Artists

Mark Lieb, clarinetist, is the Founder and Artistic Director of the Phoenix Ensemble. He is a graduate of Northwestern University and The Juilliard School, where he studied clarinet performance with Robert Marcellus, former Principal clarinet with the Cleveland Orchestra, and David Shifrin, clarinet soloist and former Artistic Director of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. He has been an active professional freelance musician since 1991, performing with many orchestras, opera companies, chamber ensembles, and new music groups in New York City.

The music of adventurer-composer Lias is performed regularly around the world by soloists and ensembles including the Boulder Philharmonic, the Oasis Quartet, the Ensamble de Trompetas Simon Bolivar, and the Russian String Orchestra.

Yuan-Chen Li (b.1980, Taiwan) first arrived on the contemporary music scene in Taiwan with her very personal use of instrumentation and style in her chamber music piece Zang (the funeral) in 2000. In 2003, the expression and orchestration of her orchestral work Awakening won the prize at the Asian Music Festival 2003 in Tokyo from the Asian Composers’ League, and was subsequently premiered by the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra.

Shuying Li believes that music has the innate power to promote cultural diversity by connecting people through universally human passions and values. This belief has led to widespread interest and performances by Seattle Symphony, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, New Jersey Symphony, Argus Quartet, Orkest de ereprijs (Netherlands), Avanti! Chamber Orchestra (Finland), ICon Arts Ensemble (Romania), Cecilia Quartet (Canada), Opera From Scratch (Canada), and Donald Sinta Quartet, among others.

Leonard Mark Lewis (b. 1973, Great Yarmouth, England) holds a D.M.A. in Composition from the University of Texas, an M.M. in Composition from the University of Houston. He is also a conductor and pianist specializing in new music. Lewis, a member of BMI, is the recipient of awards from ASCAP (Morton Gould Young Composer Award), BMI, Columbia University (Bearns Prize), Voices of Change (Russell Horn Young Composers Award), and MACRO.

Soprano Ellaina Lewis is an accomplished soloist and collaborator who demonstrates an extensive range of vocal and dramatic ability. Her journey began as part of a richly musical family in Washington DC and has led to her current home in Seattle WA, where she is frequently seen on opera, concert, and recital stages. She has performed with Seattle Opera since 2011, most recently in X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X, by Anthony Davis. Lewis has also worked among other companies including the Harmonia Orchestra and Chorus, Tacoma Opera, Seattle Choral Company, Puget Sound Opera, Everett Symphony, and as a guest of the Ladies Musical Club, among others.

​Before turning his attention to composition, Andrew Lewinter had a long and varied career as an orchestral horn player and soloist. As a composer, Lewinter has a decidedly tonal and neo-romantic style that is often very contrapuntal and always emotionally gripping. His works include sonatas for each of the brass instruments and piano, a quartet for trumpet, horn, trombone and piano, quintets for both horn and string quartet and oboe and string quartet, a woodwind quintet, a string quartet, and a trio for oboe, horn, and piano, among other works scored for a variety of chamber ensembles. Lewinter’s compositions have been widely performed and recorded, and are available on Navona Records and Ablaze records.

Brooklyn-based pianist Beth Levin is celebrated as a bold interpreter of challenging works, from the Romantic canon to leading modernist composers. The New York Times praised her “fire and originality,” while The New Yorker called her playing “revelatory.” Debuting as a child prodigy with the Philadelphia Orchestra at age twelve, Levin was subsequently taught and guided by legendary pianists such as Rudolf Serkin, Leonard Shure and Dorothy Taubman, Another of her teachers, Paul Badura-Skoda, praised Levin as a pianist of rare qualities and the highest professional caliber.

Chi-Hin Leung (b. 1984) was born in a metropolitan city - Hong Kong. With a diverse cultural background, his composition mixes with both East and West thoughts, and with special interests in timbral and textural explorations. He was the champion of the Hong Kong Handbell Festival Composition Contest, first runner-up at New Generation and won the Hong Kong Composers' Guild Audience Choice Award.

As Director of the Division of Wind Band Studies and Professor of Conducting, Thomas G. Leslie has earned recognition for high-quality performances of the UNLV Bands. During his tenure at UNLV, his bands have received critical acclaim from fellow musicians internationally, from Grammy Award-winning recording artists to decorated members of the United States Marine Band, Air Force Band, Navy Band, and esteemed educators. Recognized for a fresh, interpretative style among collegiate wind orchestras, Leslie and the UNLV Wind Orchestra excel in their commitment to commission new works by the next generation of the world’s finest young composers.

