[2022.03.03] TOM LEE MUSIC FOUNDER THOMAS LEE PASSED AWAY AT AGE 101

The funeral was private and only the immediate family attended

The Tom Lee Music social media posted a black and white photo in memory of Thomas Lee

courtesy of mingpao.com

Tom Lee Music founder Thomas Lee Tze Man passed away on February 26th at age 101. His family announced that the funeral would take place on March 4th at the Hong Kong Funeral Home. Due to the severity of the pandemic, family and friends would bid farewell over Zoom. Musician Harris Ho Bing Shun (Denise Ho Wan Si's brother) eulogized him on social media. He mentioned that while in elementary school he went to Tom Lee Music for long flute lessons. After getting into the business he constantly went to rehearse at the Tom Lee engineering department. He wrote, "Mr. Lee, thank you for all your contributions to our Hong Kong music world. I wish that I would run into you again in another same music world."

Lee Tze Man founded Tom Lee Music in 1950. He started from zero, from not knowing anything about instruments to learning about instrument productions and operation management. In 1960s he made piano common place, Tom Lee Music became Hong Kong's largest piano manufacturer. Its piano products were exported overseas to places like the U.S. and Korea. At the time Yamaha still has not risen to fame in Japan, but he still signed on to become its Hong Kong regional agent; at the same time he received from Germany and England manufacturers special permits to assemble pianos in Hong Kong and drastically lower the cost of piano at the time. Tom Lee Music became one of Southeast Asia's largest instrument and sound equipment agent. For years Tom Lee Music was responsible for most of Hong Kong concert engineering, the best in the business.