Works
Lee has composed over a hundred fifty works: eight symphonies, twelve string quartets, twelve concerti for various solo instruments, choral works, song cycles and scores of chamber music. Some of his early works, originally published by Margun Music Inc., have since been transferred to G. Schirmer Inc./Associated Music Publishers. His 100-minute, two-act chamber opera "The Inman Dairies" is available for rental and sale from the Theodore Presser Company. The rest - orchestral, choral, vocal and chamber music - is self-published under the moniker "Departed Feathers Music." His music has been recorded on Nonesuch, MCA Classics, Koch International Classics, BMG Catalyst, Arsis Audio, Northeastern and Gunther Schuller's GM Recordings, Inc.
His most popular work, "Morango ... Almost A Tango," written for and recorded by the Kronos Quartet, has been used in dance by choreographers like Michael Tracy for Pilobolus (dance company), Jiri Kylian for the Netherlands Dance Theater, Danny Rosseel for the Royal Ballet of Flanders, Nicolo Fonte for the Pacific Northwest Ballet and Australian Ballet, Carolyn Carlson for the Cullberg Ballet of Sweden, Olivia Rosenkrantz for Tapage - a tap duo, et al. Additionally, "Morango ..." was used as a sound track for "Call It Sleep" - a documentary on Henry Roth.
Lee has recently ventured into the world of opera. His two-act chamber opera, "The Inman Diaries," (libretto by Jesse J. Martin) about the infamous Boston diarist Arthur Crew Inman was produced and premiered in Boston in 2007 by Intermezzo - The New England Chamber Opera Series. His on-going opera-in-progress is "Oscar Wilde ... An Opera in Two Acts."
In the summer of 2010, Mr. Lee embarked on a project to add a visual component to his music. The resultant videos can be accessed on his iPhone app: TOLmtv.
Read more about this topic: Thomas Oboe Lee
Famous quotes containing the word works:
“In doing good, we are generally cold, and languid, and sluggish; and of all things afraid of being too much in the right. But the works of malice and injustice are quite in another style. They are finished with a bold, masterly hand; touched as they are with the spirit of those vehement passions that call forth all our energies, whenever we oppress and persecute..”
—Edmund Burke (1729–97)
“Artists, whatever their medium, make selections from the abounding materials of life, and organize these selections into works that are under the control of the artist.... In relation to the inclusiveness and literally endless intricacy of life, art is arbitrary, symbolic and abstracted. That is its value and the source of its own kind of order and coherence.”
—Jane Jacobs (b. 1916)
“When life has been well spent, age is a loss of what it can well spare,—muscular strength, organic instincts, gross bulk, and works that belong to these. But the central wisdom, which was old in infancy, is young in fourscore years, and dropping off obstructions, leaves in happy subjects the mind purified and wise.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)