Christopher Lee   composer

Welcome to the online home of Cleveland-based composer Christopher Lee.

Visit the new online vacation cottage of Cleveland-based composer Christopher Lee at www.myspace.com/christopherleecomposer. 

Percussionist Jeremy Craycraft has commissioned a concerto for percussion and wind ensemble to be premiered in the Fall of 2009 with the Baldwin-Wallace College Conservatory Wind Ensemble, led by music director and Professor of Conducting Dwight Oltman. Jeremy had previously commissioned Akom in 2008 and the wind ensemble at Baldwin-Wallace gave the premiere of Up with Maestro Oltman in 2005.

A new work for orchestra, Interiors, will receive its premiere on December 5, 2008 by Rice University's Shepherd School of Music Symphony Orchestra. The concert will take place in the Stude Concert Hall of Rice University, Houston, Texas.

New audio excerpts have been added to the List of Works page.

Skywriting for solo alto flute has been slated for publication by Falls House Press and distribution by Theodore Presser. Falls House Press specializes in music for flute and represents many contemporary composers including Elliott Schwartz and Allan Blank.

Listen to mp3 audio of the Cleveland Youth Wind Symphony's performance of Up on May 5, 2008. 

Watch a video of the April 26th premiere of Akom, a new work for percussion ensemble based on ceremonial music of Ghana. It is performed by the excellent hand drum ensemble of the College of St. Scholastica. The group is led by director and soloist Jeremy Craycraft, who commissioned the piece. Read more about it on the College's web page.

The first movement of the Sonata for Cello and Piano was premiered on March 2, 2008 at the Church of the Epiphany in Euclid, Ohio by Akron Symphony cellist Tara Klein and Ron Palka. Watch a video  of a performance from March 16 at the Beck Center for the Arts here.

In memoriam Donald Erb, 1927-2008

I had the good fortune to be one of Don's last students at the Cleveland Institute of Music before his retirement in 1996. At the time I had aspirations to become a full-time percussionist, and during my last year of high school only sent him a few of my earliest pieces on a lark, not knowing what I would do if I happened to be approved for a double major at the Institute. He was very encouraging and as it turned out, after auditions I was given my choice of a single major; I think the percussion department was relieved that I chose to become a composer.
I feel very lucky to have worked with Don, especially at such an impressionable stage in my development. The impressions he left with all his students are valuable ones that, at least for me, continue to resonate and gain new significance even now, all these years later. Not only did he show by (often shockingly direct) word and example how to compose, but he ingrained in us the sense of responsibility that comes with calling yourself an artist. I have met far too few people like him.

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