Piano Illminologue - IF MY DAYS ARE NUMBERED, I SHALL….

This is a piano Illuminologue by pianist and composer Julien Lee.

Piano Illuminologue — from illuminare (to bring light) and logos (speech, expression) — is a journey where sound becomes light and music becomes revelation. It is not merely a concert, but a dialogue between the soul and its own radiance — between the seen and the unseen. Through piano, electronic sound, and poetic storytelling, the artist becomes an “Illuminologue”: one who speaks through light.

In this chapter, If My Days Are Numbered, I Shall…, we follow a man who learns that his time is running out. Faced with death, he discovers an urgent tenderness for life — a longing to reach out to the one he once loved and lost. What begins as a search for reunion unfolds into something deeper and unforeseen: a confrontation with love itself, in its most fragile and luminous form.

Set within the stunning Grade I listed St. John the Baptist Church, Holland Road, London, this performance invites you into a journey that spans birth, passion, death, and resurrection. Through the lens of memory, intimacy, and raw humanity, Julien blends voice-note inspired narratives, classical piano, electronic textures, saxophone, violin, organ, and live improvisation to create a multi-sensory world where music, light, and imagery intertwine.

At the heart of the experience is the grand acoustic piano, the emotional anchor from beginning to end, weaving together the layers of sound, movement, and feelings. Narrations that carry the confessions, longing, and reflections of the performer, while live music, improvisational dance, and projections envelop the audience in a cycle of life and transcendence.

May this journey leave you the scents of graves and heaven, the sweat and mud of passion, the heat of the inferno, and the bliss of euphoria — a true ode to life.

Experience it live — feel the intensity, intimacy, and euphoria as a single, living story unfolds before you.

Instrumentation:

Grand Piano | Violin | Saxophone | Vocal | Improvisational Dance | Church Organ | Digital Synthesizers | Keyboard | Ableton Live Set with Launchpad & Controller | Live Soundscape

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About the artist

Julien Lee is a pianist, poet, and author based in London. Through Piano Illuminologue — his ongoing creation — he seeks to merge music, poetry, film, and visual art into one luminous form of expression, a kind of living monologue through sound and light.

Born in Hong Kong in 1994, Julien began playing the piano at the age of six. At eighteen, he moved to Beijing to study cinematography, beginning a lifelong exploration of how music and image can speak to each other. After graduating, he set out on a wandering journey across the world — a search for meaning, freedom, and beauty that continues to shape his work today.

He has performed at venues across London including London Fashion Week, Royal St Katharine Foundation, St Stephen Walbrook, Armourers’ Hall, Queen Mary University, London Scottish House, St Michael’s Highgate, and Hampstead’s Burgh House, as well as internationally in Italy, Israel, Denmark, Hong Kong, and Switzerland. His performances have been featured on BBC Radio and his music has gathered over 100,000 streams on Spotify.

Julien studied for three years at the Jerusalem Academy of Music with Prof. Yaron Rosenthal (a student of Murray Perahia), who praised his “ability to project deep emotion with rare nobility.” He later worked with Prof. Norma Fisher, Prof. Christian Pohl, Grammy-nominated pianist Andrius Žlabys, and Prof. Mikhail Kazakevich of Trinity Conservatoire, London.

He is also the author of two books — When You Set Out for Ithaca, a collection of reflective writings, and How Long is Forever, a photographic meditation on time and longing.

Julien’s art moves between the spiritual and the everyday — a dialogue between piano, poetry, and silence — seeking to illuminate the unseen with tenderness and wonder.

About the venue

St John the Baptist Church, Holland Road on Holland Road, a hidden masterpiece of Victorian Gothic. Built between 1872 and 1910 by the architect James Brooks, this Grade I listed church rises with cathedral-like ambition from its busy Kensington terrace, its West front crowned by a dramatic wheel window, soaring lancets, and flying buttresses.