Dr. Lai
PQ Senior Piano Faculty
Phd, University of Hawai’i at Mānoa.
Yi-Chieh Jay Lai started learning piano at the age of five, and double majored piano and Chinese guzheng at the middle and high school in Taiwan. She received her bachelor’s degree in music from National Taiwan University of Arts, master’s degree in musicology from Taipei National University of the Arts, and PhD in ethnomusicology from University of Hawai’i at Mānoa. Her album, Transformation, was nominated as Best Folk Music Album of the Golden Melody Awards, Taiwan’s equivalent of the Grammys.
With over twenty years of teaching expertise, her teaching style effortlessly harmonizes the cultivation of humanistic qualities and critical thinking with music performance and skills development. As an active educator, she has given lectures in schools and organizations including Harvard University, MIT, California State University–East Bay, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Akademie der Künste (Berlin), University of French Polynesia, and Srinakharinwirot University in Thailand.
She has performed in Taiwan, China, Japan, Korea, the United States, Germany, France, and Turkey. She has served as an artist in residence at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa and the Northern Illinois University as a soloist and at the Rice University with ensemble IIIZ+.
She helps students to take the ABRSM exam. Her students have won various awards in national and international competitions.