Thomas Lee, founder of Hong Kong's leading music store, Tom Lee Music Store, passed away on February 26 at the age of 101.
His family announced that the funeral will be held on March 4. Due to the severe epidemic situation, relatives and friends will be arranged to send off with Zoom.
According to the reporter's understanding, Tom Lee Music Store yesterday (1st) informed the employees of the news of the founder's death.
The reporter of "Hong Kong 01" also inquired about the arrangement of the farewell ceremony by Zoom.
Started in 1951 and started assembling pianos
Tom Lee Music Store is currently one of the largest musical instruments and audio equipment distributors in Southeast Asia. It was founded by Li Ziwen in 1951.
He originally came to Hong Kong from Shanghai to run a textile and silk business. Later, after lobbying by his old classmates, he took over the piano shop he ran and changed his name to Tom Lee. The English name of the piano shop Tom Lee is the abbreviation of Li Ziwen's English name Thomas Lee.
Li Ziwen popularized the piano in the 1960s, and obtained the license to assemble the piano in Germany and the United Kingdom. He assembled the piano in Hong Kong, which greatly reduced the cost of the piano at that time. He established the Tongli Music Fund and opened a concert hall in the name of the piano shop.
According to reports in the early years of Li Ziwen's son Li Jingzhang, in the 1960s, Yamaha, which was not yet well-known in Japan, wanted to open up the Asian market after World War II. Seeing that Yamaha's pianos were 60-70% higher than German ones, they thought they could attract local people to buy pianos. , so they signed up to be their agent in Hong Kong.