About Me

Photo: Samantha Zauscher

American violinist WAYNE LEE has enjoyed a prolific career worldwide as a member of two internationally-acclaimed chamber ensembles. From 2012-2024, he performed extensively in North America, Europe, and Asia with the Formosa Quartet, including engagements at London’s Wigmore Hall, the Berlin Philharmonie, Taipei’s National Concert Hall, and the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts in Vancouver. With his Formosa Quartet colleagues, he has served as the Faculty Quartet-in-Residence for the National Youth Orchestra of Canada, as Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Houston’s Moores School of Music, and as a founder and faculty member of the Formosa Chamber Music Festival in Taiwan. For over a decade, Mr. Lee was a member of the Manhattan Piano Trio, an ensemble acclaimed as "outstanding" by the Washington Post and lauded as "a grand departure from the usual" by the News Herald. 

Mr. Lee also regularly appears before audiences as a soloist and recitalist. Past commitments include concerts and recordings with The Knights, festival appearances at Musique de Chambre à Giverny in France, the Taipei Music Academy and Festival, and the Olympic Music Festival, and concerto performances with the Minnesota Sinfonia. As a recitalist, he has designed and presented several large-scale projects, including performances of the complete Beethoven violin sonatas, the six unaccompanied Sonatas and Partitas by Bach, the six Sonatas for Violin and Keyboard by Bach, and a cycle of commissioned works inspired by Bach’s B minor Partita. As part of his interest in historical performance practice, he performs on early instruments with longtime sonata partner and fortepianist Mike Lee, a collaboration that has brought the duo as performance and teaching artists to institutions such as Cornell University and Indiana University.

A dedicated teacher and arts advocate, Mr. Lee served on the violin faculty at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has given master classes throughout the United States and Asia, and previously served as teaching assistant at the Juilliard School, from which he holds both bachelor’s and master’s degrees.

In addition to his performing and teaching activities, Mr. Lee is co-founder and co-artistic director of the Piedmont Chamber Music Festival, an annual week of chamber music that brings an internationally-acclaimed roster of musicians to the Bay Area every summer. He plays on a 2023 Joseph Curtin violin.

(updated August 2024)