Sinae Lee

Born in Seoul, South Korea, Sinae Lee enjoys her exciting career as a concert pianist and a teacher based in Glasgow, UK. After graduating from the Seoul National University with Distinction, Sinae was offered a place to study at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (RSAMD) with a full scholarship awarded by the Inches Carr Trust. A year later she obtained MMus with Distinction at the RSAMD.

Since her UK debut with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra (RSNO), playing Brahms Piano Concerto No.1, she has also performed with the Korean Symphony Orchestra, St. James Orchestra, Glasgow Orchestral Society, RSAMD Wind Emsemble and the RSAMD Orchestra. She has given numerous concerts in London, New York, St. Petersburg, Riga, Edinburgh and Glasgow as well as in her native cities, Seoul, Suwon and Busan.

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. Her prizewinning career had continued in UK where she won the London Intercollegiate Beethoven competition as well as numerous RSAMD Prizes including A. Ramsay-Calder Debussy Prize, Bach Prize, Governors’ Recital Prize, Concerto Competition Prize, Ian D Watt Award and the Dunbar-Geber Prize. Her extraordinary playing has been greatly appreciated in many master classes held by pianists such as Lazar Berman, Dmitri Alexeev and John Lill.

In 2006, Sinae recorded Karol Szymanowski’s complete piano works on 4 CDs, released by the Divine Art Record Company. These recordings mark the first complete CD set in the world containing the late published Prelude in C sharp minor. This recording of Szymanowski’s entire output in this genre is her début recording and has received highly acclaimed reviews from Gramophone (Recommended Recording), BBC Music Magazine (Benchmark Recording), Music Web International (Recording of the Month, November 2006), Pianist Magazine (Recommended Recording), All Music Guide (Classical Editors' Best of the Year 2007) 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.

Sinae has also been in demand for prize adjudications including Yamaha Music Foundation of Europe, Piano Scholarships 2008 held at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester and A Ramsay-Calder Debussy Prize 2010 at the RSAMD.

Sinae studied piano with Hwa-Young Yi, Hyoung-Joon Chang in Korea and Philip Jenkins in the UK. Sinae has been teaching piano as a Lecturer in the department of Keyboard and Collaborative Piano at the RSAMD since 2001.