Tereza Lee, D.M.A., is a pianist “whose touch is exceptionally clear”–Chicago Sun-Times.

Dr. Lee has taught at the Manhattan School of Music since 2011, at the undergraduate and graduate levels (2011-18) and in the precollege division (2018-current). She is currently on the piano, theory, ear-training, and chamber music faculty at the Manhattan School of Music Precollege division, MSM Summer, and the Church Street School for Music and Art.

As a performer, she has appeared as a soloist at Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall, Steinway Hall, Barge Music, Lincoln Center and the Ravinia Festival in Chicago. She has premiered works by Aaron Jay Kernis, Augusta Read Thomas, Ned Rorem, Josephine Lee, and Kenneth Frazelle. At 16, she became the first student from an inner-city school to win first prize in the CSO Youth Concerto Competition, and performed with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

As an activist, she has advocated for immigrants’ rights at the local, state and national levels, especially in her Inwood/Washington Heights community, including creating sanctuary spaces and working to pass the New York Dream Act and Liberty Act. Her role in helping to inspire Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois to introduce the DREAM Act has been documented in The New York Times, NPR, USA Today, The Economist, NY1, and WNYC. Tereza’s story was recently featured in the PBS documentary Asian Americans, as well as the children’s book 100 Immigrant Women Who Changed the World (Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls).