Lee Hee-ah (born 1985) is a South Korean

pianist A pianist ( , ) is an individual musician who plays the piano. Since most forms of Western music can make use of the piano, pianists have a wide repertoire and a wide variety of styles to choose from, among them traditional classical music, ja ...

Biography

Lee was born with only two fingers on each hand. The thumb of her left hand does not have any bones. At age three, both her legs were amputated below the knee. The prosthetic feet she relies on to walk are soft and hurt very easily, and because of this she cannot walk for long periods of time. Her mother, Woo Kap-sun, took motion-sickness pills to deal with carsickness without realizing she was pregnant, which may have contributed to Lee's birth defects. Her father, Lee Un-bong, was injured in a war and took morphine for 10 years as he was paralyzed below the waist. He died circa 2005. When Lee was seven years old, her mother started her on the piano to train her hands, which at the time could not even hold a pencil. However, the piano later became a source of inspiration to her. She was said to have worked on one passage from Chopin's

Fantaisie-Impromptu Frédéric Chopin's ''Fantaisie-Impromptu'' ( pl, Fantazja-Impromptu) in C minor, Op. posth. 66, WN 46 is a solo piano composition. It was composed in 1834 and published posthumously in 1855 despite Chopin's instruction that none of ...

for five years. In 1992, she won the First Prize at the South Korean National Student Music Contest, and has since won many more contests and has also played in many solo-concerts along with playing with many well-known artists. She was awarded by the then-President of South Korea, Kim Dae-jung, for Overcoming Physical Difficulty. She has also been recognized as one of the best students in Seoul by the South Korean Education Department. She currently attends The South Korean National College of Rehabilitation and Welfare. On June 1, 2008, she wrote an open letter to

Lee Myung-bak Lee Myung-bak (; ; ; born 19 December 1941) is a South Korean businessman and politician who served as the 10th president of South Korea from 2008 to 2013. Before his presidency, he was the CEO of Hyundai Engineering and Construction, and the ma ...

, asking him to apologize to the people for his political involvement with the South Korean protests against American imported beef.

Albums

네 손가락 피아니스트 '희아The four fingered pianist hee-ah''-(2005) 네 손가락의 피아니스트 희아(喜芽) 2''The four fingered pianist hee-ah 2-(2007)''

References

External links

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Disabled Pianist Lee Hee-ah to Release Her First Album
, KBS Global {{DEFAULTSORT:Lee, Hee-ah South Korean people with disabilities Living people South Korean pianists South Korean women pianists 1985 births 21st-century pianists 21st-century women pianists