Through a public school program, Nina Lee began learning cello in Chesterfield, MO at the age of ten. Six years later, she left home to study with David Soyer at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, PA. She went on to complete her Bachelors and Masters of Music at the Juilliard School in New York City with Joel Krosnick, attended the Tanglewood Music Festival, and toured with the Marlboro Music Festival where she collaborated with Mitsuko Uchida, Andras Schiff, Felix Galimir and Samuel Rhodes.
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In 1999, Ms. Lee joined the Brentano Quartet with whom she has been privileged to perform throughout North America, Europe Australia, New Zealand, China and Japan. In addition, she has not only recorded the music of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven but has also championed new music represented in her quartet’s commissioned works of Stephen Hartke, Steve Mackey, Vijay Iyer, James MacMillan, Bruce Adolphe, Sofia Gubaidulina, and Shulamit Ran (to name a few). Ms. Lee has recorded for the Azica, Naxos, Mode,
Cantaloupe, Albany and Tzadik labels.
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Among the various projects the Brentano Quartet has undertaken, it was asked to record the soundtrack to the 2012 film, “A Late Quartet” which centered around Beethoven’s Op. 131. The film, starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Christopher Walken and Catherine Keener also features Ms. Lee playing herself in a cameo.
As important to her life as a musician, Ms. Lee has made a commitment to teaching chamber music. She has been on the faculty at Princeton and Columbia Universities and is currently coaching chamber music at the Yale School of Music where the Brentano Quartet has been in residence since 2014. Regular summer appearances in performing and teaching include the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival and the Taos School of Music. Ms. Lee has also participated as a guest faculty member at the St. Lawrence String Quartet Chamber Music Seminar and the Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music and this summer she will join the faculty of Kneisel Hall.. She also has made numerous appearances at the Spoleto Festival USA and the La Jolla SummerFest. Ms. Lee has also served on the jury of the Salzburg International Quartet Competition in 2023 and future plans include joining the jury of the Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition Jury in 2025.
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Ms. Lee makes her home in Brooklyn, New York where she lives with her husband and 2 children. When she isn’t playing the cello or teaching, she loves spending time with her family, cooking, entertaining, organizing chamber music salons and finding new ways to be creative!

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