Heasook Rhee

College Faculty:
Collaborative Piano: Instrumental, Chamber Music

Dr. Heasook Rhee has been a faculty member in Piano Chamber Music and Collaborative Piano at the Manhattan School of Music since 1998. She taught at the University of Texas at Austin and was a guest professor at the Detmold Musikhochschule in Germany, Seoul National University and Yonsei University in Korea. She has given master classes at Boston University, Curtis Institute, Indiana University in Bloomington, Juilliard School, University of Houston in the US, National Taiwan Normal University, TNNUA in Taiwan, Beijing Central Conservatory, China Conservatory, Shanghai Conservatory, Shenyang Conservatory in China, Toho School in Japan and, Korean Nat. University of Arts, Sungshin University and Gachon University in Korea.

Carl Fischer Music in the US published her book “The Art of Instrumental Accompanying” in May 2012. The Chinese translation was published by the Central Conservatory of Music Press in Beijing in 2015 and the Korean translation was published in 2016.

As a collaborative pianist, she has performed with many distinguished artists of our time, including violinists Ivry Gitlis, Ilya Grubert, Peter Zazofsky, cellists Marcio Carneiro, Charles Curtis, Karine Georgian, the late Samuel Mayes, Philippe Muller, Nathaniel Rosen, Jian Wang, Tilmann Wick, tenor Nikolai Gedda, bass-baritone Simon Estes, Lucio Kyuhee Cho, soprano Youngok Shin, flutist the late Julius Baker and saxophonist Harvey Pittel.

Her performances have taken her to many major concert venues in four continents, performing at the Stern Auditorium and Weill Recital Hall at the Carnegie, Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, Rackham Auditorium in Ann Arbor, Boston, Los Angeles, Philips Collection in Washington D.C., and Houston; in Europe, the Schauspielhaus (Konzerthaus) in Berlin, Residenz in Munich, Alte Oper in Frankfurt, Beethovenhaus in Bonn, Baden-Baden, Tonhalle in Zurich, St. John’s Smith Square in London, Salle Gaveau in Paris, Brussels, Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin; Melba Hall in Melbourne, Australia, Canada, Mexico, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Hong Kong and Korea. She recorded on the German label MD+G with cellist Tilmann Wick, and radio stations NDR, SDR, BR, SR and SWF in Germany, DRS in Zurich. In the US, her concerts were broadcast on WGBH in Boston, WNYC in New York City, and WGTS in Washington DC.

She has appeared as a guest artist at the Berliner Festwochen, Weilburg Schloss International Festival in Germany, Quincena Musical, San Sebastian in Spain, Festival Musical, Cuernavaca in Mexico, Great Mountain Music Festival in Korea.

At the 1984, 1990 American Cello Congress in Tempe, she was Congress Pianist which was presided by Mstislav Rostropovich. For six consecutive Piatigorsky Seminars in Los Angeles, she was a staff pianist playing with more than 100 cellists in masterclasses by legendary cellists, M. Rostropovich, Paul Tortelier, Pierre Fournier, William Pleeth, Raya Garbousova, Aldo Parisot and Yo-Yo Ma to name a few.

She was a guest teacher at summer programs at Feistritz Summer Course, Burg Feistritz, Austria, the Bayerische Musikakademie, Marktoberdorf, Germany, Courchevel International Summer Course in France, Icicle Creek Chamber Music Academy, Leavenworth, WA, and the Castleman Quartet Program, Boulder, CO.

Her students have won international duo & chamber music competitions such as Plovdiv Competition in Bulgaria, Vittorio Gui Competition in Florence in Italy, VIVO Competition, Yellow Spring, Balsam Duo Competition, Liszt-Garrison Competition and J.C. Arriaga Chamber Music Competition, Coleman Competition in the US. Many are actively performing as collaborative pianists or teaching at the Indiana University, Bloomington, Oberlin College, Montclair State University, Rice University in Houston, Vanderbilt University, Yale University, Shanghai Conservatory in China and various universities in Korea.

A magna cum laude graduate of Seoul National University, Dr. Rhee studied piano solo with Rosina Lhevinne, Jacob Lateiner, Howard Aibel and accompanying with Samuel Sanders and Margo Garrett at Juilliard. She did her doctoral studies in chamber music & accompanying with Eugene Bossart at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Her chamber music mentors include Menahem Pressler, Eckhart Sellheim, Martin Katz and Felix Galimir.