From Carmen Jones to Arvo Part and beyond


My recent post about Everett Lee ended enigmatically with his CD of Arvo Pärt's music released in 2000 by an Estonian label and an appeal for further information about the pioneering African American conductor. Now an email has come from Byron Hanson at the Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan and here is the very good news:
'Regarding Everett Lee, I had a call out of the blue from his son just a couple of weeks ago asking me to verify a concert Mr Lee conducted at Interlochen in 1974. Everett was in the room with his son and is therefore alive though nearly 100 years old!'
My thanks go to Bill Zick at AfriClassical who relayed the email and also to the many readers who shared my article on Facebook and elsewhere . Byron Hanson tells me that the programme for that 1974 Interlochen concert was Mozart Overture to The Magic Flute, Bartók Romanian Folk Dances and Borodin's still neglected Second Symphony. The latter work is a natural for the BBC Proms, but was last performed there in 1971.

I am now in the process of making contact with Everett Lee's family and wouldn't an interview be wonderful?

Also on Facebook and Twitter. Header image source Jet March 1952 magazine via online archive. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Comments

Pliable said…
Reader responses to my earlier post have allowed me to establish contact with Everett Lee's family. I can confirm he is living in retirement in Sweden and I am working towards producing an update version of the article that fills in the missing biographical information.

This is a wonderful result, but please do kep additional information coming in.
Unknown said…
For more information on Maestro Lee's conduction works, contact his son Everett Lee III at Lee Talent Management in Dallas, TX. who has a complete list of every symphony and opera his father has conducted. I am a friend of them both.

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