Benjamin Lees died of heart failure on Monday, May 31 at North Shore Long Island Jewish Hospital in Glen Cove, New York at the age of 86.

Lees’s work rose to prominence in 1954 when the NBC Orchestra performed his Profile for Orchestra in a national broadcast. He was later awarded Guggenheim and Fulbright fellowships, allowing him to live in Europe for seven years and present his works throughout the continent. Upon his return to the United States in 1962, Lees was appointed Professor of Composition at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore, where he served until 1964. He later taught at both the Manhattan School of Music and the Juilliard School of Music. In 1972, Lees was commissioned by the Philadelphia Orchestra to write the music to the text of E.B. White’s “The Trumpet of the Swans.” In 1985, Lees was commissioned by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra to write a piece that would commemorate the 40th anniversary of the end of the Holocaust, Symphony No. 4 ‘Memorial Candles’. Symphony No. 5, commemorating the arrival of Swedish immigrants to Delaware in the 17th century, was recorded, along with his Symphony No. 2 and Symphony No. 3, for Albany Records and earned him a 2004 GRAMMY nomination. A recording of his Violin Concerto by Elmar Oliveira on Artek Records was nominated for a GRAMMY in 2009. His music has been performed around the world over the years at venues such as Lincoln Center in New York, the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., and in Monaco at a performance celebrating the 500th anniversary of the kingdom. In 2009 Naxos Records released a new recording of his String Quartets Nos. 1, 5 and 6, performed by the Cypress String Quartet.

Benjamin Lees was born January 8, 1924 in Harbin, Manchuria to Russian parents. He and his family immigrated to San Francisco the following year, then moved to Los Angeles in 1939. At age 15, Lees began studying piano harmony and theory, and began composing with his teacher, Marguerite Bitter. After serving in the army during World War II, Lees entered the University of Southern California in Los Angeles in 1945. Lees continued his composition studies with George Antheil until 1954.

When asked about his approach to composition, he was quoted as saying, “There are two kinds of composers. One is the intellectual and the other is visceral. I fall into the latter category. If my stomach doesn’t tighten at an idea, then it’s not the right idea.”

Lees was commissioned to write pieces through his early 80’s and continued writing until his recent death. He is survived by his daughter, Jan Rexon, and his wife, Leatrice Lees.

2010 celebrates 35 years of the new music festival June in Buffalo and the 25th year that it has been under the direction of composer David Felder. Based at the University of Buffalo, the festival has brought many leading composers and performers together since Morton Feldman started it in 1975 (a wonderful online exhibit on June in Buffalo has been put together by the UB Library and can be found here). This year’s festival kicked off last night with performances of Steve Reich’s Sextet and Double Sextet by the chamber ensemble Signal, who have quickly become a major force in today’s new music scene. Reich was first featured at JiB in 1976 with performances of his Clapping Music, Piano Phase, Drumming, Music for Pieces of Wood, and Music for 18 Musicians, so this was a fitting tribute to Feldman’s original concept.

That Signal, under the direction of Brad Lubman, could put together a stellar performance of Reich’s works did not come as a surprise – they have been methodically ticking off each of his major chamber works one by one since their inception in 2008. What was surprising, however, was the enthusiasm and unbridled joy with which they pulled the audience into the work; every single performer on both works seemed like they were having the time of their lives, and Lubman was practically dancing more than once during his conducting of the Double Sextet. Reich himself was not a passive listener; throughout both works he was huddled with Signal’s sound engineer, alternatively making subtle adjustments to the overall balance and leaning back to enjoy his creations. After having seen the performers at their most intense, it was gratifying to hear one of them explain to me afterwards that they had realized  during the concert the immensity and honor of what they were doing – something I could tell that was not lost on the audience.

The full schedule of June in Buffalo, including performances by Ensemble SurPlus, Ensemble Laboratorium, Arditti Quartet, Slee Sinfonietta and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra featuring works by JiB senior faculty Augusta Read Thomas, Bernard Rands, Roger Reynolds, Oliver Pasquet and David Felder can be found here.

While a fair amount of attention has been given to the American Composers Orchestra Underwood New Music Readings (namely here, here, here, here annnnd…here) which took place this past Saturday, Miller Theatre wasn’t the only place where new orchestral works were getting read & performed. Saturday was also the culmination of both the Albany Symphony‘s first annual Composer to Center Stage Festival Reading Session and their American Music Festival at the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. As the spring semester at SUNY Fredonia was so kind to have come to an end, I decided  to make the 6-hour drive up to Albany and check it out myself.

The Reading Session featured works by three up-and-comers from the usual suspects of graduate programs: 200 OK by Robert Honstein (Yale), Siren Song by Wang Lu (Columbia) and  In the Hour of Exile by Elizabeth Lim (Julliard). All three works demonstrated strong knowledge of the orchestra as an instrument and awareness of the various ingredients that seem to be common in today’s orchestral palette. The selection committee was smart to have chosen works with disparate styles – each piece had a completely different sound and color than the others. While each work was impressive in its own right, it was the Albany Symphony under the direction of its powerhouse conductor David Alan Miller that shone the brightest; I’ve conducted a fair amount of composer sessions myself, and Miller and the orchestra gave a textbook demonstration of how it should be done. 40 minutes were given to each composer’s piece and the metamorphosis from the first attempts to the final run-through of each work was really spectacular. Afterwards there was an insightful post-mortem out in the lobby with the participants, Miller, and the resident composers whose works would be performed that evening: John Harbison, Stacy Garrop, and James Primosch; it was great to hear discussion that not only covered technical issues, but explored the very idea of whether or not a chamber work may be suitable for orchestral treatment.

Just a few short hours later, the Symphony convened again in the hall to perform four works, including two world premieres and the live performance before a recording premiere. The Albany Symphony had already performed Garrop’s orchestral work Becoming Medusa in the fall as part of her year-long residency with the orchestra, and she explained how David Alan Miller had suggested the idea that the piece could act as the first movement of a symphony. The result of that suggestion was two movements that opened the concert – The Lovely Sirens (2nd mvt.), which had the woodwind Sirens enticing the sailors in the brass section to their bombastic doom, and The Fates of Man (3rd mvt.), which pitted a solo cello (representing Man) against the full forces of the orchestra (representing the three Fates), pleading for control of his existence…judging by the clever way the cello is kept from finishing its final idea, it’s not hard to figure out who won that debate.

James Primosch’s Luminism was based off of the Luminist style of Hudson River school of painters from the mid-19th century -another suggestion from David Alan Miller, who doesn’t seem to be afraid to give informed direction to his commissioned composers – and  the Symphony did a fine job of balancing the Impressionistic ensemble writing and the various solos and duets that Primosch interspersed throughout the work. In preparation for a recording session the following day, Miller ended the program with John Harbison’s Gatsby Suite, which was created by yet another conductor suggestion, this time from David Zinman. A very effective distillation of his opera, the Suite features a period-style dance band (violin, soprano sax, trumpet, trombone, banjo, piano, tuba and drumset) within the middle of the orchestra, and the execution was seamless in the transitions between the two groups – this should get a lot of performances once the recording becomes available.

Overall, the adventure to Albany was an extremely enjoyable and informative one (I spent several hours in the car talking into my iPhone about ideas for new orchestral works). David Alan Miller is deserving of all the hype I’ve heard about him for years, and the orchestra made me realize that new music for orchestra is not a dead art at all, but one that needs able and interested performers to bring it to life. The concert (as well as previous concerts featuring music by Garrop, Harbison and Timo Andres) can be found at the Albany Symphony’s InstantEncore page (a site which seems to be gaining momentum in the few short years it’s been in existence).