About the Lee High Band Commissioning Project:\ Once every four years, the Lee High School Band commissions a composer to write a new work for our group. We rehearse their piece and give the world premiere performance at a free concert at our school. The composer visits our school to rehearse and revise the work with the students, talk with them about composing, and to attend the first performance of their work.\ This project provides unique opportunities to the students, the composer, and the community. The students get to bring a new work into existence, gain a deeper understanding of how musical works are created, work directly with a composer, and play a piece that was written specifically for them. The composer will have the chance to work with a young and enthusiastic group of musicians who have never played a new work before, and to have his or her music played for a new audience. Music can only be brought to life through the combined efforts of the composer, the musicians, and the audience. The community will be part of the creative process through the energy that they bring as audience members, and they will be the first people to hear the piece.

Past Commissioned works:

2003: Michelle McQuade-Dewhirst: Underwater Fugue

2007: Michael D'Ambrosio: Peter's Cave

2011: Steven Bathory-Peeler: Locomotion\ 2016: Matthew Quayle: Chaconne\ 2019: Melanie Guerin: dysCONNECT\ The Lee High Band Commissioning Project has been supported by the Lee Educational Enrichment Fund, the Lee Cultural Council, the Otis Cultural Council, and the Lee High Band Parents.

2020: Lee High School Jazz Band Commission

Joseph Smith: Arrangement of "Little Sunflower" by Freddie Hubbard

This project was supported in full by the Lee and Otis Cultural Councils.

Due to Covid, rehearsals and performance of this piece were postponed until the spring of 2021. Students rehearsed and recorded the piece, and presented an excerpt of the recording at our "Virtual Concert."