Basic
First Name:
Trey
Last Name:
Lee
City:
Berlin
Country:
Germany
First Year:
1996
Last Year:
1998
Biography
Birthday:
3/7/1973
About:
Performing in front of live audiences, sometimes I wonder if our jobs will still be around much longer as the digital age marches on. But then again, music is probably one of the last areas of human endeavor in which technology will eliminate all human input. When I quit my job and went to study with Larry back in 1996, who would have ever thought that classical music might turn out to have better job security than an economics degree! The career aspect of cello playing has certainly been a bit of a roller coaster ride; I got to play concertos with a few "legends" in the business, and quite often in the following week, I am playing in front of 50 people in a room with fluorescent lighting. Besides these gigs, I have become rather busy doing what one might call charitable or philanthropic work even if it always felt like simply music to me. I left the business world before committing to music partly because I didn't have the talent for the former, but now I am the artistic director of two music festivals and an NGO...all of which requires a lot of business-world savvy. Nevertheless, it is quite rewarding giving young musicians the chance to perform and guiding them toward the very ambiguous goal that is a music career. Then there are the unexpected moments: performing on stage with Bjorn from ABBA for UNICEF; working together with the anti-apartheid freedom fighter, Denis Goldberg, to build a community center in South Africa; or taking part in a concert to commemorate victims of the Holocaust at the Herzogenbusch concentration camp. Of course life hasn't just been about somber or emotionally draining experiences...sometimes a good bottle of wine and a few tapas are enough to satisfy both body and soul too. It is very fortunate that a lot of us are "grateful" and "can't complain" about our lives. But I think if I had been simply so, a lot of the things that happened to me might never have come to pass. With that in mind, I am writing this after recently falling off a bicycle with my cello on my back in the forests of the Finnish hinterland, so I certainly have plenty to complain about!
Current Primary Activity(ies):
Celloing
Education:
NEC
Degree:
MM
Other Teachers:
Frans Helmerson, Bernard Greenhouse, Ardyth Alton