Biography

Praised as “colorful” and “engaging” (The Philadelphia Inquirer), Scott Lee’s music often takes inspiration from popular genres, exploring odd-meter grooves and interlocking hockets while featuring pointillistic orchestration and extended performance techniques. He marries the traditional intricacy of classical form with the more body-centered and visceral language of popular music, crafting compositions that are both “rigorously contemporary and fully accessible” (AllMusic). The Berkshire Edge described the world premiere of his Slack Tide, commissioned by the Tanglewood Music Center, as having “moments both of calm and maximum tension...we’ve never heard anything like it.”

Lee has worked with leading orchestras including the Baltimore, North Carolina, Bozeman, and Portland Symphony Orchestras, Symphony in C, the Moravian Philharmonic, Raleigh Civic Symphony, the Occasional Symphony, the Peabody Symphony Orchestra, and members of the Winston-Salem Symphony. His music has also been performed by prominent chamber groups such as the JACK Quartet, yMusic, the Da Capo Chamber Players, Icarus Quartet, Deviant Septet, chatterbird, ShoutHouse, Verdant Vibes, and pop artist Ben Folds. Recent commissioners include the Barlow Endowment, Bozeman Symphony, Tanglewood Music Center, Aspen Music Festival, Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra, Florida State Music Teachers Association, loadbang, and the Raleigh Civic Symphony.

Notable performances include the world premiere of Vicious Circles by Symphony in C and a Anadyr performed by the American Composers Orchestra under George Manahan as part of the 27th Annual Underwood New Music Readings in New York City. Three pieces by Lee – Drip Study, Tourbillion, and Car Alarm Strut – were premiered at a Tanglewood Music Center concert led by Michael Gandolfi with coaching by composer Osvaldo Golijov.

From 2021-2024, Lee served as the Bozeman Symphony’s first-ever Composer-in-Residence. The three-year residency involved three orchestral commissions, including The Last Best Place (2021), inspired by Bozeman itself, The Fire Beneath (2023), honoring Yellowstone’s 150th anniversary, and Inner Life (2024), a twenty-one-minute composition marking a significant expansion in scope.

A native Floridian, Lee often finds inspiration in the natural landscape and history of his home state. His forthcoming album, Greetings from Florida: Postcards from Paradise, is a genre-bending song-cycle exploring the theme of Florida as a perceived “utopia,” featuring Chilean jazz vocalist and guitarist Camila Meza, accompanied by a chamber ensemble, with lyrics by Cuban-American poet Carolina Hospital.

In November 2020, New Focus Recordings released a recording of Lee’s 45-minute work Through the Mangrove Tunnels to critical acclaim, earning praise from The Wire, BBC Music Magazine, and AllMusic among others. Performed by the JACK Quartet, pianist Steven Beck, and drummer Russell Lacy, the piece is inspired by the history and Lee's personal memories of Weedon Island, a nature preserve he grew up exploring in Florida.

Notable honors include a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, two ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards, winner of the Symphony in C Young Composer’s Competition, the Grand Prize in the PARMA Student Composer Competition, and the Gustav Klemm Award in Composition from the Peabody Institute. Lee has received fellowships from the Hermitage Artist Retreat, Copland House’s CULTIVATE program, the Tanglewood Music Center, and the Aspen Music Festival.

Active as a music educator, Lee is currently Assistant Professor of Composition at the University of Florida School of Music. He previously worked as a Lecturer at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and an Instructor at Duke University. He holds a PhD in Composition from Duke University and additional degrees from the Peabody Institute and Vanderbilt University.