Dennis Lee, Field's 1963–1964 (April 2023)

Dennis Lee

Dennis Lee was born in Penang, Malaysia and attended the Penang Free School. At the tender age of 14, Dennis was awarded the ABRSM Scholarship to study at the Royal College of Music, in both piano and violin. After A Levels at Lancing College, Dennis flourished in his piano studies at the Royal College of Music and was awarded the prestigious Tagore Gold Medal. Having graduated with first class honours, with the aid of an Austrian government scholarship, his studies took him to the Akademie in Vienna where he studied with Josef Dichler and won the Stepanow Prize. He was a prize winner at many international competitions, among them the Busoni, Casagrande, Sydney and the BBC Piano Competition. Dennis was one of the first major South East Asian pianists of his time and gave much inspiration to others paving the way. Not only was he in demand concertising around the world at the main music festivals and major concert venues, he broadcast live from St John’s Smith Square several of the Scriabin sonatas for the BBC, produced by Robert Layton. He also did a complete Beethoven sonata cycle during ‘Les Grandes Heures de St. Emilion’. Dennis performed concertos with orchestras around the world, the last occasion being Beethoven 4th with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra having first performed the Grieg under Sir Adrian Boult. His collaboration with the Japanese violinist Tomotada Soh was memorialised with BBC broadcasts, a Wigmore Hall recital and appearances in Tokyo and Osaka.

In the last few years, Dennis had embarked on a recording project to record the complete solo piano works of Debussy for ICSM, two albums of which were released 2021, and reviewed positively as recently as March 2023. Aside from a busy schedule of performing, Dennis deputised at the Royal College of Music, taught at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire in the 1970s, and Kingston University, as well as privately. His students recount that he was always so inspiring, a hard taskmaster, methodical in fingering; Dennis had an amazing understanding of style and where and when to create the magic. As well as his widow and her family, Chee Hung Toh, also an acclaimed concert pianist, Dennis leaves behind his five great-nephews and two great-nieces who collectively play six different instruments, no doubt testament to his enduring musical legacy.

In his own words: ‘Music is like a magical passport opening many doors and opportunities, if one is ready to respond, leading to great friendships and unforgettable experiences. It is wonderful that even if I can’t speak the language of the country I am playing in, the music becomes my vocabulary. I throw out a kind of lifeline, a bridge, via Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin and others, and in the audience there are people willing to join me in experiencing some of mankind’s greatest compositions.’

Dennis Lee’s incredible musical inspiration will never be forgotten, and neither will the indelible impression he left on countless others. To have known Dennis is to understand what it means to love family, to value friendship and pursue excellence without forgetting the little things in life that mattered.

The Lee Family