Francesco Lecce-Chong
Longmont, CO

Francesco Lecce-Chong is 15 years old and is a 9th grader at Pleasant Hill Academy and is homeschooled. He lives on a small sheep farm west of Longmont with his mother, an artist, and father, a medical architect. His sheep and fleeces have won awards in Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas.

Francesco has played piano for 7 years, violin for 6 and clarinet for 1 year. He also enjoys composing. Francesco currently studies with Crystal Lee on piano, Professor James Maurer on the violin, Mary Jungerman for clarinet and Professor Carlton Gamer for music composition.

Francesco has performed as piano soloist with three local orchestras: the Mostly Strauss Orchestra, Littleton Symphony and the Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra. Francesco's compositions have won state and regional awards in the National Federation of Music Clubs Composer's contest. He has also won composition awards from the Pikes Peak Young Composers Competition and a superior award from David Karp at the International Composition Contest of the Americas. He has received piano awards in the Colorado State Music Teachers Association Concerto Contest, Twelfth Annual Arts at Plymouth, Yamaha Piano Competition, and the Boulder Young Soloist Competition. Last year, Francesco received an award from Optimist Club International for his volunteer work at the music care program at Boulder Community Hospital. Recently, Francesco gave a music appreciation lecture and performance to children at Chris Finger's Pianos in Niwot.

Francesco is a member of the Young Musicians Foundation which awards scholarships to Colorado's young musicians. Francesco also enjoys being the pianist in the Colorado Fourteeners Piano Trio which includes BYS members Annie Daigle and Kim Bredehoft.

Francesco is also an amateur radio operator with a general license and he likes training his sheepdog, Myrtle. Appalachian clogging and fiddling is another way Francesco shares music with others.

Francesco hopes for a future as a pianist, composer, and conductor.