David Oei


David Oei is a Hong Kong-born American classical pianist.

Biography

Oei was born in Hong Kong, into a family that had emigrated from Amoy, Fujian in 1934 to open a branch of The China & South Sea Bank founded by his Chinese-Indonesian great grandfather Oei Ik-Tjoe. In Hong Kong, he began studying classical piano at the age of four with Tu Yuet-Sien. At age 9, after winning eleven first prizes at the Hong Kong Music Festival, he was a soloist with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra. At age 10, he immigrated to the United States by winning a full scholarship to study with Mieczysław Munz at the Peabody Conservatory and later accepted a full scholarship to study with Munz and Ilona Kabos at the Juilliard School from 1964 to 1972, leaving a year short of graduation to perform with Peter Schickele as a member of The Intimate P. D. Q. Bach until 1985. Schickele regularly introduced him to the audience as having "a black belt in piano". During that same period he also founded the Aspen Soloists, a piano trio that toured extensively under CAMI management. He attended the Interlochen Music Camp from 1963 to 1967 and won the concerto competition in each of those five years. He also won the Concert Artists Guild, WQXR Young Artists, Young Musicians Foundation, and Paul Ulanowsky Chamber Pianists competitions. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen on November 20, 1985.
Oei made his first appearance on U.S. network television on February 22, 1966, on one of the famous Young People's Concerts conducted by Leonard Bernstein with Helene Jeanney.
Oei has taught at Hoff-Barthelson Music School in Scarsdale, New York and in the Preparatory Division at Mannes College of Music. He has taught at Summertrios and the Bennington Chamber Music Conference. A former regular fixture at Chamber Music Northwest and Bargemusic, he has performed at various festivals including Sitka, Caramoor, OK Mozart, Washington Square Music Festival, and Kuhmo. He has served as an affiliated teacher at the State University of New York at Purchase and he was the Volunteers Coordinator and Head Coach for the Manhattan Special Olympics.
Beginning in the mid-1980s, Oei also served for five years as the Music Director and Production Advisor for Music-Theatre Group's productions of Stanley Silverman and Richard Foreman's Africanis Instructus and Love and Science. In July 2001 he served as the Music Director for the Sundance Theater Workshop production of the opera Yiddisha Teddy Bears. Oei became a member of the Alaria Chamber Ensemble in 2009.
In April 2015, Oei was arrested and charged with inappropriate fondling of one of his piano students, a 15-year-old girl, in his mid-town home in New York City. He was suspended by the New School within days afterwards. In November 2015, Oei accepted a plea bargain with a requirement for mental health treatment for 2 years.
Oei lives in New York City with his wife, the violinist Eriko Sato.

Discography