Rowland Lee Biography.

Studied at The Royal College of Music, London, 1979 - 1984 with Phillip Cannon, Joseph Horovitz (Composition) and Ian Lake (Piano). GRSM Hons. 2.1. President of the RCM Students’ Association, 1982-3 (the College’s centenary year).

COMPOSITIONS

Television work includes:

Main Theme and Incidental Music (including lyrics), “The Love Weekend”, Channel 4, 12th -14th February, 1993.
Incidental music, “Food File” Series III, Channel 4, Spring 1994
Incidental music, “Henry's Cat”, Winner of 1994 Golden Globe Award, Best Children's Animated TV Series
“Drip - a Narcissistic Love Story”, a Ballet Score jointly commissioned by BBC2 and The Arts Council for Adventures in Motion Pictures, choreographed by Matthew Bourne (March 1995)
All music for “Crapston Villas”, Channel 4, Oct-Dec 1995 Series I & II (20 episodes)
Theme music, “Stylissimo!” MTV, 1996
All music for the animated sections in “Salut Serge” (BBC Worldwide educational series), 1996 (10 episodes)
Over twenty various short animated films (mainly commissioned and transmitted by Channel 4 and MOMI).
“64 Zoo Lane” (Zoo Lane Productions/Millimages) Director: An Vrombaut, 1999 (2 series of 26 episodes each)
“Kevin” series (Bob Godfrey Films) (13 episodes in production)
“Margaret Thatcher; Where am I Now?” (Bob Godfrey Films / Steve Bell/ Channel 4)
April 1999 (5 episodes)
“The Animated Millennium” (Bob Godfrey Films), commissioned by Channel 4 for their Millennium Eve celebrations.
“Pablo the Little Red Fox” (Millimages) 1999 (52 episodes), co-recipient (as part of the “Production Team”) of a 2000 Children’s BAFTA for Best Children’s Series (International) Principal Performed Works includeViolin Concerto (for Stephen Bryant, now leader, BBC Symphony Orchestra. Also performed by David Juritz)
Two Concert Overtures
Two Liturgical Masses
Requiem Mass (broadcast May 2000, BBC Radio South West, cond. R Lee)
String Sextet
Wind Quintet
Oboe Sonata (for Alan Garner, principal oboe, Scottish Opera Orchestra)
Piano Solo works including “Music Enters Softly” (1994), (in current repertoire
of Ian Brown and Leo de Bono)
Songs and smaller Choral Works (mainly private commissions).
Theme and Variations for Bassoon and String Quartet
A rag-time score for Surrey County Youth Theatre's June 1996 production of “Twelfth Night” at the Epsom Playhouse.
Other film work includes:Winner (1st recipient) of the British Film Institute Anthony Asquith Young Composer Award, 1986, for “Waterfall” and “The Merlin”.
“Little Wolf”, 1993, for a while an American cinema 'Short', shown in programme with “Blade Runner - director’s cut”
“The Fairest of them All” with a script by Lily Savage
Many original and adapted scores for AudioVisual / Video / Multi-Image productions for museum and marketing suite installations, including the Royal Academy of Arts, London, The Sainsbury Gallery at the University of East Anglia, London Bridge City, Broadgate, Dar-el-Hana Museum, Brunei, the Royal Saudi Air Force Museum, Saudi Arabia and the Friedrichstrasse Development, Berlin. His score for “Messeturm” (Frankfurt) won the soundtrack award at the 1991 American Multi-Image festival in New York, for the way in which music by Philip Glass was “extended and complemented by Lee's own operatic style”. (AMI Magazine).

