Nina Lee

Through a public school program, Nina Lee began

learning cello in Chesterfield, MO at the age of ten.

Six years later, she left home to study with David

Soyer at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia,

PA. She went on to complete her Bachelors and

Masters of Music at the Juilliard School in New York

City with Joel Krosnick, attended the Tanglewood

Music Festival, and toured with the Marlboro Music

Festival where she collaborated with Mitsuko Uchida,

Andras Schiff, Felix Galimir and Samuel Rhodes.

In 1999, Ms. Lee joined the Brentano Quartet with

whom she has been privileged to perform throughout

North America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand,

China, and Japan. In addition, she has not only

recorded the music of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven

but has also championed the new music represented in

her quartet’s commissioned works of Stephen Hartke,

Steve Mackey, Vijay Iyer, James MacMillan, Bruce

Adolphe, Sofia Gubaidulina, and Shulamit Ran (to

name a few). Ms. Lee has recorded for the Azica,

Naxos, Mode, Cantaloupe, Albany and Tzadik labels.

Among the various projects the Brentano Quartet has

undertaken, it was asked to record the soundtrack to

the 2012 film, “A Late Quartet” which centeredaround Beethoven’s Op. 131. The film, starring Philip

Seymour Hoffman, Christopher Walken and Catherine

Keener also features Ms. Lee playing herself in a

cameo.

As important to her life as a musician, Ms. Lee has

made a commitment to teaching chamber music. She

has been on the faculty at Princeton and Columbia

Universities and is currently coaching chamber music

at the Yale School of Music where the Brentano

Quartet has been in residence since 2014.

In 2026, Ms. Lee joined the cello faculty at The

Juilliard School.

Regular summer appearances in performing and

teaching include the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival

and the Taos School of Music. Ms. Lee has also

participated as a guest faculty member at the St.

Lawrence String Quartet Chamber Music Seminar, the

Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music, Kneisel Hall

and the Portland Chamber Music Festival in Portland,

ME. Additionally, she has made numerous

appearances at the Spoleto Festival USA and the La

Jolla SummerFest. Ms. Lee has also served on the jury

of the Salzburg International Quartet Competition in2023 and the Wigmore Hall International String

Quartet Competition Jury in 2025.

Ms. Lee makes her home in Brooklyn, New York

where she lives with her husband and two children.

When she isn’t playing the cello or teaching, she loves

spending time with her family, cooking, entertaining,

organizing chamber music salons and finding new

ways to be creative!