Biography
Composer Scott Lee writes concert music infused with the visceral sounds of popular music. Lee has worked with musicians across genres, including leading orchestras such as the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, the North Carolina Symphony, the Portland Symphony Orchestra, Symphony in C, Winston-Salem Symphony members, the Moravian Philharmonic, the Occasional Symphony, and the Peabody Symphony Orchestra, chamber groups such as yMusic, the Da Capo Chamber Players, Deviant Septet, chatterbird, Verdant Vibes, and ShoutHouse, as well as multi-platinum pop artist Ben Folds. He has received commissions from the Tanglewood Music Festival, the Aspen Music Festival & School, the Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra, loadbang, and the Baltimore Classical Guitar Society.
Notable honors include two ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards, a 2016 Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, winner of the 2016-17 Symphony In C Young Composer's Composition, the grand prize in the 2015 PARMA Student Composer Competition, and the Gustav Klemm Award in Composition from the Peabody Institute. Lee is the Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra's Composer in Residence for the 2019-2020 season.
Active as a music educator, Lee was recently appointed Assistant Professor of Composition at the University of Florida School of Music, where he gives composition lessons as well as teaches courses in composition and electronic music. Previous teaching experience includes courses at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Duke University, and at the Duke TIP summer program. At the Peabody Institute, Lee engaged the community through the Junior Bach program, where he taught composition to middle school boys from at-risk neighborhoods in Baltimore.
As a James B. Duke Fellow, Lee earned a Ph.D. from Duke University where he was mentored by Scott Lindroth and Steve Jaffe. He earned a Master of Music degree from the Peabody Institute, where he studied with Michael Hersch. He earned a Bachelor of Music degree from the Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt University, where he studied with Michael Rose, Michael Slayton, Stan Link, and Michael Kurek.