At the Foyer of Thessaloniki Concert Hall, Greece [@Irini]
Angus Lee (b. 1992) is a Hongkong-based flautist, composer, conductor and educator. He graduated from the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts (2010-14) and the Royal Academy of Music (2014-16) with the highest honours, financially supported by the Aedas Scholarship and the Hong Kong Jockey Club Music & Dance Fund Music Scholarship.
FLUTE
Hongkong première of Soubresauts by Philippe Manoury at HKU MUSE concert series (2026) [© Kurt Chan]
Angus Lee is a versatile musician equally at home as a soloist, chamber, ensemble and orchestral musician. Named Young Music Maker 2012 by Radio Television Hong Kong, Lee is known for his dynamic and engaging musical interpretation. He competed frequently at local and international competitions in his early years, winning, among others, the first prize in numerous categories at the Hong Kong Schools Music Festival (2004-09), the first prize of the Instrument Solo (16+) category at the Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod (2009), the second prize and special ‘Zushi Prize’ at the 1st Japan-Hong Kong International Music Competition (2012), and the HKAPA concerto competition (2012-14). His formative years were spent at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts and the Royal Academy of Music, where his studies were fully sponsored by the Aedas Foundation and the Hong Kong Jockey Club Music & Dance Fund in addition to numerous other supplementary scholarships.
Lee is regarded today as a specialist in new music. He was trained at the London Sinfonietta Academy (2016) and the Lucerne Festival Academy (2013, 15, 16) under musicians of Ensemble Intercontemporain. Significantly, Lee was nominated as soloist at Lucerne Festival Academy founder Pierre Boulez’s 90th Birthday Celebration Concert series in 2015, performing Mémoriale (... explosante-fixe... Originel). He reprised the performance in Easter 2016 at the composer’s memorial concert, with the Lucerne Festival Alumni Orchestra under Matthias Pintscher. He joined the Hong Kong New Music Ensemble in 2016, with which he has performed and toured internationally in premières of works by Unsuk Chin, Brett Dean, Du Yun & Toshio Hosokawa.
Lee is equally active as a soloist and chamber musician, having performed at Tai Kwun’s «Laundry Steps» lunchtime concerts (2019, 2020), Tom Lee Music’s livestream concerts (2020 & 2021), as well as the Leisure & Cultural Services Department’s «Our Music Talents» (2018) and «City Hall Virtuosi» (2023) series. He is also inaugural artist at HKU MUSE’s «Around Twilight» (2021) lecture demonstration series. He has performed, at short notice, alongside Berliner Philharmoniker’s ZeMu! Ensemble in Eugene Birman’s The Once and Future at New Vision Arts Festival 2023. Most recently, Lee delivered the Hongkong premières of Kaija Saariaho’s NoaNoa (2024), Pierre Boulez’s seminal Sonatine (2025) and Philippe Manoury’s Soubresauts for solo flute (2026). His performance of flute music by Camilo Mendez can be heard on the album, Distant Fragments, published by KAIROS [0022038KAI].
Lee has served as assistant lecturer at The University of Hong Kong’s Department of Music since 2022, spearheading the Department’s performance curriculum. He also teaches woodwind chamber music at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, and has served as flute faculty of the Lucerne Festival Academy (2022-23) and the South China Contemporary Creative Institute (2025) in addition to having given masterclasses at EdUHK, HKUST and LCSD Music Office.
For upcoming activities, visit SCHEDULE.
COMPOSITION
Interval talk at Music Biennale Zagreb (Croatia), with artistic director Davor Vincze [© Tim Chan]
Lee is recognised as one of Hongkong’s leading creative voices today. He was conferred the Golden Sail Music Award by the Composers and Authors Society of Hong Kong for his orchestral work, … aux cendres (2024). He was also a fellow of Hong Kong Philharmonic’s Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Hong Kong Composers Scheme (2024).
Lee initially received instruction in composition from Hau-yee Ng and Maurice Poon, but turned towards pursuing flute studies during his Bachelor’s and Master’s studies, thus only studying composition an autodidactic basis. Since 2016, Lee has been invited to a number of international composition academies. His principal mentors include Oscar Bianchi, Hingyan Chan, David Gorton, Dimitri Papageorgiou and Philippe Manoury. He has also studied in masterclass settings under, among others, Mark Andre, Franck Bedrossian, Frédéric Durieux, Michael Finnissy, Luca Francesconi, Toshio Hosokawa, Christian Mason, Simone Movio, Isabel Mundry, Yann Robin, Johannes Maria Staud, Johannes Schöllhorn, Orestis Toufektsis and Nicolas Tzortzis. His compositions persistently challenge the perceived limits of instrumental virtuosity, and has, since 2019, expanded towards exploring issues of experiential temporality and historical materialites in music.
