Guest Artists
Document Type
Program
Performance Date
11-12-2015
Academic Year
2015-2016
Keywords
Cedarville, music, recitals, piano, Le
Recommended Citation
Department of Music and Worship, Cedarville University, "Andrew Le, Piano" (2015). Guest Artists. 26.
https://digitalcommons.cedarville.edu/guest_artists/26
Comments
Born in Vietnam, pianist Andrew (Drew) Le has been hailed as "an impressive tour‐de‐force...a plenitude of poetic nuance" (New York Concert Review), and lauded for his "consummate piano virtuosity" (Goleta Valley Voice) and "pistonlike precision" (Mountain Tradition). Drew was the first‐prize winner of the 2004 Hilton Head International Piano Competition, and is currently serving as Associate Professor of Piano at Hope College in Holland, Michigan. He and his wife, violinist Jennifer Walvoord, are the Artistic Directors of the Chamber Music Festival of Saugatuck.
Drew is also the founder and director of Holland's popular Brown Bag Concerts, a series designed to encourage and foster the accessibility of classical music to the general public. Passionate about serving his local community, he has also performed recitals as food drives, the last of which brought in close to 600 non‐perishable items that were donated to the Holland Rescue Mission.
Drew studied piano performance at the Interlochen Arts Academy, the University of Michigan, and the Conservatoire Américain de Fontainebleau. Drew was also a C.V. Starr Doctoral Fellow at the Juilliard School, where he received his Doctor of Musical Arts degree in 2007. His teachers have included Hien Le, Vivian Kleinhuizen, Rich Ridenour, Victoria Mushkatkol, Arthur Greene, Philippe Bianconi, John Perry, and Jerome Lowenthal. Passionate about teaching, Drew's doctoral document explored the pedagogical lineage of Jerome Lowenthal's teachers, including William Kapell, Eduard Steuermann, and Alfred Cortot. Drew was appointed for three summers to the piano faculty of Interlochen Arts Camp's All‐State Program as an undergraduate teaching alongside tenured professors. Later, he was selected to be Jerome Lowenthal's teaching assistant at The Juilliard School. Drew has also served on the faculty at the Gilmore Piano Camp and at Friends Music Camp.
Drew joined the international roster of Steinway Artists in 2013, and released his debut recording on the Blue Griffin label the same year. Drew is also a violinist, and is a semi‐active member of the Holland Symphony Orchestra. He is a member of Music Teachers National Association, Michigan Music Teachers Association, and Holland Piano Teachers Forum, and actively serves on the Consistory of Third Reformed Church. Drew resides in Holland, Michigan, with his wife and their two young children.