LEE Yi-wei Angus
李一葦
Biography:
Angus Lee (b.1992) is one of the most versatile performer-composers of his generation, having been featured in his capacities as flautist, composer and conductor at major international music festivals across Asia, Europe and North America.
As a flautist, Lee is recognised as one of Hongkong's foremost performers specialising in new music. He has been a member of the Hong Kong New Music Ensemble since 2016, working with some of today's leading composers including Unsuk Chin, Brett Dean, Du Yun, and Toshio Hosokawa. He has also performed as soloist in Pierre Boulez's Mémoriale (...explosante-fixe...Originel) at the composer's memorial concert in Lucerne, with the LFA Orchestra-Ensemble under Matthias Pintscher. He has also stepped in at short notice to perform with the Berlin Philharmonic's ZeMu! Ensemble, featured at the 2023 edition of New Vision Arts Festival (HK). He has also performed at numerous local festivals, including the CityU Arts Festival, HKUST's Cosmopolis Festival, Tai Kwun's Laundry Steps lunchtime concert series, Tom Lee Music's online recital series during the pandemic, as well as LCSD's Our Music Talents and City Hall Virtuosi series. Most recently, Lee's performance of Camilo Mendez's solo and chamber music for flute was released in 2024 in the composer's monograph album, Distant Fragments, by the Austrian new music label, KAIROS.
As a composer, Lee was largely autodidactic, but has received initial instruction in composition from Poly Ng and Maurice Poon; since 2016, he has benefitted from studying with a number of composers at international composition academies, including Franck Bedrossian, Oscar Bianchi, Frédéric Durieux, Philippe Manoury, Christian Mason, Isabel Mundry, Dimitri Papageorgiou, Yann Robin and Johannes Schöllhorn. His numerous chamber and ensemble works have been premiered by the, among others, Ensemble Intercontemporain (FR), Ensemble Modern (DE), Ensemble Multilatérale (FR), HereNowHear (US), Hong Kong New Music Ensemble, Klangforum Wien (AT) and Subaerial Collective (US) at the likes of Gaudeamus Muziekweek (NL), ilSUONO Contemporary Music Week (IT), IRCAM ManiFeste (FR), New Vision Arts Festival (HK), Seoul International Computer Music Festival (KR), SPLICE IV Festival (USA) and Ticino Musica Festival (CH). Lee's composition output has also shifted towards larger creative forces in recent years, with his first opera, Chasing Waterfalls, premiered at Germany's Semperoper Dresden to critical acclaim in 2022, as well as the commissioning and premiere of his orchestral diptych - consisting of the works Des flammes... (2023-24) and ... aux cendres (2024) - by the Hong Kong Philharmonic in 2024.
Lee is equally sought after as a conductor specialising in new music. In 2020 he was selected as a conducting fellow at Ensemble Modern's International Composers and Conductors Seminar, where he studied unnder conductor Stefan Asbury. As an advocate for emerging compositional voices, he has led the premiere of works by young composers with the likes of Ensemble Modern, Ensemble Musikfabrik, Hong Kong New Music Ensemble and the Neu Vocalsolisten Stuttgart at, among others, Ticino Musica Festival (2018 & 2022), the ...cresc... biennale for actual music Frankfurt-Rhein-Main (2023) and the ECLAT New Music Festival in Stuttgart (2024). In 2023, he also stepped in at short notice to lead the Asian premiere of Michel van de Aa's music theatre, The Book of Water, at the Hong Kong Arts Festival. In 2024, he made his first appearance with HKU's University Philharmonic Orchestra, performing Leonard Bernstein's Candide Overture and Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony no.5 in D minor.
Lee has served as an assistant lecturer at The University of Hong Kong's Music Department since 2022, where he coordinates all performance courses in addition to teaching elementary music theory, conducting, chamber music, as well as supervising undergraduate-level practice-based research projects. He concurrently teaches woodwind chamber music on a part-time basis at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, as well as having served as flute faculty at the Lucerne Festival Academy between 2022 and 2023.
