IT'S HARD TO imagine that Colleen Lee Ka-ling once considered a career in competitive swimming. The softly spoken, slight young woman seems an unlikely candidate for the punishing regimen of top-level sport. But Lee, who last month finished sixth at the International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, regarded swimming as a realistic alternative to music when she was a teenager.
'At that time, I was deciding whether to continue with my studies, to take up music, or to put more effort into swimming,' says the 24-year-old, who returns to her postgraduate studies in Hannover, Germany, today after a brief break in Hong Kong.
'I understood that I couldn't take everything, so I picked the piano,' she says. Lee's choice was pragmatic: the professional life of a musician is much longer than that of an athlete. So, from the age of 13 she embarked on an intense schedule of study, practice, performance and competitions.
Lee plays for eight hours a day, easing up only during competitions, when optimum performance requires more rest breaks and only six hours of daily practice.
But the hard work paid off when Lee became the first Hong Kong finalist in the International Chopin Piano Competition - the event that lifted former winner Li Yundi to stardom.
'She's one of the most promising young classical musicians in Hong Kong,' says Yip Wing-sie, music director of the Hong Kong Sinfonietta, who taught Lee at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts (APA). 'She's a pianist with a very solid technique. She has great musicality and is a very talented player.'