Lee started piano at the age of twelve at the Edith B. Garrett School in Benton Harbor, Michigan. By age sixteen, he started composing while a student at Andrews Academy. Playing his own compositions on piano, he twice won talent show competitions at AA. Following graduation he studied piano at Andrews University with Dr. Peter Cooper for two years.

Lee completed his undergraduate and graduate degrees at the University of Michigan, earning a B.Mus. in piano performance in 1999, an M.Mus in 2001, and a D.M.A. in composition in 2005. His teachers have included William Bolcom, Bright Sheng, Susan Botti, Curtis Curtis-Smith, James Aikman, Erik Santos, and Betsy Jolas.

He has won many honors in both piano performance and composing. These have included playing in the Brown Bag Concert Series at the First Congregational Church (1997), Benton Harbor, Michigan and winning the $5000 Award in the Monday Musical Competition (1998), also in Benton Harbor.

He was one of four winners in the Emerging African American Composers Series associated with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in 2001. His winning work, Papa Lapa, movement one, was played by the UM Philharmonia Orchestra in February, 2001, at Hill Auditorium at UM and in April by the Detroit Symphony under the direction of Thomas Wilkins. Lee was also one of two winners in a choral composition competition for the Leigh Morris Chorale at MacAlester College in Minnesota.

Lee was accepted as a composition fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center in Lenox, Massachusetts, and worked with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus during his stay there in 2002. In 2003, he was one of six composers to receive the Charles Ives prize for music composition from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He was honored in a special ceremony held in New York City in May.

During the spring of 2003 Lee had two sacred songs published in Sing Unto the Lord: 99 New Songs, a collection which features music by Seventh-day Adventist composers and songwriters. His Songs for Soprano and Piano will be included in the next edition of Willis Patterson's The Anthology of African American Art Songs.

ds/2006

Lee’s orchestral composition Beyond Rivers of Vision received its world premiere performance in October 2006 during three subscription-series concerts by the National Symphony Orchestra under the direction of its music director, Leonard Slatkin. An acclaimed champion of contemporary American music, Slatkin has conducted many of the world’s great orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, the orchestras of Chicago and Boston, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, and others.

Beyond Rivers of Vision is a 14-minute work based on texts from Genesis 2 and 3, Daniel 10, and Revelation 22. As Lee says, it "is a three-movement work for orchestra focusing on various rivers in the Bible, on men based near those rivers, and on visions connected with those men." The score is for large orchestra, with frequent divisions within the string sections and a large percussion component calling for four percussionists and some twenty percussion instruments plus celesta and piano.

Based on an introduction from William Bolcom, noted Pulitzer-prize-winning composer, Lee contacted Leonard Slatkin via email. Of two options for times to meet Slatkin, Lee chose the earlier one. Lee comments, "I was actually very fortunate, because that time was actually one week before he was going to formalize the next season . . . ."

Lee met with Slatkin at the Kennedy Center in February 2006, the score of Beyond Rivers in tow. Tim Smith, music critic of the Baltimore Sun, chronicled Slatkin’s reaction ("Composer on the fast track," 17 October 2006). " 'When James came to see me, what I found was somebody who clearly knows what he wants both musically and orchestrationally,' he says. 'I found the work not only engaging and colorful, but also deeply moving.' "

But would Slatkin perform the work? After two days of suspense, Lee got the answer. As Lee relates it, Slatkin told him, "'It’s done! We’re going to do your work.' He thought I had an individual voice, with something to say in the composition." comments Lee.

Later, Lee attended concerts by the Andrews University Symphony Orchestra, then went to the university music library to study scores of the works that he had heard. His young mind grappled with compositions as diverse as those of minimalist John Adams (especially Fearful Symmetries) and colorist Ottorino Resphigi (Pines of Rome). He was also influenced by the religiously inspired music of French composer Olivier Messiaen (Illuminations From the Beyond). His participation in choirs at AA at AU also fed his compositional roots.

While still a teenager, Lee composed experimentally along lines of works that he had heard. At age 18, he wrote a piano concerto that he performed at AA and AU with an ensemble conducted by Morihiko Nakahara.

Against this background of early musical growth, diverse composition teachers influenced Lee during his graduate-school years. His primary teachers at the University of Michigan included William Bolcom, a highly-eclectic composer with a special affinity for American popular music. Bolcom shaped Lee’s master’s degree study and eventually introduced Lee to maestro Leonard Slatkin of the National Symphony Orchestra. (Slatkin had conducted some 450 musicians in the recording of Bolcom’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience, winner of four Grammy awards, at the University of Michigan in 2004.)

While James Lee III the composer seems to distance himself from using American popular idioms and content, a significant connecting point for Lee with Daugherty is their common affinity for the use of icons. In Daugherty’s case, the icons are those of American popular culture; in Lee’s, those of biblical narrative and prophecy.

Daugherty says, "For me icons serve as [a] way to have an emotional reason to compose a new work. . . . The icon can be an old postcard, magazine, photograph, knick-knack, matchbook, piece of furniture or roadmap. Like Ives and Mahler, I use icons in my music to provide the listener and performer with a layer of reference. However, one does [not] need the reference of the icon to appreciate my music." Daugherty’s approach seems to apply with similar force to Lee’s Beyond Rivers of Vision.

Lee has found a venue, though, for teaching from the Bible through active Sabbath school participation. "During one Sabbath school, some people seemed kind of confused. . ." he says. After he spoke up with a clarifying voice, he got the reaction "That’s, like, the clearest explanation we’ve ever heard for that."

Sabbath-school class is one matter; the concert hall is quite another. Can one expound with clarity from the Bible in a world-class concert hall?

