'On An Overgrown Path' on Conductor Everett Lee: 'From Carmen Jones to Arvo Part and beyond.'

[Everett Lee (Photo and article from Jet Magazine, March 1952, via online archive]

On July 26, 2011 AfriClassical posted: “Byron Hanson on Everett Lee: 'Everett was in the room with his son and is therefore alive though nearly 100 years old!'” A day earlier, on July 25, 2011, AfriClassical had posted: “'On An Overgrown Path' Seeks Missing Details on African American Conductor & Violinist Everett Lee, born 1913, Wheeler, WV.” We learned from Byron Hanson, Archivist of Interlochen Center for the Arts, that Everett Lee is alive.

Today, July 27, 2011, the above article and photo from Jet Magazine, March 1952, are posted by Bob Shingleton of the blog On An Overgrown Path, under the title “From Carmen Jones to Arvo Part and beyond.” He also writes:

“My recent post about Everett Lee ended enigmatically with his CD of Arvo Pärt's music released in 2000 by an Estonian label and an appeal for further information about the pioneering African American conductor. Now an email has come from Byron Hanson at the Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan and here is the very good news: 'Regarding Everett Lee, I had a call out of the blue from his son just a couple of weeks ago asking me to verify a concert Mr Lee conducted at Interlochen in 1974. Everett was in the room with his son and is therefore alive though nearly 100 years old!'

“My thanks go to Bill Zick at AfriClassical who relayed the email and also to the many readers who shared my article on Facebook and elsewhere. Byron Hanson tells me that the programme for that 1974 Interlochen concert was Mozart Overture to The Magic Flute, Bartók Romanian Folk Dances and Borodin's still neglected Second Symphony. The latter work is a natural for the BBC Proms, but was last performed there in 1971. I am now in the process of making contact with Everett Lee's family and wouldn't an interview be wonderful?”