CHUI-YEE LEE gave up big money for his music. But he has no regrets. Born in Hong Kong, Lee was packed off by his parents to New York's elite Stuyvesant High School when he was nine. He showed so much talent playing the cello that he was admitted to the Pre-College Division of the prestigious Juilliard School, three years later.
He graduated six years after that with three prizes under his belt, but hated the obsession with wunderkinds in the Juilliard community. Lee chose to study economics at Harvard instead, hoping eventually to make a lot of money working for one of the big Wall Street firms.
When he graduated, he spent a year in Boston working as a financial consultant - and soon grew bored with it. The cello called. In 1996, Lee made the decision to pursue a serious performing career. He hasn't looked back.
Lee will perform an ambitious recital on Saturday with pianist Henri Bonamy, as part of the Hong Kong Arts Festival.
In hindsight, Lee says his banking career was a mere prelude - but an important stage in his development.
Initially, he says, it was hard to find a teacher, because at the age of 23, he was considered by some to be too old to study for a solo career. After several months looking around Boston, he got in touch with Laurence Lesser, who agreed to teach him. Lesser had also sacrificed an alternative career for music, having given up the study of mathematics to play the cello.
Lee spent two years under Lesser at the New England Conservatory, then went to London, and put himself in the hands of Swedish cellist Frans Helmerson, whom he followed to Madrid and then Cologne, where he is now based.