Lee is, of course, not the first composer to answer, "Yes." Lee asserts, "I thought of how [French orchestral and keyboard composer Messiaen]. . . did not seem to shy away from writing works with a strong religious content" even though other composers did not have a particular interest in doing so. Lee concludes, "If [Messiaen], with his Catholic background, could write works like this, then I could write [such works]. I want to provide more of an Adventist interpretation," he believes. "People are so confused as to what these prophecies actually mean. . . Daniel chapter 10 is a good example" wherein an unseen great controversy is occurring, says Lee.

But how does this message come across? While Lee’s separate movements bear titles, the first two titles seem cryptic for most modern concertgoers while the third title is somewhat more accessible. Lee’s published program notes are silent as to the content of the subtext stories.

What, then, formed the basis for the audience’s reactions to the work? Given the "Wow!" factor of Lee’s brilliant orchestration (which Slatkin related explicitly to music of Maurice Ravel), his taut thematic deployment and skillful formal development, and the wash of emotion that streams from the score, there was plenty to appreciate without knowing the religious subtext.

Music critic Tim Page of The Washington Post, under the headline "NSO Delights With Old and New" (October 20, 2006), commented on the work’s religious subtext and certain "mathematical techniques" of Lee, but said that "one need neither know nor care about either matter to enjoy this bright, eventful score, which plays out attractively as pure music. . . ."

But how did audience members react? Those whom I interviewed spoke uniformly favorably. "I loved it," said Betsy Harris, "… and I don’t always like contemporary music."

Alan Schecht spoke appreciatively about Slatkin’s choosing short works by artists unknown to him, saying that he enjoyed the work and was "pleasantly surprised." A member of Lee’s church choir, David Haynes, commented, "I loved the piece . . . I was in tears halfway through it . . ." Dr. Joseph DeGangi enthused, "I thought it was spectacular," and heard allusions to Bernstein and Debussy in the work.

Carole Calhoun thought she heard sounds of folk music in Lee’s piece and thus connected it with similar traits in the Dvorak cello concerto that followed in the concert program. Calhoun continued, "I knew he was a person of color before I had seen him," referring to what she heard as sounds of the southern United States.

The reactions of Tim Smith, music critic for The Baltimore Sun (24 October 2006) who attended the second performance, were significant and extended. Smith wrote, "…on the evidence of my initial encounter with the music of James Lee III, I’d say he’s a composer who has what it takes. And has a future. That his three-movement work . . . should end up being premiered by conductor Leonard Slatkin and the National Symphony Orchestra . . . says a lot. That the piece should turn out to be an arresting earful says even more."

Smith continued, "the most interesting element about the work . . . was the brilliant sound of it. . . . the sonic richness never lets up . . . The overriding impression is of a composer with an assured handling of structure, development and large-palette orchestration. The roughly 15-minute score has something to say and says it in coherent, involving fashion."

After referring to the work’s "quick-fire virtuosity and rhythmic snap," Smith said, regarding the performance, "Speaking of virtuosity, the NSO sounded terrific as Slatkin shaped the new work with his usual skill." Post critic Tim Page wrote of the "attentive performance" of Lee’s work.

For Slatkin, it was important that, as he said after the premiere, "we are with [a composer] we can actually talk to and have talk back." Rather than imposing an insistent interpretation of his own on the work, the seasoned conductor appeared to welcome, and repeatedly sought, interaction with the emerging composer half his age in the shaping of the performance.

This should not have surprised Lee, because Lee had watched Slatkin rehearse new music before. Lee said prior to the rehearsals, "I’m actually quite comfortable, because he’s a really approachable conductor . . . . He’s there to really make sure the work happens just like the composer wants it to happen. . . ."

Yet music specific to biblical vision continues to flow through his active mind. Lee is composing his second piano sonata, based on Daniel 7. Whether its tone colors will rival those of "Beyond Rivers of Vision" remains to be seen. It bears the intriguing title Night Vision.

For James Lee III, radiant vision is not overcome by shades of night, nor is its insistent message silent to his seeking ear. For Lee, the vision lives.

Listen, Ye People of God, for chorus and chamber ensemble, Andrews University, May 24 1996.

Ascend the Mountain: A Walk with Dr. King, for organ, Andrews University February 11, 2000, on the occasion of the AU annual Black History Weekend Celebration.

Thoughts of Idle Hours, for soprano and piano at the University of Michigan, April 17, 2000. Subsequent performance at the Society of Student Composers’ Conference held at Indiana University, March 1-3, 2001.

Sonata for Violin and Piano, performed by John Littlejohn, April 2001, at the University of Michigan.

Variations on Balm in Gilead, organ solo, performed by Marilyn Mason in June 2001, at the University of Michigan.

This Little Light of Mine, arranged for soprano and piano, Marcía Porter in McIntosh Theater at the UM School of Music, December 8, 2001. Included in Willis Patterson's The Anthology of African American Negro Spirituals.

A Place for God’s People, orchestra, Andrews University (centennial celebration), February 23, 2002.

Sonata for Cello and Piano, Anthony Elliott, professor of cello at the University of Michigan and James Lee III, April, 2002.

Sympathy, for flute, mixed chorus, percussion, and harp, May 16, 2002, at Hamline University.

Psalm 61, a cappella chorus, composed at Tanglewood, performed there on July 28, 2002.

The Appointed Time, string quartet, also composed at Tanglewood, performed there in 2002 by the Fromm Players.

From Me Flows Understanding, Plymouth, Michigan, November 8, 2002.

Fantasia Rítmico, piano, Spring 2004, Marcello Cáceras at Andrews University.

February 8, 2004, the Alabama All-State Orchestra will premiere an orchestra piece by Lee, commissioned by and for that ensemble under the direction of Anthony Elliot.

Fall of 2004, a new song cycle based on Six Poems by Langston Hughes, to be performed by Daniel Washington at The University of Michigan.