Benjamin Lees
b.8 January 1924, Harbin, Manchuria
Biographie
Benjamin Lees was born on January 8, 1924 and spent his early years in San Francisco, moving to Los Angeles with his family in 1939. He began piano studies at the age of five with K. I. Rodetsky, continuing with Marguerite Bitter in Los Angeles. He attended the University of Southern California after military service in World War II and later began four years of intensive private study with George Antheil. Following a Fromm Foundation Award in 1953 and his first Guggenheim Fellowship in 1954 the composer and his wife left for Europe. He remained there for seven years, creating new works in a village near Paris. During this period, his compositions were performed on RTF, Paris and the BBC, London.
Lees returned to the U.S. in 1962, joining the faculty of the Peabody Conservatory, Baltimore as the W. Alton Jones Professor of Composition. In the years following, major performances of his work were given by the Cleveland Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Lees is particularly admired for his works featuring concertante group and orchestra: his Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra (1964) has been performed by more than 35 ensembles. Other works in this series include his Concerto for Woodwind Quintet and Orchestra (1976) commissioned by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and his Concerto for Brass Choir and Orchestra, commissioned and premiered by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra in 1983. Also frequently heard is the Passacaglia for Orchestra, a 1976 piece commissioned by Antal Dorati for the National Symphony Orchestra.
Lees's scores often make intensive use of particular intervals and their inversions; this technique combines with the presence of contrapuntal devices such as canons, fugues, and stretti to create a sense of expanded tonality. In his orchestral works, he often constructs monumental sonorities, with shifting meters shaping an underlying pulse. The British critic Bret Johnson has written, "The Lees style is instantly recognizable and every work is possessed of lofty grandeur."
Among his works of the 1980’s, Symphony No. 4 (Memorial Candles) commissioned and premiered by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra in 1985, is of major significance. Since its premiere it has been performed by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the Philharmonia (London), Houston Symphony Orchestra, Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. A recording of Symphony No. 4 has recently been issued on the Naxos label; reviewing the disc, Stephen Pettitt of The Sunday Times called Symphony No. 4 a work of "immense power and ambition…evoking all the fear, desolation and darkness of that terrible episode."
Lees’s first orchestral work of the 1990s was his Concerto for French Horn and Orchestra (1992), commissioned by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. Lorin Maazel conducted the premiere with William Caballero as soloist, following which Maazel and company performed the concerto on tour in England and Germany to admiring notices. His next major opus was Echoes of Normandy, commissioned by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra to commemorate the 50th anniversary of D-Day. Scored for solo tenor, organ, pre-recorded tape, and orchestra, Echoes of Normandy (1994) had its premiere in Dallas under the direction of Andrew Litton.
Other orchestral works of the 1990s include Borealis (1993), commissioned by the Wichita Symphony; Celebration (1996) for the Lancaster Symphony Orchestra; and Constellations, premiered by the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo in July 1997 under the baton of James DePreist. Pierre-Petite of Le Figaro noted the "remarkable transparency and invention" of Constellations, praising the piece’s "subtle magic, that which one formerly called the harmony of the spheres." Spurred by the success of Constellations, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo commissioned Lees to compose a Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra, which premiered December 5, 1999. The Nice-Matin critic in Monte Carlo praised the concerto as "the quintessence of percussion."
Recent years have seen a spate of new recordings: With the release on Albany Records of Lees's second, third, and fifth symphonies, all of the composer's extant essays in the medium are now available on disc. Albany has also issued his Piano Concerto No. 2, lauded in Fanfare for its "meticulous craftsmanship, unwavering focus, clarity of texture and streamlined sense of purpose." Delos has recently released a recording of the Passacaglia for Orchestra, with James DePreist leading the Oregon Symphony.
Major soloists and chamber groups performing the works of Benjamin Lees have included Emanuel Ax, Gary Graffman, Maureen Forrester, Henryk Szeryng, Ruggiero Ricci, Elmar Oliveira, Peter Frankl, and Georgy Pauk; the Juilliard String Quartet, Paganini Quartet, Tokyo String Quartet, Aurora String Quartet, Budapest String Quartet, the Williams Trio and the Pacific Arts Trio. A pair of compact discs on the Albany label - a recital of Lees’s complete violin music performed by Ellen Orner, and a release featuring Ian Hobson in three of the composer’s major piano works - have gained enthusiastic critical praise. His Piano Trio No. 2 "Silent Voices," commissioned by cellist Stephen Honigberg and the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, had its German premiere in November 2002 at the Centrum Judaicum in Berlin, and has since been recorded on the Albany label. Other recent chamber works include his String Quartet No. 5 (2002) for the Cypress String Quartet, and Tapestry for flute, clarinet, cello, and piano (2003), a Pacific Serenades commission.
In addition to his post at the Peabody Conservatory, Lees has taught composition at Queens College, the Manhattan School of Music, and the Juilliard School. Lees has been awarded, among other prizes, two Guggenheim Fellowships; the UNESCO Award (Paris) for String Quartet No. 2; the Sir Arnold Bax Medal; Copley Foundation Award; a Fulbright Fellowship; and the Composer’s Award from the Lancaster Symphony. Major articles on his works have been written for Tempo magazine by Deryck Cooke, Nicolas Slonimsky, Niall O'Loughlin and Bret Johnson.
Benjamin Lees is published by Boosey & Hawkes
July 2004
This biography can be reproduced free of charge in concert programmes with the following credit: Reprinted by kind permission of Boosey & Hawkes
FAQ |
Kontakt/Impressum |
Links |
Über Uns |
Shopverzeichnis |
Stellen |
AGB |
Haftungsausschluss |
Hilfe
Mailinglist
Melden Sie sich an für Updates und Angebote per E-Mail
ZUR REGISTRIERUNGShop für Benjamin Lees
