Lee’s International Piano Festival features instructor recitals, student concerts

Nineteen outstanding young pianists will gather on the Lee University campus next week, June 12-18, for the International Piano Festival and Competition. Now in its 12th year, the festival gives participants a chance to study with internationally acclaimed artists and the public a chance to hear them in concert.

The event began in 2005 as a competition for high school students and was expanded in 2011 to include opportunities for noncompetitors to study with the artists. This year, the competition will be divided into two levels: precollege and college.

This year’s guest artists

The artists

Guest artists Enrico Elisi and Shen Lu will open the International Piano Festival and Competition (7: 30 p. m. Monday, June 13, in Squires Recital Hall). Learn more about the Friday, June 17, guest recitalists in next week’s ChattanoogaNow.

› Enrico Elisi, who has been described as “a true musician and a master of elegance, refinement and fantasy,” leads a class of are Mack McCray, Enrico Elisi and Shen Lu. Lee faculty Ning An and Cahill Smith also will contribute to the festival, which is chaired by Lee’s Phillip Thomas.

Two recitals will showcase the instructors’ talents: Lu and Elisi on Monday, June 13; An, Smith and McCray on Friday, June 17.

Concerts on Tuesday and Wednesday evening, June 14- 15, will feature selected festival participants. Eighteen of the young artists come from nine states in the U.S., and one is from the People’s Republic of China. They range in age from 11 to 26.

All of the festival performances will begin at 7:30 p.m. in Squires Recital Hall international students as associate professor of piano at the Eastman School of Music. He is active as a soloist and chamber musician in the U. S. and abroad, in the Humanities Center, 1250 Parker St. NE on the Cleveland, Tenn., campus. Admission is free.

Festival participants have the opportunity to learn from faculty and guest artists in masterclasses during the day. Instructors also will offer private lessons.

The competition will begin Thursday, June 16, at 10 a.m. Winners will be presented on the morning of Saturday, June 18, following the competition’s final round, which begins at 10 a.m.

For more information, contact the Department of Musicianship Studies at 423614-8264, music@leeuniversity.edu or visit www.leeuniversity.edu/academ-ics/music/piano-festival. performing in such venues as La Fenice Theatre in Venice, the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence and the Bibbiena Theatre in Mantua. He has given master classes, workshops and lectures throughout the world, held a guest professorship at the China Zhejiang Art School in Hangzhou, China, and taught at Penn State University and University of Nevada. He founded Musica Domani Prize, an international composition competition he directs.

› Shen Lu, a native of Jiangsu, China, is an awardwinning pianist, acclaimed on four continents for his artistry, diverse repertoire and charisma. He has appeared with orchestras around the world; has been a featured artist at the Chi- na International Piano Festival in Beijing, Piano Texas International Academy & Festival and New York’s PianoSummer at New Paltz; and has collaborated with the Sydney Trio and the Aurora and West Edge string quartets. He was awarded first prize from the 2002 Hong Kong Asia Open Piano Competition, the gold medal of the 2014 Hilton Head International Piano Competition and the French Music Prize for the best performance of a French work at the 2015 Dublin International Piano Competition.

Enrico Elisi

Shen Lu