Christopher James Lees has vivid childhood memories of his father playing church tunes at the piano. From his bedroom three floors above in suburban Washington, D.C., Lees would find himself drawn toward the sound. “I remember thinking, What’s in here?” as he touched the piano keys. He was 4 when his father started teaching him to play piano. Within a month, he was taking formal lessons. Musical engagements began in his teens, and at 16, he was working as professional organist at a local church.
Lees’ life in music has led him to Charlotte, which he considers his home. At 42, he’s the resident conductor for the , a position he’s held since 2018. After his childhood success and music degrees from the University of Michigan, Lees embarked on a varied conducting career. He’s been a guest conductor in France and Brazil; worked as an assistant to Leonard Slatkin, Gustavo Dudamel, and other world-renowned conductors; and directed the University of North Carolina School of the Arts Symphony in Winston-Salem from 2014 to 2018.
Music education and working with students remain important to him. One of Lees’ CSO duties is to conduct the Charlotte Symphony Youth Orchestra, and he participates in the CSO’s continuing outreach programs—like Project Harmony, which provides free after-school music instruction to students in poor communities.
“I love the fact that our city continues to draw people from all over the world, which increases the audiences with whom we can connect and for whom we perform,” he says. “As Charlotte grows, the number of arts offerings, and the breadth of those offerings, can expand, and it’s up to us to lead that expansion—creatively, imaginatively, and passionately.”
As we prepared this story, the CSO named a new music director: Kwamé Ryan, an internationally renowned conductor who oversaw a pair of CSO performances in 2023. He replaces , who retired in 2022, and is the first person of color to lead the orchestra. Lees says he’s excited about working with him.“It’s a coup for the CSO and the city of Charlotte, too,” he says. “He’s a phenomenal artist, communicator, and thinker who had incredible chemistry with the orchestra.”
Lees’ words have been edited for length and clarity.
I believe that humans have been musical creatures since people were banging sticks against rocks in caves. Some people have a natural proclivity toward music, but it’s also about training the muscles in your ear and your brain. It’s similar to how an athlete works.
When we sound more in tune, and more refined and sophisticated, the beauty of what’s there can be heard in an unblemished way. Training gets rid of the excess that could get in the way of organic transmission from heart and soul and mind to another’s heart and soul and mind.
When I left for college, my dream was to come back to the D.C. area and teach high school choir and play at church. I never wound up moving back. My second semester, I sang in Verdi’s Requiem, and it was literally life-changing. It’s a Latin Mass set in a dramatic operatic style. There’s an explosive movement, and right then, I knew I wanted to become a conductor and conduct this piece.
In college, when I was still videotaping myself for submissions, I was conducting my third student orchestra concert. We get to the end of Dvorak’s “New World Symphony,” which ends with strong chords, and someone in the back of the viola section had a phone that started ringing. I can see myself in the video looking shocked. It was like scribbling on a masterpiece. Nobody wants to be that person and have that kind of accident.
There are people today in music who are unbelievably talented. Jacob Collier is a kid from England who tours the world. He seems as divinely touched as Mozart was. He’s a multi-instrumentalist who is talked about using words such as “genius” and “prodigy.” There are people like this—where their musical talent seems to go beyond industry and beyond humanity.
The conductor is the only person who doesn’t make any sound at all, and yet we get the credit. But there’s nothing about us that vibrates a reed on a wind instrument or a string on a string instrument or a mouthpiece on a brass instrument. We are without vibrations. What we do is show them when and how. A score might look exact, but it’s actually quite subjective—how loud, how fast or short a note is.
I think that the archetype of conductors is changing. Up until the 1980s, conductors were stern—authoritarian, strict, and volatile. Now there’s Gustavo Dudamel, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Klaus Mäkelä, to name a few. There are conductors who are accessible and community-minded. They aren’t autocrats. They realize musicians aren’t robots to play at their whim. Musicians are real people with mortgages and kids and parents. They are a wellspring of potential, and they are being included more and more in the conversation.
The CSO was having auditions for an assistant conductor. They called me and said they understood I had a job (at UNCSA), but asked me to come audition anyway, so that Christopher Warren-Green could approve me as a guest conductor. After the audition, they offered me the assistant conductor job. I said I could do both jobs and commuted for two years as assistant conductor while I was in Winston-Salem.
I love it here. I have a son, which affects my priorities. Some conductors don’t have kids, so they might be thinking about where to move next. I’m glad to be a part of this community and happy for my son to grow up here. I also took over as conductor (and music director) of the Rock Hill Symphony last March. We do about four or five concerts a year. I love how I can do a rehearsal one night and still take my son to school the next day.
This city has the spirit of a place that’s growing. And I feel like I can contribute my energy here, working in synchronicity of the greater story of the Charlotte region.
Our audiences aren’t shy about giving feedback. People have said they’re glad we had a conductor of color who came in—or heard a piece by a composer they didn’t know about. People have expressed that they didn’t know the story behind the music before the performance, or that the story could still be as relevant today in Charlotte as it was in 1800s Vienna. Music connects us between space and time.
Classical music has not always represented everyone. Historically, there have been underrepresented performers. I share the deep commitment of our CEO and president, David Fisk, that our season should represent the community.
People rarely end up at the symphony by accident. Sometimes they come with expectations or with different connotations of the music, but they always come with interest. Music is so diverse, I believe there’s room for everyone at the table. You can disagree, and that’s what provokes the next conversation.
For our classical series, we have a cover conductor. This is something I’ve also done, all over the country. It’s when a conductor is brought in to listen and watch rehearsals, so if something happens to the conductor, the cover conductor can take over, and the show can go on. This is actually how Leonard Bernstein got his start. He stepped in at Carnegie Hall because the conductor was too sick to perform. Bernstein was a sensation, and a star was born. I covered for us when we did Verdi’s Requiem and Beethoven’s “Eroica” (Symphony No. 3), performances where we had guest conductors.
Christopher Warren-Green, who was notoriously reliable, was very sick during a performance in 2017. Nobody had any idea. He’s such a strong human being—and he was still able to bring Beethoven into the room despite being so sick. Nothing would keep him from doing it. It was a magnificent performance. The audience had no idea, but we knew.
The piano is different from other instruments. The stacking of one note on top of another is harmony. Generally, you’re playing one note at a time on the violin or trumpet, but keyboard instruments can have single lines stacked together. It’s like being able to see a 40,000-foot altitude version of what everyone’s doing. And that’s an asset.
Music has always represented what was going on at the time, because musicians have always been citizens. We are still responding to our time and becoming ever more diverse, inclusive, and representative. The world is more interconnected than it’s ever been.
The audience gives immediate feedback. Back in the time of Beethoven, the audience wouldn’t let the performance continue until the orchestra played a certain movement again. There’s no consensus about applause between movements. People have different opinions, but I don’t know any musician that doesn’t appreciate applause.
We’re trying to do more from Jewish composers whose work was lost during World War II. We’ve played Gideon Klein and Erich Korngold—people who were persecuted or killed just for being Jewish. It’s just like women
and people of color being marginalized. Folks have been left out, and we want to recognize those gaps and bring those people back to the table.
ALLISON FUTTERMAN is a writer in Charlotte.