Biography

(Vienna, Austria 1957)
Thomas Daniel Schlee studied organ, composition and musicology in Vienna and Paris with Michael Radulescu, Jean Langlais, Olivier Messiaen and Francis Burt. As an organist he has given concerts throughout Europe and participated in several productions as well as radio recordings. He is also a member of numerous juries and responsible for various issues. From 1990 to 1998 he was appointed music director of the Bruckner in Linz and Artistic Director of Festivals International Bruckner in Linz. From 1999 to 2003 he served as assistant superintendent of international festival Beethoven in Bonn. Since 2004, he has been steward of the Festival "Carinthischer Sommer". As a composer, Schlee has published numerous symphonic works, vocal and chamber music, and compositions for and with the organ.

Thanks to my music I am looking to find traces of beauty and profound expression that sparkle in the constellation of sounds. This is not new, but it's always a wonderful challenge. A forbidden aesthetics is just as strange to me as the lack of discernment in the choice of stylistic means of expression. Each composition responds to its own research and from there the form follows, the sequence of harmonic colours, the quality of the melodic structure and form. What is known as the material is put to movement as from the first idea,the inspiration, leading to a mixture of dynamics and control:for the composer this is the most exciting phase of work. When the material is finished, the ear, the highest authority, delivers its opinion on the succession of sounds, then occurs, perhaps the miracle of speaking art, in which memory and imagination mix to give birth to the work of art.

Thomas Daniel Schlee, 1997

NOTICE

Enchantment Vespéral was commissioned by the Ensemble "Die Reihe" for his 50^th anniversary in 2009. The work refers to the famous painting -of the same name - of Marc Chagall, who shows the face of a man and a woman side by side, a huge blue-green bouquet on top of them, with - center - the image of a violinist, a yellow bird on the left and on the right on the horizon a small village, gilded by the light of the setting sun. What the giant Chagall achieved with color, I tried to mold it with sound: the enchantment of an evening, capturing the manifestation of happiness, and grabbing one of those moments which brings together all that we cherish in our lives in perfect harmony...

Thomas Daniel Schlee (translated from English)