Piano Concerto

Maestro Kirk Trevor praises composer Lee Actor as “one of the refreshing new classical voices … who can still use a traditional language with a freshness that makes the music alive and interesting.” On his latest Navona Records release PIANO CONCERTO, Actor presents three orchestral works, performed by Trevor and the Slovak National Symphony Orchestra, that are engaging and tonal yet dramatic and modern.

Concerto for Piano and Orchestra is a work in 3 movements that highlights the composer’s depth and range of emotion as well as his strength for creating captivating lyrical themes and rhythmic charges. The exciting and intense Symphony No. 3 is a 5-movement work for full orchestra that has its origins in Actor’s earlier single-movement piece Premonition, a name which expresses the often foreboding, desolate, and furious qualities of Symphony No. 3. The single-movement piece Divertimento for Small Orchestra reimagines the lighthearted 18th-century form into a modern style, filled with unexpected harmonic twists and turns, and sudden “off-kilter” rhythmic passages.

Actor received master’s degrees in electrical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and in composition from San Jose State University, followed by further graduate study in music composition at the University of California at Berkeley. After a long and successful career in the videogame industry, in 2001 Actor devoted himself fulltime to composition and conducting. He was named Composer-in-Residence of the Palo Alto Philharmonic in 2002, following his appointment as Assistant Conductor.