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

Personal Statement

Lee Tsang, Head of Classical Music Performance, is Director of the MMus Music Performance and Education and Global Opportunities Lead for both Music and Games Design. He is a conductor, baritone and composer of words for music, as well as a music analyst with diverse research interests.

Lee spent much of his career 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. Its activities enabled him to pursue research concerns about creative agency in music performance contexts. These concerns often involved Lee 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 work since 2014 has focused on collaborative crossover music, with particular reference to the projects and post-jazz ecology of Canadian composer-pianist David Braid. Lee's work with Braid has featured on BBC, CBC, Apple Music, and at major festivals, including Ottawa International Chamberfest, Festival International Hautes-Laurentides, the Festival of the Sound and Guelph Musicfest.

Lee 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). He has collected and curated artefacts for the Sinfonia UK Collective Leginska Archive, which he founded and featured on BBC Radio 3’s Music Matters, for UK City of Culture and the Women of the World Festival. He has performed as a soloist with the Gildas Quartet and the Penderecki Quartet and with pianists such as Jonathan Gooing, Sarah Beth Briggs and Agata Jozwik. His many projects have been previously supported by Arts Council England, Lottery Fund, Creative Partnerships, PRS Foundation for Music, RVW Trust, Canada Council for the Arts, HK CASH Music Fund, and local UK city councils.