Noël Lee was a globetrotting pianist and composer who also served for over 3 years during World War II and had a particular passion for the study of music for piano four hands.
Born in Nanjing on 25 December, 1924, Lee unfortunately did not remain in our fair city very long. Just 7 months in fact, before he did his first bit of globetrotting, across the Pacific Ocean, at the time quite a journey for someone not yet a toddler.
Once there, it could be argued that Lee began his musical career aged just 5, with his studies of music in Lafayette, in the US State of Indiana.
It was then on to two prominent institutions for his higher education. At Harvard, Lee studied under music theorist and professor of music, Walter Piston. In Cambridge, Massachusetts, Lee increased his musical knowledge exponentially at the Longy School of Music of Bard College in its iconic Edwin Abbot House, a prime example of Richardsonian Romanesque architecture.
Speaking of Europe, anyone serious about piano is going to be connected in some way to France.
And so it was for Lee who went to Paris in 1948, to continue his education under the guidance of Nadia Boulanger, the leading conductor who taught many of the 20th century’s finest composers and musicians. Under her, Lee was to win the Lili Boulanger Composition Prize. Of Lee, Boulanger wrote, “Lee is one of the finest musicians I have met. [A] composer with a real personality, he has refinement, a sense of the hierarchy of values and a total understanding of the works”.
The awards were soon to start piling up. When Lee was still just 35, the American Academy of Arts and Letters awarded him in recognition of his creative work in general.
Back in France, he career was to culminate with the French government’s Department of Cultural Affairs awarding Lee the grade of Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres in 1998. The city of Paris awarded him the Grand Prix de la Musique the following year and la Grande Médaille in 2004.
Back on US soil once more, and in an interview with Bruce Duffie on the website, kcstudio.com, Lee was asked, “When you get to a new location, how long does it take to make the piano your own?”.
Lee replied, “It’s a question of making the piano one’s own and being used to the instrument that you have for a few hours. It doesn’t take long to see what an instrument can do. But, as always, the best rehearsal is the concert itself”.
Many notable others have also spoken highly of Lee throughout the years. Among them, Aaron Copland, whose compositions include “Fanfare for the Common Man”, a major hit for Emerson, Lake and Palmer in 1977. Copland is credited by some as creating the soul of American music through its evoking of the country’s vast landscapes. Of Lee, Copland said, “Here is a composer who writes his music with his eyes wide open, and with a kind of cool intensity the defines his personality… Music to him is a natural language, a language he uses without strain or mannerism… No matter how complex the textures may be, the musical discourse is always lucid and reasoned”.
Lee passed away on 15 July, 2013. For anyone serious about music, a study of Lee’s career is both an essential and fascinating glimpse into the mind of a master. And a Great Nanjinger.
