Cincinnati's Compleat Bassist
Those who attend Cincinnati Symphony concerts know that principal bassist Owen Lee rocks (classically speaking).
He is one of the most visible members of the orchestra, wielding his bass near the edge of the stage just behind the cello section. The excitement of the music is visible in his gestures as he bends into the instrument and follows through on his bow strokes like a golfer.
What many of Lee’s fans may not know is that he also rocks literally. He is the drummer of the rock band, Toe, and performs his own songs and those of fellow Toe bandsmen and CSO members, Eric Bates and Ted Nelson (see www.myspace.com/owenleedoublebass).
Toe is on hold right now because of a very busy CSO season, Lee said. Expect them back, “hopefully around autumn,” in some of their favorite clubs like Mad Frog and Top Cat’s.
“It’s really a trip playing at Top Cat’s because I saw my favorite band, High on Fire, there last year, so it’s an honor to play on the same stage. It’s sort of like walking on the Music Hall stage knowing that Kreisler, Casals, Ysaye, Caruso, Rachmaninoff, Stokowski and Richard Strauss have all played there.”
This season is especially consuming for Lee, since he will step into the solo spotlight this weekend to perform the CSO premiere of American composer John Harbison’s Concerto for Bass Viol and Orchestra (2006). Concerts are 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday at Music Hall.
The work is a co-commission by the CSO and a consortium of U.S. and Canadian orchestras. On the podium will be Estonian conductor Olari Elts, 35, a new music exponent himself as founder and artistic director of Estonia’s esteemed “Nyyd” (“Now”) Ensemble. Also on the program are Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 3 and Prokofiev’s “Russian Overture.”
Lee and his wife CiCi live on Adventure Lane in Montgomery, a fitting name for their lifestyle and interests. The love to travel (the British Isles is their favorite) and he is a skilled auto mechanic who personally tends their two BMWs.
“Last year some nitwit did a hit and run while I was parked somewhere, so this past summer, I replaced the damaged fender. Amazing what one can do with a couple of wrenches.”
Born in Berkley to Chinese parents, Lee grew up in Santa Monica, one of three very accomplished brothers (Vance is a bassoonist in the Hong Kong Philharmonic, Bryan is a graphic designer who masterminded the re-branding of Howard Stern when he went to satellite radio).
Lee describes himself as a “typical guy” growing up. “I wasn’t the star of the class or anything.” He took piano lessons, “loved rock and roll,” and played bass guitar in his own garage band. He moved to string bass at 15 “because all of my friends were in the orchestra and they needed a bass player.”
“It came easily,” he said. “I had a good ear because of piano and when I picked up the string bass, I knew where all the notes were because of bass guitar (the notes are the same except the bass guitar has frets). The main thing was learning how to use the bow and proper left hand technique.” After a month or two, he was put in to the school’s main orchestra.
“I loved it,” he said. “I found my calling, basically.”
Though accepted by New York’s Juilliard School of Music, Lee chose to attend the University of Southern California. “I didn’t want to be an automaton in a practice room. I wanted an education, the whole college experience.”
What to do with his free credits? (He tested out of piano, ear training and had Advanced Placement Credits from high school.)
“I was terrible at math and science, but I was always good at the humanities. I loved literature.” Lee did not opt for Chaucer and Dickens, however, but Dostoevsky and Nabokov. “I had been in the American-Soviet Youth Orchestra (half Russian, half American). We toured Russia, so I had a cultural interest in it.” One of his teachers at USC, Olga Matich, was a character in one of Nabokov’s books, he said.
After USC, Lee drove across the U.S. to Miami, where he played in the New World Symphony, the famed training orchestra founded by San Francisco Symphony music director Michael Tilson Thomas. After six months, he landed a job with the Houston Symphony. He was 23. Three years later, he came to the CSO.
“It’s kind of a blow to the ego when someone comes in that young,” said CSO bassist Wayne Anderson. “He started the bass very close to the time I got this job.” Lee is an extremely effective leader, said Anderson, “very diplomatic and respectful. He doesn’t make broad comments about how we play. He sticks to the facts and essentially works harder than anybody else. He makes sure he knows the part as well as it can be learned.”
Lee returns the compliment, calling “every member of the CSO bass section” a “virtuoso bassist.”
Lee and CiCi are at home in Cincinnati. A former concert pianist and student of Gary Graffman at Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music, CiCi has chosen homemaking over career. (Graffman himself performed their wedding ceremony in Los Angeles.) She “loves everything Snoopy,” said Lee, who painted the portrait of Schulz’ celebrated canine that hangs over the piano in their living room. They love Cincinnati’s “vibrant musical culture, old architecture” and Dewey’s pizza.
“We take people from cities where they think they have pretty good pizza, and they’re like ‘Wow, this is amazing pizza.’”
Owen Lee performs John Harbison’s Concerto for Bass Viol with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra led by guest conductor Olari Elts at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday at Music Hall. Also on the program are Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 3 and Prokofiev’s “Russian Overture.” For tickets, $17.50-$73, call (513) 381-3300 or order online at www.cincinnatisymphony.org.
(first published in The Cincinnati Post March 29, 2007)