Thomas Oboe Lee was born in China in 1945. He lived in São Paulo, Brazil, for six years before coming to the United States in 1966. After graduating from the University of Pittsburgh, he studied composition at the New England Conservatory and Harvard University. He has been a member of the music faculty at Boston College since 1990.
To date Mr. Lee has composed more than 200 works: nine symphonies, 16 concerti for various solo instruments, 18 string quartets, a 100-minute two-act chamber opera The Inman Diaries, 60-plus choral works and song cycles, and tons of solo and chamber works.
His music has received many awards, among them the Rome Prize Fellowship, two Guggenheim Fellowships, two National Endowment for the Arts Composers Fellowships, two Massachusetts Artists Fellowships, and First Prize at the Kennedy Center Friedheim Awards for his String Quartet No. 3 ... child of Uranus, father of Zeus.