Steinway Artist, Dr. Lei Weng enjoys a successful international career as an accomplished pianist, a dedicated teacher, and a sought-after adjudicator and clinician. Hailed as “a colorist of exemplary control” by the New York Concert Review for his sold-out Carnegie Hall debut, he has performed at many prestigious venues around the world including Carnegie Hall, Merkin Hall, and Steinway Hall in New York, Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., Chicago Culture Center, China National Center for Performing Arts, Taiwan National Concert Hall and Kaohsiung Cultural Center, Canada Banff Center, Vienna Peterskirche, Italy Basilica di San Pietro, Royal College of Music in London, Singapore National University, and major universities and conservatories throughout Asia. He has been invited to perform and teach at such music festivals as Tanglewood Music Festival, TCU Cliburn Institute, Messiaen Festival (University of Chicago), Music Fest Perugia (Italy), Pianoforte-Fest Meissen (Germany), Saarburg Festival (Germany), Sarasota Festival, Vianden Festival (Luxemburg), Rocky Ridge Music Center and Breckenridge Music Festival.
As a frequent concerto soloist, he has appeared with such conductors as Gerhardt Zimmerman, Steven Smith, Uri Segal, Robert Olson, Geoffrey Simon, Lingfen Wu, Yang Yang, Glen Cortese, Wes Kenney, and with more than thirty orchestras in the U.S., Europe and Asia, including the Symphony Orchestras of Fort Worth, Fort Collins, Beijing, Tianjin, Gimhae (Korea), Kaohsiung (Taiwan), Alicante (Spain), as well as China National Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, and Breckinridge Music Festival Orchestra.
As an avid chamber music performer, he has performed with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra Concertmaster Noah Bendix-Balgley in Sarasota Music Festival; with the Associate Concertmaster of Chicago Symphony Orchestra Stephanie Jeong and Cleveland Institute of Music Faculty and Cavani Quartet cellist Siyan Li in Rocky Ridge Music Festival; with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra Concertmaster Nathan Olson and the Naumburg First Prize Winner and CU Boulder cello professor David Requiro in the Breckenridge Music Festival. He has also studied and worked closely with musicians such as Jerome Lowenthal, James Tocco, Emmanuel Ax, Co-Liang Lin, Pamela Frank, Dawn Upshaw and Lucy Shelton.
A dedicated educator, Dr. Weng is the Keyboard Area Head at the University of Northern Colorado, where he was the recipient of the “2015 College of Performing and Visual Arts Scholar of the Year”. He has been frequently invited as guest professor by major conservatories around the world, such as Royal College of Music (UK), China Central Conservatory, Shanghai Conservatory, Singapore National University, University of Saarbrücken, Taiwan National Normal University, and such major universities in the U.S. as Boston, Cincinnati, Texas and Colorado. His students have won top prizes in numerous national and international competitions, and have been admitted into such top schools as Julliard School, Eastman School of Music, Peabody Institute of Music, Cleveland Institute of Music, New England Conservatory, University of Cincinnati, Oberlin Conservatory, and Manhattan School of Music. Dr. Weng is the Founder and Director of the Colorado International Piano Academy and Colorado Piano Festival, two intensive summer piano programs that take place annually at UNC.
As a frequent jury member of major national and international competitions, Dr. Weng has been invited to serve in jury panels of the Cleveland International Piano Competition, International Rachmaninoff Piano Competition in Moscow, Hong Kong International Music Competition, “Nuova Coppa Pianisti” International Piano Competition in Italy, China National Piano Competition, “Parnassus” Piano Competition in Mexico, “Concurso Internacional de María Clara Cullell” in Costa Rica, and MTNA Competitions. He has been serving as the Chairman of Mu Phi Epsilon Foundation Keyboard Scholarships since 2012.
Dr. Weng holds degrees of BM from the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, MM and DMA from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. His primary teachers have included Frank Weinstock, William Black, Claude Frank, Jerome Lowenthal, Zhou Guangren, Guo Zhihong, Xie Yuan.
