyeon Kate

First prize winner of the 2010 Naumburg International Piano Competition and the 2004 Concert Artist Guild International Competition, Korean-American pianist Soyeon Kate Lee has been lauded by The New York Times as a pianist with “a huge, richly varied sound, a lively imagination and a firm sense of style,” and by the Washington Post for her “stunning command of the keyboard.”

Highlights of recent seasons included appearances at the National Gallery where she will give the world premiere of Marc-Hamelin’s “Tango” for four-hands with her husband and pianist, Ran Dank, Purdue Convocations, Rockefeller University, Hawaii Concert Society, Corning Civic Music, and Cleveland Art Museum. She also returned to the Hawaii Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Carlos Miguel Prieto, and collaborated in concert with the Escher and Daedalus String Quartets.

Lee has been rapturously received as guest soloist with the Cleveland Orchestra and the London Symphony Orchestra, as well as the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, San Diego Symphony, symphony orchestras of Columbus, Bangor, Boca Raton, Eugene, Wyoming, Bozeman, Hawaii, Wheeling, Cheyenne, Napa Valley, Scottsdale, Abilene, Naples, Santa Fe and Shreveport in the United States; the Daejeon Philharmonic Orchestra (South Korea), Ulsan Symphony Orchestra (South Korea), Orquesta de Valencia (Spain) and the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional (Dominican Republic), including performances under the batons of Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Jahja Ling, Jorge Mester and Otto-Werner Mueller.

Past recital appearances include New York City programs at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall and Weill Recital Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, Lincoln Center for the Performing Art’s Alice Tully Hall, Washington’s Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Cleveland’s Severance Hall, the Ravinia Festival’s “Rising Stars” series, Auditorio de Musica de Nacional in Madrid, tour of the Hawaiian Islands, Krannert Center, Herbst Theatre, and Finland’s Maanta Music Festival.

A Naxos recording artist, her discography spans two volumes of Scarlatti Sonatas, Liszt Opera Transcriptions, and two volumes of Scriabin works, with upcoming release of Clementi Sonatas. Ms. Lee’s recording of Re!nvented under the E1/Entertainment One (formerly Koch Classics) label garnered her a feature review in the Gramophone Magazine and the Classical Recording Foundation’s Young Artist of the Year Award.

A second prize and Mozart Prize winner of the 2003 Cleveland International Piano Competition and a laureate of the Santander International Piano Competition in Spain, Ms. Lee has worked extensively with Richard Goode, Robert McDonald, Ursula Oppens, and Jerome Lowenthal. A graduate of The Juilliard School, Ms. Lee was awarded the William Petschek Piano Debut Award at Lincoln Center and the Arthur Rubinstein Award and received her Doctor of Musical Arts from The Graduate Center, City University of New York.

Ms. Lee is the co-founder and artistic director of Music by the Glass, a concert series dedicated to bringing together young professionals in New York City. A Yamaha Artist, Ms. Lee is an Associate Professor of Music in Piano at the Cincinnati-College Conservatory of Music where she received the 2021 University of Cincinnati Mrs. AB Dolly Cohen Award for Excellence in Teaching, and serves on the piano faculty of the Bowdoin International Music Festival. She lives in Cincinnati with her husband, pianist Ran Dank and their children Noah and Ella.