Lei Cai was born in Shanghai, China, and started piano at age five. His music training began
at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music when he was only six. Having received the
prestigious Shanghai Conservatory Scholarship Award for five consecutive years, he came to
the United States in 1992. He secured the MM at the University of Tennessee, and DM in
Piano Performance at Florida State University. His teachers include Qing-hua Wang, Stanley
Potter, David Northington, and Leonard Mastrogiacomo. Dr. Cai is currently Professor of
Music and has been on the piano faculty at Ouachita Baptist University since 2001.
Dr. Cai has collaborated with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra on CD. He has premiered
and recorded solo works by the famous Chinese composer, Hua Lin for Radio Shanghai;
those critically acclaimed recordings have been broadcast in China. He has presented
numerous recitals in both China and the United States. His performance of Rachmaninoff’s
First Piano Concerto was described as “one of the finest performances of this work…Cai
displayed a power and crispness of technique that would make any soloist proud” (Knoxville
News-Sentinel). Radio Shanghai described his playing as “clear, colorful, and poetic.”
Dr. Cai has won numerous awards, including the 1998 Music Teachers National Association
Southern Division Collegiate Artist Piano Competition, the 1997 Young Chang Artist
Competition, the 1997 Oak Ridge Symphony Young Artist Competition, Tallahassee Music
Guild Award, and the Liberace Scholarship Award for Performing Arts. He has been invited
to judge national competitions, to perform at world famous music halls including the Sydney
Opera House, to hold master classes in the United States, Korea and China, to perform as the
featured artist at the national convention of the National Federation of Music Clubs and at the
“Hands on Piano” International Piano Conference in Portugal, to present lecture recitals at
the state convention of Florida State Music Teachers Association, and has produced student
MTNA competition winners. Dr. Cai was recently inducted into the
Steinway Teacher Hall of Fame.
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