Dai-Keong Lee (September 2, 1915 – December 1, 2005) was an American composer. His Symphony No. 2 was runner up for the 1952 Pulitzer Prize for Music.

He was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, and studied with Roger Sessions at Princeton University, Frederick Jacobi at the Juilliard School of Music, Otto Luening at Columbia University, and Aaron Copland.

Dai-Keong Lee

He worked as a freelance composer in New York City. He composed six operas, the music for the Broadway comedy Teahouse of the August Moon, a ballet, a ballet suite, two symphonies, a Polynesian suite, a dance piece and a concerto grosso for strings, a string quartet, orchestral songs, choral works, and piano pieces. Joan Field premiered his violin concerto.

Dai-Keong Lee

Sources

American male composers

Writers from Honolulu

Musicians from Honolulu

Princeton University alumni

Juilliard School alumni

Columbia University alumni

American musicians of Chinese descent

1915 births

2005 deaths

20th-century American composers

20th-century American male musicians

Dai-Keong Lee