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The American pianist, Kevin Lee Sun, was born and raised in Sacramento, California. first public recital in Sacramento at age 8, then gained his reputation by winning competitions held at the Mondavi Center, University of the Pacific, Santa Clara University, and Sacramento State. In 2010, he won the Music Teachers' Association of California State Solo Piano Competition, Division III (16-18yo). His studies with Tien Hsieh and Sacramento State's Lorna Peters culminated in his performance at age 17 on NPR's From the Top and his 2nd Prize finish at the 2011 Virginia Waring International Piano Competition.
Kevin Lee Sun continued his piano studies with Thomas Schultz at Stanford University, where he double-majored in Biology and Classics. He was the recipient of both the 2014 Junior Prize and the 2015 Senior Prize in Classics. He also won the J. E. Wallace Sterling Award for Scholastic Achievement and the Louis Sudler Prize in the Performing and Creative Arts. In his senior year, he served as an editor of Aisthesis: The Undergraduate Journal of Classical Studies. In 2014, he performed L.v. Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 with the Stanford Symphony Orchestra. That same year, he traveled with Schultz' studio to the Arnold Schönberg Center in Vienna, Austria, where he played Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring (four hands) and by Hanns Eisler's Third Piano Sonata. In 2015, he obtained his B.A.S. Biology & Classics degree (in the Greek field of study) from Stanford University. He ended his college career with performances of J.S. Bach's Goldberg Variations (BWV 988) and Robert Schumann's Fantasy that won him Stanford's Louis Sudler Prize for the most outstanding senior in music.
At the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM), Kevin Lee Sun earned his Master of Music degree in Piano in the studio of Sharon Mann in 2017. In 2016, he was selected to attend the Banff Centre Piano Masterclass in Canada, where he took lessons with Juilliard's Julian Martin, performed in a public class with Glenn Gould School's John Perry, and recorded L.v. Beethoven and Janáček sonatas. He also was selected to be the 2016-2017 SFCM Piano Department Assistant, in which role he coordinated residencies held that year by Leon Fleisher and Garrick Ohlsson. He graduated having performed in master-class with Leon Fleisher and Garrick Ohlsson, as well as cellist Garrick Ohlsson and St. Lawrence String Quartet's Geoff Nuttall. He has built and performed a diverse repertoire, including, in the addition to the mentioned composers, solo works by Schubert at Pianofest in the Hamptons, and Hyo-shin Na at Old First Concerts in San Francisco. He also has performed J.S. Bach with the Sacramento Bravo Bach! Festival Orchestra.
Though his Masters focused on performance, Kevin Lee Sun also honed his piano pedagogy skills. For two academic years, he was a guest teacher at Abraham Lincoln High School, where he worked with three periods of beginning piano students every Monday. He also gave lessons to young pianists at Music City Academy of San Francisco, and to cochlear implant users at the Hearing and Speech Center of Northern California.
Kevin Lee Sun has returned to Stanford University in 2018 as a medical student. He continues to take lessons with Thomas Schultz, funded by the A. Jess Shenson Memorial Scholarship, and to teach private students on weekends. In 2018, he won the 40th Carmel Music Society Biennial Piano Competition. His 2018-2019 season took him throughout Northern California, with solo and collaborative recitals in Sacramento, San Francisco, Stanford, and Carmel. |