ARRANGEMENTS / ORCHESTRATIONS

Reduced Orchestration of Tchaikovsky's “Nutcracker” Ballet, for Adventures In Motion Pictures at Sadlers Wells Theatre, Christmas 1993 and 1994, and U.K. tour, 1994.
Reduced Orchestration of Tchaikovsky's “Swan Lake”, also for AMP, U.K tour 1996, 1997/9 Production at the Piccadilly Theatre, London, and 1997-9 international tours and off-Broadway season, with final performances at the Dominion Theatre, London, February/March 2000. European Tour, Spring/Summer 2000.
Reputedly the most-performed production ever of a Classical Ballet.
Reduced Orchestration of Verdi's “Requiem” for use by local choral societies.
Orchestration of Stainer's oratorio “The Crucifixion” for its Centenary
Performance in the original performance location, St Marylebone Parish
Church, London (1989).Reconstruction of the “lost” score and orchestration of David Heneker’s musical, “Popkiss!” with the help of the composer; to be published by Warner Chappell.

Reconstruction of the “lost” score and orchestration of Noel Coward’s musical, “Sail Away”. Some of the original orchestral parts have since been rediscovered, and were performed at the Carnegie Hall, New York, in November 1999, with Rowland’s reconstructions filling in some gaps. Rowland’s full version is to be published by Warner Chappell.

Other work includes:For composer Peter Baikie, orchestrations, arrangements and on-set musical direction for “Bang Bang, It’s Reeves and Mortimer” and “Families at War” (Reeves and Mortimer) (BBC1)
Orchestrations, “Friday Night is Music Night” (BBC Radio), “The Great Event” (Earls Court). Arrangements, “Thora Hird's Favourite Hymns and Carols” (World Records), “Fairuz: Christmas Carols from East and West” (EMI Records)

Orchestration for large symphony orchestra of thirteen pieces, originally written for violin and piano, by the Russian composer and violinist Michael Poel (Powell). These were recorded in February/March 1997 by the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra.


OTHER CONDUCTING/MUSICAL DIRECTION

Most recently:

Surrey County Youth Theatre:
“The Wizard of Oz” 1993 production at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford.
“Colonel Blood” (Nick Powlesland) 1994 tour and production at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford
“Blitz!” (Lionel Bart) 1995 production at Epsom Playhouse
“archy and mehitabel” (George Kleinsinger, Mel Brooks) (European premiere) 1997, Rhoda McGaw Theatre, Woking

“Countess and Cabbages” for the Okai-Collier Company, the Merlin Theatre, Frome, Somerset, October 1996
“Marry me a Little” (Sondheim) for the Bridewell Theatre company, the Bridewell Theatre, London, December 1996/January 1997
“The Great Big Radio Show”, the Bridewell Theatre, 1998.
“The Nutcracker” Ballet (Tchaikovsky arr. Lee) at Sadlers Wells, Christmas 1993 and 1994 for Adventures in Motion Pictures.
70th Birthday concert celebrating the work of composer Julian Slade (with Kit Hesketh-Harvey) at the Theatre Museum, London, May 2000.
“Swan Lake” European tour for Adventures in Motion Pictures, Spring/Summer 2000, in the Opera Houses of Tel Aviv, Ferrara, Modena, Amsterdam and Cologne, including the last ever performance, in Cologne

Other semi-professional and fringe Opera and Musical Theatre Productions in and around London since 1977, notably with Court Opera at Holland Park. Operas conducted include: “Gianni Schicchi” (Puccini), “La Traviata” (Verdi), “The Barber of Seville” (Rossini) and “The Impresario” (Mozart).
Chamber performances (semi-staged) at Warleigh House, Plymouth, with piano and soloists, including “Madama Butterfly”, “Tosca” and “La Boheme” (Puccini), “Cosi fan Tutte” and “The Marriage of Figaro” (Mozart), “La Traviata” and “Aida” (Verdi), “Carmen” and “The Pearl Fishers” (Bizet), “Werther” (Massenet) and “Showboat” (Kern/Hammerstein).


OTHER INTERESTS

Collector and restorer of player pianos and reed organs, reproducing pianos and related instruments and music rolls.
Architecture of all periods, with special interest in that of the nineteenth and early twentienth centuries; former voluntary case worker for the Victorian Society.
Scholar of the life and works of the composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold, and author of a dissertation on this subject, 1983, and co-author of the programme note for the British premiere of Korngold’s opera, “Die Tote Stadt” at the South Bank Centre, 1998.