Press

“Lushly orchestrated… an exuberant curtainraiser… A wholly appealing work”
-The Chicago Tribune

“Atmospheric and endlessly inventive.”
- Cincinnati Business Courier

“A gifted young composer”
- Cincinnati Enquirer

“vibrant [and] richly layered”
- The Baltimore Sun

“bright, pure music”
- The Washington Post

“tonal, but highly complex”
- South Florida Classical Review

“a deftly realized world premiere by James Lee III, a young Michigan-born composer with a bright future.”
- Detroit Free Press

“He’s got talent and one hopes to hear more from him. Mena and the CSO kept the excitement level–not to mention the decibel count–high, their performance eliciting a whoop of pleasure from the audience. Lee was present to join in the ovation.”
- Chicago Classical Review

“Nelsons’s bold advocacy of Sukkot on Thursday was another step toward this young American composer finding the wide attention he deserves. The audience on Thursday showered a visiting Lee with generous applause when he took the stage for bows.”
- Boston Classical Review

“Sukkot Through Orion’s Nebula was better received than many contemporary pieces, but it was the entrance of the composer himself that brought the audience to its feet, and then he was called back for a second bow. It can’t be often that an African-American composer gets to take bows on the Symphony Hall stage. These were well deserved, and I hope we hear the piece again soon.”
- The Boston Music Intelligencer

“NSO’s ‘Beyond Rivers of Visions’ rouses the senses.”
- The Baltimore Sun

Press photos

Photography by Roy Cox