Born in then British–Hongkong, Angus Lee (b. 1992) is a versatile composer-performer, having graduated from the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts (2014) and the Royal Academy of Music (2016) in London with the highest honours, supported by full scholarships from the Aedas Foundation and the Hong Kong Jockey Club Music & Dance Fund. He was conferred the Golden Sail Music Award (2025) by the Composers and Authors Society of Hong Kong for his orchestral work, … aux cendres (2024).

Regarded today as one of the leading compositional voices of his generation in Hongkong, Lee initially studied composition under Hau-yee Ng and Maurice Poon at the HKAPA’s junior music department, but has opted to pursue studies as an instrumentalist during his Bachelor and Master years. Lee has pursued composition on an autodidactic basis until 2016; he has since been invited to international composition academies. His principal mentors include Oscar Bianchi, David Gorton, Dimitri Papageorgiou, and Philippe Manoury. In masterclass settings, he has also benefitted from tutelage under Mark Andre, Franck Bedrossian, Frédéric Durieux, Michael Finnissy, Toshio Hosokawa, Dmitri Kourliandski, Luca Francesconi, Christian Mason, Simone Movio, Isabel Mundry, Yann Robin, Johannes Schöllhorn, Johannes Maria Staud, Orestis Toufektsis, and Nicolas Tzortzis.

Lee’s compositions span solo, chamber, ensemble, orchestral, operatic, electronic, electroacoustic and multimedia genres. Underpinned by an insistent pursuit of detailed, complex sonic texturality and a concomitant affinity for technical virtuosity, his works have, since 2019, broadened to research issues of perception, temporality and historical materialities. Lee’s compositions have been performed by Ensemble Intercontemporain (FR), Klangforum Wien (AT), Ensemble Modern (DE), Ensemble Multilatérale (FR), Ensemble Suono Giallo (IT), HearNowHear (US), Hong Kong New Music Ensemble, Subaerial Collective (US), Trio Accanto, flautist Matteo Cesari and violinist Jeanne-Marie Conquer, showcased at the likes of ACL Asian Music Festival (JP), Ciclo de Música Contemporánea de Oviedo (ES), CYCLE Music and Arts Festival (IS), Festival Musica Strasbourg (FR), Gaudeamus Muziekweek (NL), ilSUONO Contemporary Music Week (IT), IRCAM ManiFeste (FR), outHEAR New Music Week (GR), Seoul International Computer Music Festival (KR), Ticino Musica Festival (CH), and Vienna International SaxFest (AT). His works triumvirate (2018) and … aux cendres (2024) were featured at the International Rostrum of Composers (2021 & 2025), representing Hongkong. His Vestigium I & II (2019), commissioned by percussionist angela hui wai nok, was released on the album Let Me Tell You Something(2021) by nonclassical; his Rage Over Lost Time (2020), commissioned by the Cornell Center for Historical Keyboards for the American piano duo HereNowHear (Andrew Zhou and Ryan McCullough), can be heard on the album sedgeflowers | MANTRA (2024) by False Azure Records.

Recent highlights include the première his first opera, Chasing Waterfalls (2021-22), co-commissioned by phase.7 performing.arts and New Vision Arts Festival Hong Kong), at Semperoper Dresden; his first orchestral works, Des flammes… (2023-24) and … aux cendres (2024), commissioned and premièred by the Hong Kong Philharmonic; a work for amplified ensemble and fixed-media, hic / nunc (2024-25), commissioned by Music Biennale Zagreb and premièred jointly by musicians of Hong Kong New Music Ensemble and Vertixe Sonora (ES); sous rature (2017; rev. 2025) at the closing concert of the South China Contemporary Creative Music Institute by James Cuddeford (vln.) and William Lane (vla.); his multimedia electroacoustic work … but only the radiant, shimmering— (2025-26) for percussion, light installation and fixed-media by Karen Yu, commissioned by the Hong Kong Composers’ Guild; and Shining through (2026) for narrator-singer and three instruments, commissioned by the outHEAR New Music Week 2026, premièred by vocalist Camile Primeau and musicians of Klangforum Wien under the composer’s direction.

An awardee of the Hong Kong Schools’ Music Festival’s composition competitions in his early student years, Lee was invited to return and co-adjudicate the 72nd, 73rd and 74th editions of the competition alongside distinguished local composers Prof. Chan Hing-yan (2020-21) and Dr. Joshua Chan (2022). He was a finalist in New Generation 2012, a competition administered annually by the Hong Kong Composers’ Guild; as conductor, he returned as part of the adjudication panel in the final round of New Generation 2020, and has served as an preliminary round adjudicator in New Generation 2026. In 2022, Lee also instructed, supervised and conducted the creation and performance of short works by nine young local composers as part of A Date with Dogs, a cross-disciplinary performative installation event spearheaded by MaD Asia and presented by the New Vision Arts Festival Hong Kong 2022. At the University of Hong Kong, Lee co-launched the HKU Doming Lam Composition Prize with Prof. Chan Hing-yan in 2024, aimed at incubating and nurturing the University’s emerging young composers.

Lee is a doctoral candidate in composition at the University of Hong Kong’s Department of Music. His supervisors are Profs. Chan Hing-yan and Giorgio Biancorosso.