New Haven, Conn.-Yale University’s Irving S. Gilmore Music Library today announced that it is has acquired the entire archive of renowned American composer Benjamin Lees. The comprehensive archive, which was a gift from the composer, includes manuscript sketches and scores for all of Lees’s compositions, as well as correspondence, concert programs, reviews, photographs, and biographical materials.

Born to Russian parents in Harbin, China in 1924, Benjamin Lees arrived in the United States in 1925. He and his parents settled in San Francisco where he began piano study at age five. After military service in World War II he attended the University of Southern California and studied composition, harmony, and theory. Shortly after completing his studies he was introduced to legendary American composer George Antheil and began almost five years of intense study in advanced composition and orchestration, during which time the two also formed a close and lasting friendship.

Throughout his distinguished career, Lees has composed in a wide variety of genres. His works have been commissioned and performed by ensembles and soloists throughout the United States and Europe, including the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and l’Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has commissioned two of his works, Piano Trio No. 2 “Silent Voices” and “Night Spectres” for unaccompanied cello. As a composer, Lees is especially renowned for his orchestral works, which are represented by five symphonies and numerous concertante works that feature soloist or small instrumental groups with orchestra. Writing in the August 2007 issue of The Strad, Robert Markow called Lees’s Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra, “an outstanding model of the form.” Other concertante works for small ensembles include concertos for woodwind quintet, brass choir, and percussion ensemble, all with orchestra.

The composer’s many awards include a Fromm Foundation Award (1953), two Guggenheim Fellowships (1954, 1966), a Fulbright Fellowship (1956), a UNESCO Award for String Quartet No. 2 (1958), and the Sir Arnold Bax Society Medal, the first awarded to a non-British composer (1958). He also received a Grammy nomination in 2004 for his Symphony No. 5. Benjamin Lees’s music is published exclusively by Boosey & Hawkes.

About the Irving S. Gilmore Music Library

The Irving S. Gilmore Music Library at Yale University is one of the preeminent music research collections in the United States. Since its establishment in 1917 as the School of Music Library, the Gilmore Library has acquired and maintained a comprehensive collection of music scores, sound recordings, and books about music. The library also serves as a major repository of music manuscripts and archival collections relating to composers, musical performers, and scholars. The Gilmore Library holds the music manuscripts and personal papers of Charles Ives, as well as archives related to Paul Hindemith, Virgil Thomson, Benny Goodman, Vladimir Horowitz, Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya, Carl Ruggles, Deems Taylor, and many others. The Library is also the home of the Historical Sound Recordings Collection and the American Musical Theater Collection. To learn more about the Gilmore Library visit http://www.library.yale.edu/musiclib/.

For information about the Benjamin Lees archive contact

Kendall Crilly
Andrew W. Mellon Music Librarian
Irving S. Gilmore Music Library
kendall.crilly@yale.edu
(203) 432-0495

Contact: Geoffrey Little

© 2005 Yale University Library
Page Last Updated: 11/24/2009