Dr Lee Tsang BA (Hons), MMus, PhD, PG Cert (EPD), FHEA

Personal Statement

Lee Tsang, Head of Classical Music Performance, is an academic with a difference. On the one hand he trained as a music analyst and has diverse research interests that embrace the timbral and the filmic; on the other, he is an impresario with an insatiable passion for creating, curating and performing new work. His organisation Sinfonia UK Collective, since its inception in 2004, championed the work of major living composers from across the world, and enabled him to pursue research concerns about creative agency in music performance contexts. These concerns often involved him creating new texts and contexts for new music, e.g. animation/film, multi-composer collected editions, theatricalised concerts/productions, performing translations, lyric writing, or exploring musical spaces where classical, jazz and the indigenous may meet. Much of his work over recent years has focused on collaborative crossover music, with particular reference to the projects and post-jazz ecology of Canadian composer-pianist David Braid. His work with Braid has featured on BBC, CBC, Apple Music, and at major festivals, including Ottawa International Chamberfest, Festival International Hautes-Laurentides and the Festival of the Sound; he has performed across Europe, Asia and North America and contributed as researcher/producer/editor/writer/vocal consultant to two albums that have received Juno nominations (K52 and Steinway labels). As well as an active conductor, baritone and poet working with Braid, he has collected and curated artefacts for the Sinfonia UK Collective Leginska Archive, which he founded and has featured on BBC Radio 3’s Music Matters, for UK City of Culture and the Women of the World Festival. Lee's current projects relate to innovative approaches to developing poetic narratives, Zeng Studies, and digital hybrid instrument design.