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Michael Leese
(BM, Jacksonville University; MM Boston University) is a composer, flutist, teacher and lecturer. A MacDowell Colony fellow, his music has been featured in concerts and festivals throughout the world. He has received grants and commissions from Meet the Composer, American Music Center, Bascom-Little Fund, Fortnightly Musical Club of Cleveland, and from numerous ensembles and individuals. His solo harp piece, Dilling Fantasy, was selected as the required American work for the 2001 USA International Harp Competition at Indiana University at Bloomington. His chamber work, Music for Harp, Percussion, and Strings, was premiered by the Cleveland Chamber Symphony in 2002, and appears on a Cleveland Composers Guild CD released by Capstone Records. Music of Michael Leese, a CD of his solo and chamber music, was released in the fall of 2005 by LiZhang Records. His Experiments from the Edge of the Universe, the culmination of his research and experimentation with electronic music which began in 1985 at the M.I.T. Media Lab, was premiered in July at the 2007 IngenuityFest Cleveland with a subsequent performances at a private moon-viewing ceremony and a cosmolgy retreat at Rivers Edge in Cleveland. His In Memoriam David Lelchook: For the Victims of War, commissioned by Judith Lelchook of Alexandria, Virginia, was premiered by the Cleveland Chamber Symphony in October 2007. In Memoriam will be recorded by the CCS for a CD release in 2009. He currently teaches at Cleveland State University, Baldwin-Wallace Conservatory, Cleveland Music School Settlement and Beck Center for the Arts. Michael has produced the CD recording sessions of the Grammy Award-winning Cleveland Chamber Symphony since 1997.