Throughout its long and celebrated history, the Lucerne Festival has consistently supported young and emerging talent. And such was once again the case on 27 August 2026, as Malaysian-born pianist Bridget Yee made her Festival debut in a lunchtime concert at the Reformed Lukaskirche in Lucerne.
Yee came to London at the age of 11, and obtained a Fellowship Diploma from Trinity College London at 17. A winner of both the Beecham International Piano Competition and the Windsor International Piano Competition, Yee was also a BBC Young Musician Keyboard finalist in 2020.
Bridget Yee
Aside from her impressive qualifications as a cellist and double bassist, the Lucerne Festival describes her as “a pianist who does not fit into any mold.” The programme, ranging from Haydn to the present day, is described as featuring a “distinct taste for the unusual and original.” We contacted Yee several times to get her personal insights into her programming choices, but she was unfortunately unreachable.
Bridget Yee performs: Wagner/Liszt “Liebestod” (Tristan und Isolde)
The programme itself unfolded as a sequence of contrasts. In what might be described as a “first half,” works by Wagner, in a transcription by Liszt, Barber, Haydn, Arafah, and Earl Wild’s transcriptions of Gershwin sounded without pause, resulting in rather unusual shifts in tonality and styles.
Technically competent and occasionally exuberant in her tempo choices, Yee gave a solid account of her pianism and musicianship. However, Arafah’s “shadow undulations of a bellflower” might have benefited from some context.
Probably the most successful works in this sequence, and one she also returned to as an encore, were some of Earl Wild’s arrangements of Gershwin’s Études. Wild was called the “finest transcriber of our time,” and the Gershwin transcriptions are miniature masterpieces indeed.
Bridget Yee © Miki Wecel
Here, Yee was at her most emotionally engaged, finding the delightful seam between the work’s classical polish and its unmistakably popular imprint. The Liszt Sonata had some colourful moments, but clearly, it is not a work that is easily sustained or convincingly projected. In terms of its long-range direction, the performance felt less assured.
Bridget Yee is a promising young pianist, and the diplomas earned and competitions won are surely not the end of the road. They are only the beginning of a long and arduous journey to find her voice as an artist ultimately.
At twenty-two, there is ample time to develop that voice, and we wish her every success on that journey.
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