Lisa Yui

Described as “a musical phenomenon” (Pianiste), Yamaha Artist Lisa Yui enjoys a multifaceted musical career as pianist, lecturer, teacher, author, and musical director. Since making her concerto debut at the age of seven, Dr. Yui has performed throughout North America, Europe, and Asia as a recitalist and soloist with orchestra. She is the top prizewinner of the Senigallia International Piano Competition in Italy, the Super Classics International Auditions in Tokyo and has twice been the recipient of a Canada Council Scholarship. 

Lisa Yui has worked with such prominent orchestras as the Tokyo Symphony, Polish National Radio, Toronto Symphony, Edmonton Symphony, the Montreal Metropolitan Orchestra, and the Krakow State Philharmonic. Her performances have been broadcast on WQXR (New York), CBC (Canadian Broadcast Corporation) national radio, CJRT-FM (Ontario, Canada), and STV (Sapporo, Japan). She has performed at Suntory Hall in Tokyo, Roy Thompson Hall in Toronto, Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, and the Liszt Ferenc Memorial Museum in Budapest, among other major concert venues around the world. In 2005 Dr. Yui was chosen from over 1000 applicants as one of the few Canadian artists to participate in the World Exposition in Aichi, Japan, where she hosted in English, Japanese, and French. She performed a program of works by Liszt, Ravel, and Canadian composers Francois Morel and Colin McPhee. 

As a lecturer and performer, Lisa Yui originated The Lives of the Piano, Manhattan School of Music’s first piano lecture/concert series. She has been invited as a lecturer to the Juilliard School, Kunitachi Music University, Princeton University, Washington and Lee University and the University of Toronto, among other universities, colleges and venues. In 2005, Dr. Yui produced a nine-part lecture/concert series in New York, “Beethoven at Yamaha,” in which 30 eminent pianists, including Frederic Rzewski, Frederic Chiu, Jed Distler, Jerome Lowenthal, and Dr. Yui, performed. The following year, she produced “Liszt at Yamaha,” appearing along with 30 guest scholars and artists, among them Alan Walker, Leslie Howard, Thomas Mastroianni, and Jerome Lowenthal.  She has performed, lectured and given masterclasses in various music conferences, including the MTNA National Conference and NAMM Show in California. 

Lisa Yui’s insightful writing on music has appeared in numerous publications such as Clavier Companion, EPTA Journal and Listen, on a variety of topics including the life and influence of the virtuosic 19th-century pianist Marie Pleyel, on whom Dr. Yui wrote her doctoral thesis.

Lisa Yui has worked extensively with the Yamaha Disklavier, having given numerous performances, including a solo recital of music for four hands, two pianos, and piano and orchestra, as well as long-distance “remote lessons.” A short film on her work with the Disklavier, sponsored by Cisco, was filmed by Jae Choe.  

Ms. Yui’s recent CD of the music of Carl Maria von Weber and Jan Ladislav Dussek was awarded the highest rating, the “Pianiste Maestro,” by the French music magazine, Pianiste.  Her DVD/Blu-ray recording of four Beethoven Sonatas with commentary was released in 2014 on the Aurora Classics label, garnering rave reviews. 

Lisa Yui was the director of Ensemble 212’s Young Artist Competition Series, has served as department chair of the Music Advancement Program at the Juilliard School and has taught a course on the social history of the piano at Marymount Manhattan College for many years. She has served as a member of numerous competition juries including the National Finals of the Canadian Music Competition and the Canadian Chopin Competition.  

Lisa Yui’s principal teachers and mentors include Byron Janis, Giovanni Valentini, Oxana Yablonskaya at the Juilliard School, and Marc Silverman at Manhattan School of Music, Edna Golandsky, David Dubal, Jean-Paul Sevilla and Leonid Hambro. She has also participated in master classes with Emanuel Ax, Alicia de Larrocha, Conrad Hansen, Leon Fleisher, Eugene Istomin, and Anton Kuerti. 

In addition to producing The Lives of the Piano series at Manhattan School of Music, Lisa Yui currently teaches Graduate Piano Literature, Historical Recordings of Great Pianists and The 32 Beethoven Sonatas at Manhattan School of Music, where she is also Assistant Dean for Assessment and Programs. She is on the piano faculty at John J. Cali School of Music at Montclair State University.