His works have been performed by leading international new music groups, including Ensemble Intercontemporain, Ensemble Modern, Ensemble Multilatérale, HereNowHear, Hong Kong New Music Ensemble, Klangforum Wien, Subaerial Collective and soloists Matteo Cesari (flute) and Jeanne-Marie Conquer (violin) at the likes of the ACL Asian Music Festival (JP), CYCLE Music and Arts Festival (IS), Gaudeamus Muziekweek (NL), Festival Musica Strasbourg (FR), ilSUONO Contemporary Music Week (IT), IRCAM ManiFeste (FR), outHEAR New Music Week (GR), Seoul International Computer Music Festival (KR), SPLICE Festival (US), Tehran International Electronic Music Festival (IR), Ticino Musica Festival (CH), and VAULT Festival (UK). His music twice represented Hongkong at the International Rostrum of Composers (2021 & 2025).
Recent highlights include the premières of his first opera Chasing Waterfalls (co-commissioned by phase7 performing.arts and New Vision Arts Festival Hong Kong) at Semperoper Dresden (DE); his first orchestral works, Des flammes… (2023-24) and … aux cendres (2024), commissioned and premièred by the Hong Kong Philharmonic; his work for amplified ensemble and fixed media, hic / nunc(2024-25), commissioned by the 2025 Music Biennale Zagreb and jointly premièred by HKNME and Vertixe Sonora (ES); the multimedia work … but only the radiant, shimmering— (2025-26), commissioned by the Hong Kong Composers’ Guild and premièred by percussionist Karen Yu and light artist Amy Chan; and Shining through (2026), commissioned by the 2026 outHEAR New Music Week, premièred by vocalist Camille Primeau and soloists of Klangforum Wien under the composer’s direction.
Lee is currently pursuing doctoral studies in composition at The University of Hong Kong under the supervision of Profs. Hingyan Chan and Giorgio Biancorosso. Together with Prof. Hingyan Chan, he co-launched the annual HKU Doming Lam Composition Prize in 2024, supporting and mentoring the University’s young composers. He has given guest lectures and workshops in composition at CUHK and HKBU, and was a composition faculty member of the South China Contemporary Creative Music Institute (2025). He has been invited as adjudicator for the Hong Kong Schools Music Festival’s composition class competitions (2020-22), and the New Generation competition (2020 & 2026) ran annually by the Hong Kong Composers’ Guild.
For more, visit COMPOSITION PORTFOLIO.
CONDUCTING
General rehearsal of Philippe Manoury’s Hypothèse du sextuor with HKNME in the presence of the composer. [© Kurt Chan]
Lee received his training in conducting principally from Alan Cumberland (HKAPA) and Sian Edwards (RAM). With a primary focus on the performance of contemporary music, Lee has worked closely with the Hong Kong New Music Ensemble on multiple occasions, leading the regional and world première of works by the likes of Franck Bedrossian, Guillaume Connesson, Nathaniel Haering, Emily Koh, Yu Kuwabara, Chia-ying Lin, Wei-chih Liu, Daniel Lo, Nemanja Radivojević, Kenneth Tam and Stephen Yip.
In 2020, Lee was selected as one of the conducting fellows of Ensemble Modern’s inaugural edition of International Composer & Conductor Seminar, where he studied and rehearsed the new pieces Gewalt der Musik (2022) and Panorama (2022) by composers Pyotr Peszat and Philipp Krebs, under the supervision of conductor Stefan Asbury; the première concert took place at the 2023 edition of festival cresc... [Biennale for Current Music Frankfurt Rhein main]. In the same year, Lee also stepped in at short notice to lead the Asian première the Dutch composer Michel van der Aa’s The Book of Water (2021-22) at the Hong Kong Arts Festival; he also debut with the renowned Ensemble Musikfabrik and the Neue Vocalsolisten (DE) at the International Young Composers Academy Ticino (founded by composer Oscar Bianchi), premièring new works by course participants. He also returned to Germany in January 2024, leading Ensemble Modern in the opening concert of Stuttgart’s Eclat Festival for New Music.
In 2025 Lee led a joint ensemble with musicians from the Hong Kong New Music Ensemble (HK), Vertixe Sonora (ES) and NAE Collective (HR) on tour to Croatia and Spain, premièring works by Sonja Mutić and Camilo Mendez in addition to his own. Most recently, he led the Hongkong première of Philippe Manoury’s Hypothèse du Sextuor in the presence of the composer at HKU MUSE’s concert series to critical acclaim.
Lee leads a course in conducting as part of HKU Music Department’s Performance Study programme. He was also conductor-in-residence at the inaugural edition of the South China Contemporary Creative Music Institute (2025).
For upcoming activities, visit SCHEDULE.