Award-winning composer and classical guitarist James Lentini is a recipient of the Andrés Segovia International Composition Prize, the Atwater-Kent Composition Award (first prize), the McHugh Composition Prize, a grant from "Meet the Composer," a Hanson Institute of American Music composer-performer grant, and multiple awards from the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP).

Acclaimed violinist Moonkyung Lee, described by ResMusica as “one to follow,” has delighted audiences across Europe, the United States and Korea with her expressive performances. She has collaborated with many world-class ensembles, conductors, and performers, and is celebrated as an “expressive soloist” (Fanfare Magazine).

Michael M. Lee is a composer and teacher with a background in composition, theory, post-tonal analysis, and musicianship, and is a graduate of the U.S.C. Thornton School of Music (D.M.A.), Juilliard (M.M.), and Eastman (B.M.). Born in Atlanta GA, and raised in Maryland, he was first introduced to classical music through the trumpet. He can play the piano and took several private lessons in classical guitar at the Peabody Institute in Maryland before starting his bachelor's degree in composition. His music can be heard on Spotify and Apple Music and purchased on iTunes, Naxos, or Amazon. He is currently residing and teaching in Southern California.

American violinist Jae Cosmos Lee, who’s performances have been acclaimed as “Delicate and beautiful,” (Syracuse Post-Standard) and “Bursting with color,”(Boston Globe) is Concertmaster of the Cape Symphony in Cape Cod MA, and co-founder of A Far Cry, the GRAMMY nominated, resident chamber orchestra of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. He is also Curator & Director of the Nth Degree Chamber Music Series based in Falmouth MA, first violinist of the Boston-based Pedroia String Quartet, and the Associate Concertmaster of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra.

Jonathan Rhodes Lee is Associate Professor of Music at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He studied harpsichord with Laurette Goldberg, Joscelyn Godwin, Davitt Moroney, and Jacques Ogg. He holds degrees from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and the University of California, Berkeley, and he was a Fulbright Scholar at the Royal Conservatory of Music in The Hague, Netherlands. Lee’s work as a musicologist focuses on 18th-century repertoires and film music, and his recordings can be heard on the MSR, Equilibrium, and Navona labels.

Dr. Sang-Hie Lee, Professor of Music at the University of South Florida, is an active teacher, pianist, researcher, author, and cross-disciplinary administrator. As the founder of Ars Nostra, she performs piano duo music by significant living composers: her music is featured in six albums by Ravello, Centaur, Capstone, and Albany labels. Lee is the principal author of Scholarly Research for Musicians: A Comprehensive Strategy (Learning Solutions Division, The McGraw-Hill, 2012, 2013 and Routledge 2017), and Scholarly Research in Music: Shared and Disciplinary-Specific Practices, 2nd Edition (Routledge 2022). She is the primary editor of Perspectives in Performing Arts Medicine: A Multidisciplinary Approach (Springer 2020) and was the founding editor of the Cultural Expressions in Music Monographs Series (College Music Society 2008-2014).

A South Korean native, Koeun Grace Lee is an avid performer of contemporary piano repertoire. Chicago Classical Review praised Lee’s performance of selected variations of Robert Gross’s Variations on a Theme by Stefan Wolpe, the central work of this album: “Lee brought technical precision and thoughtful shaping to each movement, with particular care given to the childlike second variation, ‘Easily,’ and the third, ‘Like a Baroque Prelude,’ whose rhythmic figurations gesture winkingly to Bach’s Prelude in C Major.”

Joungmin Lee is a composer, choral conductor, and digital music artist focusing on acoustic and electroacoustic music with interdisciplinary approaches. Lee's music is an experimentalist endeavor in pursuit of innovative sound both in the instrumental and digital worlds. He attempts to make this happen with several means, including spectral techniques, computer music, or any combination of these trends.

New York City composer Bruce Lazarus characterizes his extensive catalog of instrumental and vocal music as "diverse, concise, architectural, contemporary, and in turn meditative, energetic, humorous, moody, and exuberant.” Lazarus' music has often been inspired by astronomical imagery, woodlands and mountain trails, and lifetime involvement in the worlds of theater and dance. His works are published at Universal Editions and Swirly Music, and his albums - Musical Explorations of the Messier Star Clusters and Nebulae, Works for Solo Piano, November Sonata, and Song of the Earth - are available on iTunes, Amazon, and Spotify.

The New York Times' head critic Anthony Tommasini raved about Keith Lay as "a composer to watch for," and Gramophone magazine has described his music as "unapologetically emotional.” Lay explains, "My life's goal is to share my reverent wonder about sound and the connections to our nature made available through listening. Every new piece is a joyful opportunity to construct a fresh musical method, technique, or invention."