Tereza Lee, D.M.A., is a pianist “whose touch is exceptionally clear,” according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

A sought-after performer and educator, she has appeared as a soloist at Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Steinway Hall, Bargemusic, and the Ravinia Festival, and has premiered works by Aaron Jay Kernis, Augusta Read Thomas, Ned Rorem, Josephine Lee, and Kenneth Frazelle. At 16, she became the first student from an inner-city school to win first prize in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Youth Concerto Competition and performed with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Tereza Lee has taught at the Manhattan School of Music since 2011 and currently teaches in its Precollege Division. Since 2022, she has served as Director of Programs at Church Street School for Music and Art, where she has helped more than double the school’s enrollment, programs, and number of students served. She created the school’s highly successful summer camp from the ground up, helped launch TJI, its youth band factory, and developed a dozen additional off-site, in-school programs, expanding the school’s reach into new communities while strengthening its financial sustainability.

A longtime member of Church Street School, Tereza has been part of the community for more than 18 years—first as a piano teacher and now as Director of Programs. Her commitment to expanding access to music and arts education is deeply personal. She grew up undocumented and in poverty in a neighborhood where higher education was not an expectation and the odds of pursuing a career in music were far from certain. With the support of teachers and mentors who recognized her potential, she went on to earn a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Manhattan School of Music in 2020.

Tereza’s journey from a student who was not expected to succeed to a doctorallevel musician and arts educator has shaped her belief that talent exists everywhere, but opportunity does not. Her work is grounded in creating the access, encouragement, and support that can change the trajectory of a young person’s life.

Her story has been featured in The New York Times, PBS, NPR, USA Today, The Economist, NY1, WNYC, the PBS documentary Asian Americans, and the children’s book 100 Immigrant Women Who Changed the World. Her role in helping inspire Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois to introduce the DREAM Act has also been widely documented.