Pianist Jon Lee is a San Francisco–based soloist and chamber musician. In 2022 he won first prize at the Cliburn International Amateur Piano Competition, performing Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra under Miguel Harth-Bedoya at Bass Performance Hall. He has also won top prizes at international amateur competitions in San Diego, Washington, Seattle, and Boston, along with four audience prizes. His other concerto appearances include the Calgary Civic Symphony at Jack Singer Concert Hall, the Nova Vista Symphony in the Bay Area, and the Boston Pops under Keith Lockhart at Symphony Hall. As winner of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Piano Concerto Competition, he will perform Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto with the SFCM Orchestra and Edwin Outwater in 2027.

The Ethea Trio, of which he is a founding member, was named an Honors Ensemble at SFCM in 2024. In 2026 the trio was selected for the Banff Chamber Music Residency, where it prepared and recorded Dai Fujikura’s Nui with the composer. The trio has appeared in the St. Lawrence Chamber Music Seminar’s International Showcase at Stanford’s Bing Concert Hall and on the UCSF Chancellor’s Concert Series, and will perform on the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concerts in Chicago in 2027. He has also performed chamber music with Kim Kashkashian, Stella Chen, Clive Greensmith, Nicholas Phan, and the Telegraph Quartet, and appears regularly with Fort Worth Symphony musicians through the Spectrum Chamber Music Society, including in Copland’s Appalachian Spring under Harth-Bedoya.

As a soloist, he has given recitals for San Francisco’s Noontime Concerts and Piano Celebration Week at Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi, and has also performed at Salle Cortot in Paris. Beyond the concert hall, he has played in living rooms through Groupmuse, outdoors at Flower Piano in Golden Gate Park, with the Club Foot Orchestra’s live scores for silent film, and in video game music on KUSC’s Arcade Live!

He studies with Yoshikazu Nagai at SFCM, where he completed a Performance Studies Certificate in Keyboard Performance and an Artist Diploma in Chamber Music. He has also played in masterclasses for Emanuel Ax, Leon Fleisher, Paul Lewis, Jerome Lowenthal, Russell Sherman, and Michael Tilson Thomas. Offstage, he co-founded Chamber Sessions, a series in a Mission District art gallery where passersby are invited in to listen. He also directs festival planning for the Hawaiʻi Chamber Music Festival and develops MusicPodium, an iPad app for digital score reading. Before becoming a full-time musician, he was an engineering manager at Apple. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in computer science from MIT.

jonleepiano.com

Pianist Jon Lee is a San Francisco–based soloist and chamber musician. He won first prize at the 2022 Cliburn International Amateur Piano Competition, performing Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra at Bass Performance Hall, and has appeared as a concerto soloist with the Calgary Civic Symphony and the Boston Pops. He has given solo recitals for San Francisco’s Noontime Concerts and Piano Celebration Week at Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi, and has performed at Salle Cortot in Paris.

He is a founding member of the Ethea Trio, an Honors Ensemble at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where he completed an Artist Diploma in Chamber Music. In 2026 the trio was selected for the Banff Chamber Music Residency, and in 2027 it will perform on the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concerts in Chicago. His other collaborators include Kim Kashkashian, Clive Greensmith, Stella Chen, Dimitri Murrath, Nicholas Phan, and the Telegraph Quartet.

Offstage, he co-founded Chamber Sessions, a series in a Mission District art gallery where passersby are invited in to listen, and directs festival planning for the Hawaiʻi Chamber Music Festival. He also develops MusicPodium, an iPad app for digital score reading. He came to music full-time after working as an engineering manager at Apple, and holds degrees in computer science from MIT.

jonleepiano.com