Richard Lee | Artistic Director

From the time his mother sat him down at a toy piano when he was three years old, Richard Lee has spent his life immersed in music. He graduated to a real piano at the age of five and took up the violin at age seven.  After several long years of coerced practicing, he gradually began to enjoy it, and at age seventeen, passed with honours the grade X piano and violin exams at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto.

After a brief and ill-advised stint as a physics major, Richard came to his senses and transferred to the Faculty of Music at the University of Toronto, where he studied the violin and the viola with Lorand Fenyves, Rennie Regehr and Ken Perkins, while also taking undergraduate conducting classes with Pierre Hétu. Further studies and mentoring in conducting ensued, most notably with Yoav Talmi, Jorma Panula, Gustav Meier, Geoffrey Moull and Kirk Trevor. He has also participated in masterclasses for such eminent musicians as Pinchas Zukerman, Rivka Golani, Charles Castleman, Gunther Herbig, Sir Andrew Davis and Helmuth Rilling.  After teaching middle school music for five years, Richard returned to the University of Toronto where, as the Victor Feldbrill Fellow in orchestral conducting, he obtained a Master’s degree under the tutelage of Raffi Armenian.

Richard is currently the Music Director of the East Texas Symphony Orchestra and the Tyler Civic Chorale, having also previously served as Music Director of the Korean Canadian Symphony Orchestra as well as resident or assistant conductor with the symphony orchestras of Winnipeg, Quebec and Thunder Bay.  His work has been recorded and broadcast by NPR and the CBC/Radio-Canada.  Outside of music, Richard enjoys Cuban cigars, craft beer, whiskies of the world, and eating great food while travelling.  He tries to make up for this by working out as often as possible.

Richard remains a loyal fan of the Toronto Raptors and Toronto FC, despite residing with his wife, Dr. Julie Philley, in Tyler, Texas, some 1200 miles (1900 kilometres) away.