Douglas Lee, Tuba
Columbia Orchestra member since: 1996
What do you do for a living? I’m an attorney with the federal court system.
Where else do you play? Besides Columbia, I play with the Howard County Ballet Orchestra, the Ellicott Brass, and the Barleycorn Brass Quintet
Who else in your family is a musicians? Although my older brother is a college philosophy professor, he also composes music and fools around on the fiddle and the saxophone.
Where did you go to school and what did you study? I got my undergraduate degree in American history at Brown University and I went to law school at the University of Pennsylvania
With whom have you studied? I have studied in recent years with Dave Fedderly, tuba player with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.
Favorite Columbia Orchestra concert and why? Three: (1) Playing “Tubby the Tuba” at the Children’s Concert in December 2005 (what can I say, I loved being a soloist in front of enthusiastic children); (2) Playing Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” in October 20009 (Rite of Spring was one of the first pieces of classical music I discovered as a child and it had been a dream of mine to play it someday); and (3) Playing Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 in May 2010 (another dream of mine). Runner up: My first concert with the Columbia Orchestra in October 1996. I hadn’t played in an orchestra or band in 15 years and the return of musical performance to my life was an amazing gift. It also didn’t hurt that I met my wife going into the dress rehearsal for that concert.
What are your favorite composers or pieces? Very hard to pare it down: Ralph Vaughan Williams, Aaron Copland, Walter Piston, Paul Hindemith, William Schuman, William Walton, Bach, Handel, Stravinsky, Mahler, Strauss, Dvorak, Elgar, John Adams, the list goes on & on. Particular pieces: Stravinsky, Rite of Spring & Agon; Bartok, Concerto for Orchestra; William Schuman, Symphony No. 3; Lutoslawski, Concerto for Orchestra; Hindemith, Symphonic Metamorphosis; Vaughan Williams, Pastoral Symphony and Symphony No. 5; William Walton, Symphony No. 1 ...
What’s on your iPod? All of the above, plus lots of jazz, plus eclectic ‘70 & 80's folks & rock (Tom Petty, Bruce Hornsby, Fleetwood Mac, Eagles, James Taylor, etc)
Last book you read? “American Heroes” by Edmund Morgan & “The First Rule” by Robert Crais
Favorite TV shows? “Friday Night Lights”
Other surprising facts about you? I was born in North Dakota. I’m married to Lynn Halverson, a former cello player in the orchestra (see dress rehearsal story above). We collect many, many books, especially cookbooks. I also collect an insane number of CDs. I was a park ranger at Natural Bridges National Monument, Utah in 1976, the summer after my freshman year in college. I was a trial lawyer in Philadelphia before moving to the D.C. area in 1989 (in another life...)