MAJOR WORKS 主要作品
STAGE
2022
Chasing Waterfalls (70'), artificial opera in 7 scenes
ORCHESTRAL
2024
... aux cendres [study II for orchestra] (10')
Des flammes... [study for orchestra] (5')
ENSEMBLE MUSIC / CONDUCTED CHAMBER MUSIC
2025
hic / nunc (15'), for ensemble and fixed media
2021
... ché la diritta via era smarrita (12'), for ensemble with obligato solo marimba
Palimpsest II (8'), for string quartet
2020
Lethescape (10'), for bass flute, violin and cello
2019
Apophisian Scriptures [Lapsus memoriae IX] (10'), for contrabassoon, double bass, piano, and fixed media
Rage Over Lost Time: Preamble to Ludwig van Beethoven's 'Rage Over Lost Penny' (5'), for 2 pianos
Schattenhaft [frontispiece II] (5'), for five instruments
cendré [frontispiece I] (9'), for solo alto flute with harp and cello
APOCRYPHA (2019)
for clarinet, violin, viola, violoncello & piano
Cendré [Frontispiece I] (2019)
for solo alto flute, with harp & violincello
Schattenhaft [Frontispiece II] (2019)
for bass flute, bass clarinet, piano, violin & violoncello
triumvirate (revised ver.; 2019)
for alto saxophone, percussion & piano
IMA [Modus Operandi II] (2018)
for three percussionists
2018
APOCRYPHA (15'), for five instruments
triumvirate (9'), for alto saxophone, percussion and piano
2017
Et lux perpetua (10'), for flute(s), saxophone(s) and percussion
sous rature (5'), duo for violin and viola
Toshi Densetsu (5'), for three non-specified string instruments
Firecircle [to the memory of Pierre Boulez] (2016)
for flute(s) and percussion
2016
Aeolion Scriptures (10'), for flute, sheng, double bass and fixed media
Firecircle [to the memory of Pierre Boulez] (12'), for flute(s) and percussion
Jarosinski-Fragments (10'), for string quartet
Modus operandi [I] (8'), for string trio and percussion
Modus Operandi [I] (2016)
for string trio and percussion
MO[TIVA]TION (2013)
for oboe, bassoon, violin, viola & bass
2013
On the Nature of Dreams (10'), for 2 soprano saxophones and fixed media
Chamber Music
... in search of... (2012)
for flute, oboe, clarinet & bassoon
Aeolian Scriptures (2016)
for flute(s), sheng, bass & fixed media
Codex Ex Nihilo (2016)
manual of instructions for any [non-]instrument[al combination]s
Et lux perpetua (2017)
for flute(s), saxophone(s) & percussion
Jarosinski-Fragments (2016)
for string quartet
On the Nature of Dreams (2013)
for two soprano saxophones & fixed media
sous rature (2017)
for violin & viola / violin & violoncello
Toshi Densetsu I (2017)
for three non-specified string instruments
triumvirate (original ver.; 2018)
for alto saxophone, percussion & piano
SOLO
2024
Anamorphologia (8'), for solo piano
2020
Palimpsest [Lapsus memoriae VIII] (10'), for solo violin(ist), fixed media and video
Quaranta (10'), 40 etude-fragments for solo violin
2019
hikari | yami [Lapsus memoriae V] (14'), for solo percussion and fixed media
Vestigium I & II (20'), for solo percussion and fixed media
2018
Lapsus memoriae I (10'), for solo flute, live electronics and fixed media
MELANCHOLIA (12'), for solo viola and fixed media
2016
aux portes des rêves (18'), for solo piano
aux portes des rêves (2016)
for solo piano
hikari | yami [Lapsus memoriae V] (2019 – 20)
for solo percussion & fixed media
Lapsus memoriae [I] [Epigrafe in memoria di una città immaginaria] (2018)
for solo [kingma system] flute, live electronics & fixed media
MELANCHOLIA (2018)
for solo viola & fixed media
VESTIGIUM I (2019)
for solo percussion
VESTIGIUM II (2019)
for solo percussion
ELECTRONIC / ELECTROACOUSTIC MUSIC
« Hereafter is your unbecoming » (2017)
fox fixed media
« midnight | sun » (2017)
fox fixed media
Entre mondes: 5 études transitoires (2015)
for fixed media
Étude en mélancolie (2016)
fox fixed media
Lapsus memoriae II — Prologue: Stargazer (2018)
for fixed media
Lapsus memoriae III — Interlude: Hikari to Yami no Kansō (2018)
for fixed media
Lapsus memoriae IV « Geburtstagsrequiem » [Hommage to C.C.] (2019)
for fixed media
Music for « after the deluge » (2018)
fox fixed media
Selon « L'Interprétation des rêves » (2012)
fox fixed media
ARRANGEMENTS
Elaborazione [on J.S. Bach’s Bandinerie, Orchestral Suite no.2, BWV 1067] (2012)
for flute, oboe and bassoon
Oblivion [arrangement on Ástor Piazzolla’s work of same name] (2011 – 12)
for 2 flutes and piano
Second Movement from Shostakovich’s Cello Sonata in D minor, Op.40 (2010)
for clarinet, horn, trombone, percussion, 2 pianos and string quartet
RESEARCH / PUBLICATION / GUEST LECTURES
2025
Nostalgia contra prolepsis: preliminary considerations on the temporality of vaporwave [forthcoming conference paper; to be delivered at the Music Biennale Zagreb Conference: Broken Relationships]
2024
Playing: or, the subversive politics of interpretation in music [essay; published in two parts in Vantage Magazine Vol. 9, no.3, and Vol.10, no.1]
2023
In modo molto giocoso: Play, Creativity and Subversion in Music [conference paper; delivered at the HKU Rayson Huang 2023/24 international symposium, AI, Musi, and Creativity: At a Crossroads]
The Vocation of Music-making in the Time of Digital Automation[colloquium presentation; delivered at HKU Music Colloquia series 2023/24]
OTHERS
Tractatus Musico-Philosophicus: Wagner, Nietzsche, and Thereafter (2013 – 14)
Bachelor’s Degree Thesis