Everett Lee: African American Conductor Everett A. Lee's "first major engagement was with the Boston Pops in 1949"

Everett A. Lee

On September 15, 2013 we received a request in Spanish from Beatriz Correa for information on the African American conductor Everett A. Lee. We replied:

In 2011 I posted a few items on Everett Lee, who was living in Sweden, with help from his son Everett Lee III in the U.S.A. and Byron Hanson, Archivist at Interlochen Center for the Arts, in Michigan, as well as Bob Shingleton of the blog On An Overgrown Path:

http://africlassical.blogspot.com/2011/10/overgrownpathcom-michael-odaniel-former.html

http://africlassical.blogspot.com/2011/07/everett-lee-iii-after-just-reading.html

http://africlassical.blogspot.com/2011/07/on-overgrown-path-on-conductor-everett.html

I hope these links will help answer your questions.

Sincerely,
Bill Zick

The conductor's son Everett Lee was copied on the reply, and today he has made informative comments which we very much appreciate:

Mr. Zick,

Thank you for copying me on your email to Ms. Correa, and I would be glad to provide her with information on Dad’s 50+ year conducting background. And, Dad does still live in Sweden and I still talk to him up to 7 times a week via Skype.

To clear up/enhance some information I saw on links you provided and in Jet:

·       Dad’s first major engagement was with the Boston Pops in 1949, and the Louisville Symphony engagement in 1953, made him the first Black to conduct a major symphony orchestra below the Mason-Dixon Line.

·       Everett D. moved his family from Wheeling, WV to Cleveland for better work, and enrolled his son, Everett A., in Cleveland public schools (Dad was junior varsity track with the then senior varsity Jesse Owens). After Glenville HS, Dad put himself through the Cleveland Institute of Music in Violin.

·       After returning to Cleveland from the Army Air Corp in 1943, Producer Billy Rose asked Dad to be the Concert Master for ‘Carmen Jones’ on Broadway. When the conductor did not show up one night in the fall/winter 1943, Dad was asked to conduct that night’s performance (and subsequently a few others). That was Dad’s first conducting performance. The same scenario happened with ‘On the Town’ in 1944. That introduction to the composer, Leonard Bernstein, led Dad to be invited to be guest conductor of the New York Philharmonic in 1976.

Continue your good work,

Everett III

Everett Lee