Lee Shiak Yao is a multiple international prize and award-winning conductor, vocalist clinician, and lecturer. He graduated with a MMus from the University of Hull, UK, and studied conducting with Andrew Penny and Dr. Lee Tsang. He also mastered the arts of piano accompaniment, under the tutelage of Miss June Stephenson, and vocal singing, under Ralph Macdonald, Lim Cheng Hock, Paul Wade, and Dr. Michela Bertagnolli.

He is very active in all grounds of musical performances and pedagogy on local as well as on international stages, which include conducting wind, symphonic orchestras, and theatrical productions; adjudicating music competitions, conducting master classes and workshops on solo and choral singing, instrumental ensemble playing and professional conducting technique; serving as recital repetiteur and accompanist for singers, instrumentalists, and theatrical productions; singing as soloist or ensemble singer. The choirs and ensembles that he directed had won impressive awards locally as well as on the international scene.

Lee Shiak Yao has performed and lectured in more than 35 countries around the world and he had the privilege of landing himself on the grounds of Scandinavia, Europe, the United States of America, South America, Asia, Southeast Asia, and South Africa. He was awarded the “Honourable Music Art Contribution Award” in year 2010 for his diligent and ceaseless contribution in musical arts all over Malaysia. He received the utmost honour to be the first Malaysian to be invited to perform with the World Youth Choir in the 2011 Nobel Prize Award Ceremony in Norway. 

He is currently serving as the Vice-President of the Malaysian Choral Federation, and the Artistic Director of Klang Chamber Choir and Time Ensemble.