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’s National Center for Performing Arts, Taiwan’s National Concert Hall and Kaohsiung Cultural Center, Banff Center in Canada, Peterskirche in Vienna, Basilica di San Pietro in Italy, London’s Royal College of Music, Singapore National University, and major universities and conservatories throughout China. He has been invited to perform and teach at such music festivals as Tanglewood Music Festival, TCU Cliburn Institute, Messiaen Festival, Music Fest Perugia (Italy), Vianden Festival (Luxemburg), 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 across 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 Cavani Quartet cellist Siyan Li in Rocky Ridge Music Festival, and with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra Concertmaster Nathan Olson and the Naumburg First Prize Winner cellist David Requiro in the Breckenridge Music Festival. He has also studied and worked closely with musicians such as Emmanuel Ax, Jerome Lowenthal, James Tocco, 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 “College of Performing and Visual Arts Scholar of the Year”. He has been frequently invited as guest professor by major conservatories in Asia, such as China Central Conservatory and Shanghai Conservatory, and Taiwan National Normal University. His students have won top prizes in numerous national and international competitions, and have been admitted into such top schools as Julliard, Eastman, Peabody, Cleveland, New England, Cincinnati, Oberlin, and Manhattan. Weng is the also Founder and Director of the Colorado International Piano Academy and Colorado Piano Festival , two intensive summer piano programs that take place annually on the UNC Campus. Dr. Weng has been invited to serve on jury panels of many national and international piano competitions around the world, including the Cleveland International Piano Competition, International Rachmaninoff Piano Competition in Moscow (2020), Hong Kong International Music Competition, “Nuova Coppa Pianisti” International Piano Competition, China National Piano Competition, Mexico “Parnassus” National Piano Competition, and MTNA Competitions. He is the Chairman of the Mu Phi Epsilon Foundation Keyboard Scholarships.