Michael Lee

Michael Lee born in Atlanta, GA and raised in Maryland, is a doctoral candidate in music composition at USC’s Thornton School of Music. Michael is a former graduate of the Juilliard School (M.M.) and the Eastman School of Music (B.M.). His teachers include Samuel Adler, Donald Crockett, Stephen Hartke, Frank Ticheli, and Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon.

Michael’s influences range from Stravinsky to hints of early rock, jazz, and electronic music, as well as 16th century polyphony. Growing up in Maryland and New York, his first musical experiences were through trumpet performance, primarily in jazz improvisation and baroque music. Eclectic in styles, notations, orchestrations, and ensembles, his music has been cited by the Portland Herald Press for its “rhythmical drive [and] traditional harmonic touches that are both surprising and inevitable.”

Michael’s music has been performed recently by the Thornton Edge, Albany Symphony, USC Symphony, Seattle’s Classical Radio station 98.1 FM, Juilliard Orchestra, New York Virtuoso Singers, members from the Moravian Philharmonic, Kharkov Philharmonic, Oradea State Philharmonic, Serenata String Quartet, Gamper Festival at Bowdoin, ALEA II Contemporary Ensemble, Boston New Music Initiative, and the Chamber Music of Rochester, among others. His music has received recognition from MusicNow (Indiana State Univ.), the Baltimore Sun, the Portland Herald Press, and the Chronicle (NYC).

His music is a recipient of several honors and awards, including The Charles Ives Scholarship from the Academy of Arts and Letters, Winner of the USC New Music to Orchestra Composition Competition, the Arthur Friedman Prize from the Juilliard Orchestral Composition Competition (Top Prize), the 2013 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composers’ Award, two time ASCAP Morton Gould Composers’ Award Finalist (’14/’15), the 28th International ALEA II Competition, letter of praise from BMI, 1st Prize NACUSA Competition, the Howard Hanson Prize, the Bernard Rogers Memorial Prize, 2014 Finalist in the Apollo Chamber Players Contest, and most recently, his orchestral work “Amped” was performed by the Albany Symphony in 2015.