James Lee III: Concerto America National Initiative

Admired for his “bright, pure music” (The Washington Post), with music described as “atmospheric and endlessly inventive” (Cincinnati Business Courier), James Lee III is the composer of more than 80 works for orchestra, chamber ensemble, piano, vocals, choral ensemble and more. During the 2024-2025 season, he will be composer-in-residence with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.

Raised in the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Lee has taken rich inspiration from close study of Biblical texts, from history, and from the international presence of his faith. In addition to English, he speaks five languages: German, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Hebrew. Among his career honors, Lee has been recognized with a Charles Ives Scholarship and the Wladimir Lakond Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Lee’s compositions have been performed by major orchestras and solo performers across the United States as well as Europe and Latin America, and can be heard on nine recordings, including Anthony McGill and the Pacifica Quartet’s GRAMMY Award-nominated American Stories, cellist Inbal Segev’s 20 for 2020, and the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony led by Marin Alsop. 

For winter and spring of 2024, Lee’s highlights include the world premiere of his English horn concerto Courageous Lights, performed by Darci Gamerl and the Augusta Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Dirk Meyers. This season also brings performances of his work by soprano Susanna Phillips, cellist Myra Huang, clarinetist Anthony McGill, and soprano Karen Slack with the Pacifica Quartet. Among the major orchestral performances for the early part of 2024, Lee’s work features on programs by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Hamburg Symphony Orchestra, Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra, Mississippi Symphony Orchestra, and Lincoln’s Symphony Orchestra in Nebraska. In fall 2023, works by Lee were performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, New World Symphony and Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. His piano concerto Shades of Unbroken Dreams was premiered by pianist Alexandra Dariescu and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Fabien Gabel – followed by the UK premiere by Dariescu and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra.

In a string of premieres over recent years, Lee has introduced orchestral works including Amer’ican, premiered by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra; Freedom’s Genuine Dawn, premiered by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra; Arukah Symphony, premiered by the Maryland Symphony Orchestra; Hold On, America, Hold On!, premiered by the Battle Creek Symphony Orchestra; and Tethered Voices, premiered by the University Symphony Orchestra at the University of Michigan. Other works to see their world premieres in recent seasons include Lee’s flute concerto Niiji Memories, premiered by Julietta Curenton and the Columbia Orchestra; his chamber piece Tones of Clay, premiered by the Calyx Piano Trio at Tanglewood; his Violin Concerto No. 2 “Teshuah,” premiered by violinist Carla Trynchuk and the Andrews University Symphony Orchestra; and a piece composed for soprano and string quartet, A Double Standard, performed by Karen Slack and the Pacifica String Quartet at Carnegie Hall.

In the course of his composing career, Lee’s orchestral works have been commissioned and premiered by the National Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, New World Symphony Orchestra, and the orchestras of Philadelphia, Indianapolis, Omaha, Pasadena, Memphis, Grand Rapids, Cincinnati, Atlanta, Akron – led by conductors including Leonard Slatkin, Marin Alsop, Michael Tilson Thomas, Juanjo Mena, David Lockington and Thomas Wilkins, among others. As winner of the Sphinx Commissioning Consortium for the 2011-2012 season, Lee composed one of his best known works, Sukkot Through Orion’s Nebula, which was premiered by the New World Symphony Orchestra, led by Michael Tilson Thomas, in 2011. In 2014, he was a Fulbright Scholar and Visiting Professor to the State University of Campinas in Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil, where he composed, taught composition, and researched the music of 20th and 21st century Brazilian composers. Lee also previously served as composer-in-residence for the Ritz Chamber Players, an African-American chamber music society based in Jacksonville, Florida. He was selected for two key commissions by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra: Chuphshah! Harriet’s Drive to Canaan, a work inspired by the life of Harriet Tubman, and Thurgood’s Rhapsody, commissioned for the orchestra’s centennial season in 2015-2016.

Lee’s compositions are captured on albums including Voyages – Orchestral Music by James Lee III (RSO Records, 2022), recorded by ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra with conductor Marin Alsop, and Alkebulan's Son: The Piano Works of James Lee III (Albany Records, 2014), recorded by pianist Rochelle Sennet. Selections of his work can also be heard on Compelling Portraits (Navona Records, 2023), by trombonist Kenneth Thompkins; Inbal Segev: 20 for 2020 (Avie Records, 2022), by cellist Inbal Segev; American Stories (Cedille Records, 2022), by Anthony McGill and the Pacifica Quartet; Threads (Elmhurst Records, 2022), by cellist Rebecca Merblum; Memories Unsettled (Navona Records, 2022), by the Gibbs Street Duo; Recuerdos Diaspóricos (Blue Griffin Records, 2022), by pianist Josh Tatsuo Cullen; and Christmas at America's First Cathedral (Gothic Records, 2010), by Baltimore Choral Arts Orchestral, with conductor Tom Hall.

