Composer Benjamin Lees dies at 86

Benjamin Lees, an accomplished American composer who lived in Great Neck for nearly three decades, died Monday in Glen Cove Hospital of a heart attack, family members said. He was 86.

In recent years Lees lived in Palm Springs, Calif., with his wife, Leatrice, a retired New York City schoolteacher, who survives him. He continued creating musical works, for which he first gained prominence in the 1950s, said his daughter, Jan Rexon of Glen Cove.

Among the more recent examples of acclaim for his work, Lees received Grammy nominations - in 2004 for his Symphony No. 5, "Kalmar Nyckel," and in 2009 for his violin concerto. Considered versatile, with a style musical reviewers said rejected atonalism for classical structure, he wrote symphonies, piano sonatas, and chamber works.

In a documentary by filmmaker and friend Joel Hochberg featuring Lees and his work, the composer discusses his creative process.

"How do the ideas come? One never knows," he said. "There is a certain vague series of sounds that are in the head, and you hear them, in a very vague sort of way. And finally, the sounds begin to coalesce, and before you know it, there is a certain order to what you're hearing and that order takes shape. And that's when you go to the keyboard and try to reproduce what your brain heard."

Lees, an Army veteran of World War II, lived in Nassau County between 1965 and 1996. At different times, he taught at Queens College, at Juilliard, and at the Manhattan School of Music. Mostly he worked on his compositions from home.

He was born Benjamin George Lisniansky in 1924, in the Chinese city of Harbin, in Manchuria, to which his Jewish parents fled from pogroms in the Ukraine. The family name became Lees in the 1920s when they moved to the United States.

Benjamin Lees grew up in San Francisco. As a youth, he got to see Rachmaninoff perform. After the war he attended the University of Southern California and then studied with composer George Antheil.

"Music was not just his love, it was his life," said his brother, Mark Lees of Palm Springs. "He wrote on standard music paper, with standard notes, for standard instruments. He was wonderful with orchestration."

In 2004, Lees told the Los Angeles Times: "There are two kinds of composers. One is the intellectual and the other is visceral. I fall into the latter category. If my stomach doesn't tighten at an idea, then it's not the right idea."

In addition to his brother, wife and daughter, Lees is survived by two grandchildren, Franklin and Rachael.

A private cremation is planned, with a memorial service to be organized at a later time, family members said Saturday.