WARREN LEE

Described discreetly by the South China Morning Post as a "poor vessel," Warren Lee began his performing career on the unlikely stage of Hong Kong Coliseum at the age of six (where he almost tripped getting to the piano and was caught on TV), appearing with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra. This infamous tripping performance continues to provide amusement for audiences worldwide on YouTube today.

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Dropping out of his secondary education, Warren (his name literally means a place where rabbits inhabit) was admitted to the Royal Academy of Music – not far from the London Zoo – at the age of 16. History repeated itself when he "sort of" dropped out of his undergraduate studies and went to Yale University after only two years in London. Despite gaining a reputation as a compulsive and skilled dropout, Warren, as luck would have it, graduated from both institutions.

Inspired by Bartók's saying that "competitions are for horses" and despite being in close proximity to the London Zoo for a couple of years, Warren vowed not to enter any competition after winning the First Prize of the 1995 Stravinsky Awards International Piano Competition. Well, his vow was only good for 18 years, as he won the Second Prize of the Gianni Bergamo Classic Music Award in 2013 for his choral composition, House Rules. As Asian parents testify, coming second does not count, does it?

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42 names below Lang Lang, Warren is one of 128 Steinway Artists in the world whose last name begins with the letter "L". He often wonders what he has to achieve, besides being dead, in order to one day end up on Steinway's Immortals Roster alongside the likes of Liszt, Rachmaninoff and Horowitz. He recently tried his hands on a bit of magic, as observed by The Straits Times of Singapore: "Warren Lee's most impressive achievement was… his astonishing ability to transform that unappealing black triangular box with the lid… into something that sounded like a half-decent piano."

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Probably the highest-scoring (and only) Steinway Artist who has taken both the LSAT and GMAT, Warren holds an MBA degree (with no dropping out) from HKUST and completed a master's degree in intellectual property law from the University of London out of boredom during the Covid years. He still cannot explain why he did either, except that he "likes bubbles on answer sheets."

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Warren's discography of twelve albums has garnered over 16 million streams on Spotify – many of which come from a single track that helps solve insomnia on many playlists. He is not sure whether to be proud or concerned.

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According to a personality test he took far too seriously, Warren is 94% introverted. This might explain why he wrote a musical titled QUIET, which premiered in 2026 to critical acclaim – though Warren spent most of the afterparty hiding in the green room with a book.

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In 2012, Warren upgraded from his "CHILD prodigy" status to "YOUNG person" after receiving the Ten Outstanding Young Persons Award in Hong Kong. A prolific writer, Warren counts among his publications a couple of chapters on music education, a dozen pop songs and choral pieces for children, 500 sight-reading exercises, and four business cases. His piano students have not forgiven him for the last 300.

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Warren's concert attire features his favourite PYE shirt; his left rotator cuff is pampered by the Canadian Asian Neck and Back Institute. His left rotator cuff, for the record, does not endorse the right one's laziness. He is eternally grateful to both sponsors, and to the YouTube algorithm for keeping the tripping video alive.