Courtroom Concert: Jennifer Lien, soprano and Lina Yoo Min Lee, piano

Hosted by composer Abbie Betinis, our popular Courtroom Concerts take place at noon most Thursdays in the Landmark Center in downtown Saint Paul. This series features accomplished musicians and composers from the Twin Cities and surrounding area, as well as occasional musical newcomers to the area. These one-hour concerts are free and open to the public.

About the Artists:

Jennifer lien, soprano
Lina Yoo Min Lee, piano

Soprano Jennifer Lien, lauded for her “sonorous, clear voice” and her dramatic range, has been seen on opera and concert stages in California, Florida, New York, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Singapore. She is a keen collaborator in chamber music, a proponent of contemporary music, and is known for her innovative recital programming. The 2023–2024 season saw Lien on tour with two projects: the world premiere and tour of Wendy Durrwachter’s Surface Displacements song cycle in Minnesota, and the recital Juxtapositions: European Orientalism, Asian America, & Asia in North Carolina. In the 2024–2025 season, Lien will premiere and tour her project of three commissioned song cycles from three Asian American composers set to Asian American texts.

In August 2022, Lien was featured in Messiaen’s Harawi with the Sing Song Club in Singapore. In June 2022, Lien made her Lyric Opera of the North debut as the Mother in Hansel and Gretel. In November 2021, Lien was featured in a virtual concert of French Orientalist music for the San Francisco International Piano Festival with pianist Gwendolyn Mok. In February 2020, Lien appeared as soprano soloist with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra in Joe Hisaishi’s East Land Symphony. During the pandemic season, her performance in Poulenc’s one-woman opera La Voix Humaine, originally performed in 2018 to wide acclaim with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra’s chamber series, was streamed internationally.

Lien has appeared in operatic roles with companies including New Opera Singapore, Mission City Opera, West Bay Opera, Oakland Opera Theater, West Marin Music Festival, Berkeley Opera, Solo Opera, San Francisco Lyric Opera, and Central Florida Lyric Opera. Oratorio engagements include Haydn’s The Creation and The Seasons; Saint-Saëns’ Christmas Oratorio; Handel’s Messiah; Vivaldi’s Gloria; Haydn’s Mass in Time of War; and Mozart’s Requiem. She has premiered numerous works by contemporary composers, and has performed in recital series in Minnesota, New York, California, and New Hampshire, and at the prestigious Esplanade arts center in Singapore.

Lien made her operatic debut in the role of Papagena (The Magic Flute) with Singapore Lyric Opera, where she also appeared as Princess Stephanie in The Student Prince. She received further operatic training as a resident artist with Central Florida Lyric Opera, a young artist with the Seagle Festival, an apprentice artist with Bel Canto at Caramoor, and as a member of the OperaWorks Advanced Accelerated Singer program. Since the pandemic, Lien has been an active member of Bel Canto Boot Camp. Outside of music, Lien is a co-founder of the Twin Ports APIDA Collective, an organization to advocate for and raise awareness of the Asian Pacific Islander Desi American community in the Duluth-Superior region. Lien is a fiscal year 2024 recipient of a Creative Individuals grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board.

Returning to music after an early career as a newspaper journalist, Lien first began her vocal studies at Dartmouth College, where she was an English major. Under the guidance of soprano Erie Mills, she later received her Master of Arts in Music at San José State University. Lien holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Voice and an M.A. in Historical Musicology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A seasoned vocal educator, Lien has taught voice to majors and non-majors at UW-Madison and at Beloit College. She currently teaches at The College of St. Scholastica in Duluth, MN.

Lina Yoo-Min Lee is a highly prolific pianist and proactive pedagogue renowned worldwide for her captivating and insightful expressionist style. She has performed extensively both in the US and abroad, gracing prestigious venues such as Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, Boston Symphony Hall, and Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall. Her most recent piano solo recital, “Music by Women,” held at Carnegie Hall in October 2022, received high acclaim for her exquisite interpretation of an eclectic program and powerful pianistic virtuosity. Broadcasting her concerts through platforms like WFMT, WQXR, WORT, Medici.tv, and YouTube has further expanded her reach to audiences around the world. Her piano solo digital album, “Memories,” featuring live performances of works by renowned composers, garnered praise from both the New York Concert Review and MBN, a major broadcasting network in South Korea.

Lee is also known for her extensive collaborations with internationally renowned singers and instrumentalists as a vivid collaborative pianist. She has performed at prestigious venues and actively engages with underserved communities, sharing her talents and passion for music. Lee has collaborated with members of the Madison Symphony Orchestra and the Sheboygan Symphony Orchestra and is enthusiastic about interdisciplinary collaborations with other artists. Her commitment to diverse collaboration has led her to participate in numerous music festivals, including the Aspen Music Festival, the Bowdoin International Music Festival, and the Stanford Summer Seminar, working with esteemed musicians such as Joaquin Valedepnas, Donald Weilerstein, Hamish Milne, Hung-Kuan Chen, Julian Martin, Anne Epperson, and Virginia Weckstrom.

In the 2023-2024 season, she returned to Carnegie Hall for a solo performance in May 2023 and actively collaborated with her flutist, featuring underrepresented works by Chen Yi, William Grant Still, Dominic Valadez, Eric Delgado, and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. She also performed piano four hands, featuring a wide range of genres from Baroque to contemporary. Her performance of the piano concerto “Fantasie Tropical” by Haitian composer Justin Elie with the University of Minnesota Duluth Orchestra in 2024 was very successful.

In the 2024-2025 season, Lee will bring a variety of solo and collaborative programs. She is scheduled to tour with singer Jennifer Lien, premiering and touring three commissioned song cycles from Asian American composers set to Asian American texts, and offering an engaging program as part of a quartet with two percussionists and two pianos. She will also tour different states in the US for her solo recitals.

As a passionate pedagogue and educator, Lee actively teaches piano and presents her research internationally. She has given lectures, masterclasses, workshops, and presentations at prestigious institutions such as Stanford University, the University of Kansas, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Platteville, Seoul National University in Korea, the National Conference of Keyboard Pedagogy, and the European Piano Teachers Association International Conference. Lee has also been invited to adjudicate competitions and serve on juries for national auditions and exams, such as the 2022 Sejong Music Competitions and the MTNA Piano Competitions.

Community engagement and arts outreach hold a special place in Lee’s heart. She is dedicated to promoting the works of underrepresented and historically marginalized composers. She founded and served as the Artistic Director of the DEIB Festival in Madison, Wisconsin, focusing on diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, as well as leadership, collaboration, and community engagement. Additionally, she actively supports providing high-quality music education and performances to underserved communities and children with disabilities. Lee regularly teaches piano for communities and is involved with Love in Music, a non-profit organization that offers free opportunities for young children from underserved communities to learn classical instruments through musically trained volunteers. She is also the Chair of Madison Area Music Educators, a non-profit organization fostering growth and enrichment in the local community’s cultural and artistic life.

Lee’s educational background includes training at Walnut Hill School for the Arts and New England Conservatory’s Preparatory School. She holds a B.M. in Piano Performance and M.M. degrees in Piano Performance and Pedagogy from the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, where she was awarded various scholarships. She further pursued her studies and earned a D.M.A. in Piano Performance and Pedagogy from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a full scholarship and the Jeanette Ross Award.

Currently, Lee serves as an Assistant Professor of Piano at the University of Minnesota Duluth. Before this, she served on the piano faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and taught at the Peabody Preparatory School of the Johns Hopkins University through the piano pedagogy program.