The Department of Piano presents a two piano recital featuring guest artists Ran Dank (Eastman) and Soyeon Lee (Juilliard). The program includes Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra in a new two piano arrangement by SMTD Professor Logan Skelton.

ABOUT THE GUEST ARTISTS

RAN DANK

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

Recent season has included performances with the Pasadena Symphony and Keitaro Harada, Monterey Symphony, and Westchester Philharmonic with Jayce Ogren. Ran’s past 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. 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. Mr. Dank and Soyeon Kate lee have also featured the world premiere of multiple grammy-nominated pianist and composer’s Marc-André Hamelin’s "Tango” for piano four-hands. The recipient of numerous honors, Ran Dank won a coveted place on the Young Concert Artists roster in 2009 and subsequently made his New York recital debut. He was a laureate of the Cleveland International Competition, the Naumburg Piano Competition, the Sydney International Piano Competition, and the Hilton Head International Piano Competition.

Mr. Dank serves as an Associate Professor of Piano at the Eastman School of Music. His mentors and teachers include Emanuel Ax, Richard Goode, Joseph Kalichstein, Julian Martin, Robert McDonald, and Ursula Oppens.

SOYEON LEE

First prize winner of the Naumburg International Piano Competition and the 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 include appearances at the National Gallery, Library of Congress, Gina Bachauer Concerts, Purdue Convocations, Music@Menlo, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center on tour, San Francisco Performances, Camerata Pacifica tour, Chamber Music Chicago, and the Cleveland Art Museum. She was a member of Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society’s Bowers program, and is a regular participant in numerous chamber music festivals including the Great Lakes, Santa Fe and Music Mountain Chamber Music Festivals. Ms. Lee has collaborated with conductors Carlos Miguel Prieto, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Jahja Ling, and Jorge Mester with the London, San Diego, Hawaii, Louisiana, Naples symphony orchestras among others.

She has commissioned works by prominent composers and has given world premieres of works written by Frederic Rzewski, Paola Prestini, Marc-André Hamelin, Alexander Goehr, Gabriela Lena Frank, Texu Kim, and Huang Ruo.

As a Naxos recording artist, her discography spans a wide range of repertoire from two volumes of Scarlatti Sonatas, Liszt Opera Transcriptions, two volumes of Scriabin, and 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, she is a graduate of the Juilliard School where she was awarded the William Petschek Piano Debut Award at Lincoln Center and the Arthur Rubinstein Award upon graduation, and received her Doctor of Musical Arts from The Graduate Center, City University of New York. Her major mentors and teachers have been Richard Goode, Julian Martin, Robert McDonald, Jerome Lowenthal, and Ursula Oppens.

In 2022, Soyeon Kate Lee joined the piano faculty at the Juilliard School, and serves on the piano faculty at the Bowdoin International Music Festival during the summers. She resides in New York with her husband, pianist Ran Dank, and their two children, Noah and Ella.