2​018 ADJUDICATOR BIOGRAPHY

Dr. Mike Lee
Piano

Awarded Second Prize and Audience Prize at the 2011 Westfield International Fortepiano Competition by a jury that included Robert Levin and the late Christopher Hogwood, (forte)pianist Mike Cheng-Yu Lee’s performances have been described as “portraying integrity, purity, complexity and truth… with balance and control that are breathtaking.” Peter Jacobi of the Bloomington Herald Times writes: "As a keyboard performer, Lee really is a major talent, no doubt about it…[his] Mozart was absolutely radiant, a lesson in refinement mixed with deep devotion."

An advocate of pianos that span the eighteenth century to the present, Mike has appeared with the New World Symphony at the invitation of Michael Tilson Thomas and has collaborated with musicians including Joseph Lin (Juilliard String Quartet), the Formosa Quartet, among others that integrate modern and period instruments. He has performed and given masterclasses at Oberlin Conservatory, the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, 23Arts Festival (NY), Mayfest Chamber Music Festival (NY), the Bloomington Early Music Festival (IN) and others. Current projects include the complete cycle of Mozart’s piano sonatas, “Beethoven Perspectives,” a series of lecture-recitals that explore connections between works by Beethoven and others, and investigating Bach’s keyboard music in terms of late eighteenth-century instruments and aesthetics.

Mike Cheng-Yu Lee has served as Visiting Assistant Professor at Indiana University-Bloomington and was previously Lecturer of music theory at Yale University. As a published scholar, he has presented on issues of musical form, performance practice, and musical embodiment at the Society of Music Theory and the European Music Analysis Conference. Mike studied at Yale University, School of Music and holds a Ph.D. in musicology from Cornell University where he won the Donald J. Grout Memorialdissertation prize. His teachers have included Malcolm Bilson, Boris Berman, and the renowned Haydn scholar James Webster.
​
Mike is Lecturer of Piano/Keyboard Performance at the Australian National University, School of Music and Director of the ANU Keyboard Institute.

---

Ms. Elizabeth Lau
String & Wing Instruments

Elizabeth Lau is the Music Director of the Mozart Orchestra and Assistant Conductor of Auckland Choral. She is a graduate of The University of Auckland where she completed a MMus in both orchestral and choral conducting , BMus(Hons) and Post-GradDipMus(Perf) degree in composition and double bass performance. Elizabeth studied conducting with Professor UweGrodd and  Dr Karen Grylls, and piano accompaniment with Rae de Lisle.

Since graduating Elizabeth has attended conducting workshops in the Czech Republic as well as  in New Zealand with distinguished conductors including, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Kirk Trevor and Chun Yeh, Simon Halsey,  Prof. Rod Eichenberger, Tecwyn Evans,  Jo-Michael Scheibe and Anton Armstrong.

She made her conducting début with the Manukau Symphony Orchestra in 2003 and has since directed many ensembles. From 2004 until 2011, she served as the Music Director of MAA – the Chinese community choir and in 2009, Elizabeth was invited  to conduct the Suzuki International Conference Orchestra in Melbourne, Australia.  In recent years Elizabeth has worked with the APPA Symphony Orchestra during their annual music festival event held by the Auckland Primary Principals Association, Auckland Choral along with the Mozart Orchestra and MAA.

A highlight in 2012 was her appointment as assistant conductor for the world première of  ‘ LEN LYE the opera ‘ by Eve de Castro-Robinson, a project under the auspices of the University of Auckland with a season in the Maidment Theatre,Auckland.
In 2013, Elizabeth completed her  Master’s degree in orchestral and choral conducting at The University of Auckland when conducting a guitar concerto by Malcom Arnold, and various a capella choral music from early Renaissance to contemporary works sung by the University Chamber Choir.
​
As a freelance musician, Elizabeth divides her time between conducting, piano teaching and accompanying, and working as a repetiteur, chamber music coach and professional engagements as a double bass player.

---

Dr. Huijun Zeng (Virginie)
Chamber & Chinese Music

“a talented pianist, full of musical temperament, brilliance and creativity..."
“she is such a magnificent pianist with beauty and elegance, owning the natural style of her ...”              
--Description in European media’s for the playing of pianist Hui Jun Zeng
   
Ms.Zeng shared her music career throughout the world and in prestigious concert halls.

With the remarkable performance all along her career, she was also invited and performed for the international music festival such as the Avignon Music Festival and the Strasbourg International Music Festival in France,the Heidelberg International Chamber Music Festival in Germany and the Basel International Music Festival. Beside acting as the soloist , she also gained extensive experience when she collaborating with the Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra from Basel, Switzerland and the Beijing Philharmonic Orchestra, GuangDong Modern National Orchestra and the GuangDong XingHai Conservatory of Music Symphony Orchestra.

In addition to her concert activities, Ms.Zeng’s teaching gifts have established her as a leading piano pedagogue of her generation. Her students has already achieved great quantity of national and international piano competitions and with the guidance and recommendation of Ms Zeng, some of them applied for degree and building up their careers abroad.
Meanwhile,she has appeared as a judge for the international piano competitions.

Recent highlights including the establishment of the music educational video( Hui Jun Zeng’s Piano Teaching ) which, as the result, has earned highly appraisal and great popularity among the piano learners since its public issued.
​
In recent years，Hui Jun Zeng are dedicate to the combination of classic music and a variety of modern forms of arts such as dancing, poetry, literature and comics, which,already indicating the direction and prospects of the innovation of contemporary music in China.