Described as “impressive” (NYTimes), “impeccable” (Fanfare Magazine), and “entrancing” (BBC Music Magazine), American pianist Lee Dionne leads a varied career as a soloist, chamber musician, educator, arranger, and artistic director, performing internationally at venues such as Carnegie Hall and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. His musical life has been defined by a broad engagement with the solo works of Bach, Beethoven, Schumann, Brahms, Chopin, and Ravel; within chamber music he has performed nearly all the major piano trio repertoire, piano quartet repertoire, and works for violin, cello, and flute duo with piano. He is an advocate for and frequent performer of contemporary music.

Lee performed his first solo recital at the age of nine but did not begin formal conservatory training until entering the Yale School of Music at the post-tertiary level. There he received his Master's and eventually Doctorate in Piano Performance (2011-2018) while simultaneously completing a two-year postgraduate fellowship with Carnegie Hall's Ensemble Connect (2016-2018). During this time Lee made debut performances throughout Europe and the US (Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, the Concertgebouw, the Slovak Philharmonie), as well as debut appearances with the Bilkent Symphony Orchestra and Royal Liverpool Philharmonic.

From 2014-2015 Lee spent a formative year in the prestigious “Soloklasse” program in Hannover, Germany, for which he received a grant from the DAAD (2015). Other formative development took place in residency with the Merz Trio at the New England Conservatory (2018-2021), through various summers spent at the Yellow Barn Music Festival (2012-2014, 2022), and through residencies and master classes at Snape Maltings in Aldeburgh, England (2019-2020).

In 2023, Lee moved to Australia, where he began reimagining much of his professional life and activities. Since then, he has been presented as a soloist and chamber musician by such organisations as Piano+, the Sydney Writers’ Festival, and the Australian Chamber Orchestra, quickly establishing a reputation as a leading performer and collaborator.

Contemporaneously in 2023 Lee joined flautist Rosie Gallagher in founding Hayes Street Studio, an international center for chamber music. Directed by Lee and Rosie, the Studio presents over thirty concerts a year, featuring leading Sydney musicians Kristian Winther, Anna da Silva Chen, Hamed Sadeghi, Kate Wadey, Chris Pidcock, Andrew Blanch, and Miles Mullin-Chivers, among others, as well as an international roster that includes pianist / composer Dan Schlosberg (Heartbeat Opera), violinist Catherina Lee (international soloist), and flautist Michael Cox (BBC Orchestra, Orchestra of St. Martin in the Fields, RAM).

For six years Lee toured the US and internationally as the founding pianist of the Merz Trio (2017-2023), an ensemble that established itself as the leading piano trio in North America, receiving first prizes at the Fischoff, Chesapeake, and Concert Artists Guild Competitions, as well as the prestigious Naumburg Award in Chamber Music. In 2023 Lee was succeeded in his role as pianist of the Merz Trio by pianist Amy Yang. ​Prior to his work with the Merz Trio, Lee enjoyed a nine-year tenure as keyboardist and grants manager of New York-based vocal / instrumental chamber collective Cantata Profana (2014-2023), an ensemble recognized for their theatrical, diverse, and adventurous programming. 

Lee’s commitment to classical music education in Australia has been manifest in his regular pre-concert talks for Musica Viva and in his role as adjudicator at Sydney Eisteddfods. In the second half of 2025, Lee will join the faculty of the Sydney Conservatorium as a guest lecturer.

Lee is known for his performance-based lecture recitals at institutions such as Yale, Cornell, and Bucknell Universities, as well as master classes at the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Rice University, and the Hartt School of Music. As a chamber music coach Lee co-directed the Performance of Chamber Music Seminar at Yale College alongside violinist Wendy Sharp (2018-2020), and he has also served on the faculty of Yellow Barn’s Young Artists’ Program (2022). Currently Lee directs the Young Artists’ Program at Hayes Street Studio alongside Rosie Gallagher (2023-present).

Lee is deeply indebted to a host of former teachers and mentors, including pianists Vivian Weilerstein, Boris Berman, Wei-Yi Yang, Matti Raekallio, Seth Knopp, Patricia Zander, and Wilma Machover; harpsichordist Arthur Haas; musicologists Michael Friedmann and Paul Berry; and chamber musicians Don Weilerstein, Mark Steinberg, Julio Elizalde, Gerhard Schutz, Kim Kashkashian, Isabel Charisius, Merry Peckham, and Alisdair Tate.
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Lee performs on a 1976 Japanese hand-crafted Yamaha C7 “Yammy,” retrofitted with CFX action parts and maintained exclusively by Theme and Variations Piano Services. It resides at Hayes Street Studio.