How Doctor Monica Lee Became an Award-Winning Pianist: The Amazing Story of Monica Lee

Monica Lee was born in Seoul, South Korea where her exceptional love of the piano began when she was just four years old. She received a toy piano with only a couple octaves and proceeded to amaze friends and family with her ability to play church tunes from memory and sing songs with great emotion. For example, she was captivated by one of the Catholic Lent songs and played it on her toy piano repeatedly, crying over a person who willingly died for us.


Her prowess on the toy baby grand piano was perhaps a signal for times to come. As a kindergartner a year later, Monica watched over their shoulders as other students took piano lessons and memorized all of their instructions and she would perform them the following morning on the acoustic piano at the kindergartener.


Her mother was so impressed that she took a loan to get a piano and eventually got a piano teacher for Monica. Prior to getting the piano, Monica made a promise to her mother that she would practice three hours a day. Until the family left for America, Monica kept her promise every day. The piano became a “number one” priority for her.


Monica's maternal grandfather had studied higher education in New York. As a child, Monica’s mother had listened to her father's stories about his experience as a student, and saw the value of the educational system in the United States and wanted her two sons and daughter to benefit. In 1976 the family immigrated to Walters, Oklahoma.


Arriving in America the family was initially poor, but they loved their new country. Monica continued to receive piano lessons from renown piano teachers in Oklahoma, such as Marjorie Farrell and Ernestine Scott. She won competitions and awards attracting attention from teachers and parents. As a teenager, she performed as soloist with the Oklahoma Symphony Orchestra and also with the Lawton Philharmonic Orchestra. By age 16, Monica was already giving private piano lessons.


Monica later graduated from Oklahoma’s Moore High School in 1984 and attended the University of Oklahoma majoring in both premed and piano performance. After several years of contemplating whether to follow in the footsteps of her brothers, who went into medicine, she decided to pursue music to offer comfort to others through music instead.


She later attended the University of Maryland to study for a master’s in piano performance under the prestigious and tough professor Thomas Schumacher. Many of his doctoral students were from Europe and Asia, and were already famous in their own countries. Monica, supported by her two friends practiced into the night to keep up with these famous students. She finally succeeded by placing second place in a scholarship competition open to surrounding universities. All three winners were students of Mr. Schumacher, the first and third being the doctoral students studying under him.
 
Relating back to her childhood she realized that she had played her toy piano by ear and did not read music as these students did so perfectly. At this point in her career, she recognized that there had to be a better way of teaching all students to read music efficiently.


Monica then looked for schools that specialized in the area that suited these abilities. She chose Northwestern University to pursue Doctor of Musical Arts in piano performance and pedagogy.
 
Today Dr. Lee is the coordinator of piano studies and the Piano Teaching Certificate Program. The piano program at Fullerton College offers introduction to piano, keyboard skills, piano ensemble, applied piano, jazz piano, and piano pedagogy courses. The students of Fullerton College have a the new Yamaha Clavinova piano lab.


Since 2000 when she began teaching at Fullerton College, Monica invited guests and speakers from various fields of education and corporations to her piano pedagogy classes every year. One of the guests was her college class-piano professor, Dr. E. Lancaster who also moved to California with his wife and family as the Vice President of Alfred Publishing Company. Dr. Lancaster continued to inspire Monica and her students every year. One day he encouraged her to write a book for her students. She took his advice as an endorsement because of the numerous piano books he has written, published, and edited. So she began focusing and writing on the weakest area for many transfer students as well as for her, a sight-reading technique with which she renewed her passion. The research process with one of her closest friends, Dr. Helen Marlais, helped her to become more aware of her students' strengths and weaknesses.


During the pandemic, through her father's encouragement and advice, Monica received a Master's in Business Administration from the UCI Paul Merage School of Business in order to better help those pianists enrolled in the Fullerton College Piano Teaching Certificate Program. Monica and one of her classmates, Mari Kimura, were the first music professors to receive an MBA from UCI. Monica recalls “I was embarrassed, self-humiliated, disappointed, and scared, but the education and the experience was priceless and necessary in making me into a more productive and effective instructor.”


Recently, many talented musicians, dignitaries, and community members gathered to celebrate the life’s work of Dr. Monica Lee. She was honored as the 2022 James Young prestigious award on November 3rd at the Muckenthaler Cultural Center, a popular regional arts venue in Fullerton, California. This award honors someone who has had a long-term impact on Arts Education. In addition to applauding her career as a talented classical pianist, the ceremony also provided kudos to her as an instructor in piano pedagogy, teaching pianists how to teach piano and manage a piano studio as a small business. Several honored her by playing pieces on the piano, along with other instrumental performances.

One of her students told of the additional support of Dr. Lee. Due to his mental condition, at times he found school and life to be too challenging for him, but his strong faith, family, and Monica encouraged him and kept him from giving up everything. As a tribute to her award he played a composition that he had written. It was a moving piece and Monica describes his piano playing as something attuned to being spiritual. He now serves others through music therapy.

This compassion of Monica’s extends from her students to others. When her Fine Arts Division Dean spoke about her achievements, he also mentioned how she had given him practical and intangible gifts, such as a special blanket to keep him warm after a surgery. This blanket is still loved by him and his wife even after so many years!
 
Monica is one of those marvelous educators who is highly accomplished, extremely dedicated, and exceptionally caring. Through her teaching, she is leaving a widespread legacy of similar individuals.
 
Written by:
Jo Ann Brannock, PhD
MOTAL Board Director
and
Greta Nagel, PhD
MOTAL President, and CEO