Born in St. Joseph, Michigan, Lee began his musical studies as a piano student. After earning a bachelor’s degree in piano performance from the University of Michigan, he was advised by a friend – Latin GRAMMY Award-winning composer Gabriela Lena Frank – to enter the university’s Master of Music program in composition, where he earned both master’s and doctoral degrees in composition. His career began in earnest when his dissertation work Beyond Rivers of Vision (2005) was premiered by Leonard Slatkin and the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. in October 2006. A second early work, A Different Soldier's Tale, was premiered by Slatkin and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in December 2008. Lee currently lives with his wife Adnéia in Maryland, where he is a professor of theory and composition at Morgan State University. His passions beyond music include his faith, travel, languages and international soccer.

His compositions teachers included Michael Daugherty, William Bolcom, Bright Sheng, Betsy Jolas, Susan Botti, Erik Santos and James Aikman. Lee also served as a composition fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center in the summer of 2002, studying with Osvaldo Golijov, Michael Gandolfi, Steven Mackey, Kaija Saariaho, and Stefan Asbury.

About Jeffrey Biegel:

In an age when many artists' fortunes begin with a meteoric ascent and quickly cool with the inexorable free-fall, pianist Jeffrey Biegel has managed to buck that trend, fashioning a career of steady success studded with concerts at major venues with major orchestras, a Grammy winning recording, and more than 25 commissioned works by living composers. His life takes its roots from age three, barely able to hear nor speak, until corrected by surgery. The 'reverse Beethoven' phenomenon explains his lifelong commitment to music, having heard only vibrations in his formative years. The pandemic year of 2020 focused on composing original "Waltzes of Hope", "Sonatina", and "Three Reflections: JFK, RBG and MLK" for solo piano, and for piano and orchestra, orchestrations by Harrison Sheckler. 2021 saw the world premieres of his "Reflection of Justice: An Ode to Ruth Bader Ginsburg" with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich's "Remembering Ruth Bader Ginsburg" for mezzo-soprano, piano and orchestra in tribute to the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, with mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves. Also, the world premiere of Ellen Taaffe Zwilich's "Shadows" newly arranged for piano and seven players with the Idaho State Civic Symphony. In 2022, he premiered Jim Stephenson's 'Piano Concerto', Daniel Perttu's 'A Planets Odyssey' for piano and orchestra, Farhad Poupel's "The Legend of Bijan and Manijeh" for piano, orchestra and chorus, his own concerto, 'Three Reflections: Freedom (JFK), Justice (RBG) Equality (MLK)', and Christopher Marshall's 'Thanksgiving Variations on "We Gather Together"'. For 2023, The 50-state Rhapsody National Initiative begins, with the Utah Symphony leading a three-season effort with Peter Boyer's "Rhapsody in Red, White & Blue", with a world premiere recording of the new Rhapsody with Peter Boyer conducting the London Symphony Orchestra for a February 2024 Naxos digital release. The 2024-25 season foresees a new work for piano and orchestra by Adolphus Hailstork with the Pacific Symphony, Carl St. Clair conducting, and Grammy winning singer/songwriter, Melissa Manchester's 'AWAKE' for piano and orchestra (premiere tba).

Considered the most prolific artist of his generation, Moravian College in Bethlehem, PA, conferred the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Humane Letters upon Mr. Biegel in 2015, for his achievements in performance, recordings, chamber music, champion of new music, composer, arranger and educator. In 2019, Kenneth Fuchs's "Piano Concerto: 'Spiritualist'" with the London Symphony Orchestra led by JoAnn Falletta received a Grammy Award for Best Classical Compendium, featuring Mr. Biegel as its soloist. In 2019, the first digital recordings were released on Mr. Biegel's Naturally Sharp label: "Cyberecital: An Historic Recording", "A Pianist's Journey", and the September 2021 release of George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" 1924 version with the Adrian Symphony Orchestra, Bruce Kiesling conducting.

Mr. Biegel created the first largest consortium of orchestras in 1998 for Ellen Taaffe Zwilich's 'Millennium Fantasy' premiered with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in 2000, followed with Charles Strouse's 'Concerto America' with the Boston Pops, Lowell Liebermann's 'Concerto no. 3' with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, William Bolcom's 'Prometheus' for piano, orchestra and chorus, with the Pacific Symphony and Pacific Chorale, Richard Danielpour's 'Mirrors' with the Pacific Symphony, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich's 'Shadows' with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, Jake Runestad's 'Dreams of the Fallen' with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra and Symphony Chorus of New Orleans, Lucas Richman's 'Piano Concerto: In Truth' with the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra, recorded with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and Kenneth Fuchs's "Piano Concerto: 'Spiritualist'" with the Springfield Symphony Orchestra (MA). He also premiered and recorded Giovanni Allevi's 'Concerto for Piano and Orchestra' and commissioned Christopher Theofanidis's "Concerto no. 2 for Piano and Orchestra" with the Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra, the "Peanuts Concerto" by Dick Tunney, based on music by Vince Guaraldi, Jimmy Webb's 'Nocturne for Piano and Orchestra' and, PDQ Bach's 'Concerto for Simply Grand Piano and Orchestra' by Peter Schickele with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra. Bringing new music to youth orchestras saw the world premiere of Daniel Dorff's 'Piano Concerto' with the Etowah Youth Orchestra, conducted by Michael Gagliardo.

He studied at The Juilliard School with Adele Marcus, herself a pupil of Josef Lhevinne and Artur Schnabel, and is currently on faculty at the Conservatory of Music at Brooklyn College.