Dai Keong Lee

Dai-Keong Lee (September 2, 1915 in Honolulu, Hawaii Territory – December 1, 2005) was a Hawaiian born Chinese-American composer. His Symphony No. 2 was runner up for the 1952 Pulitzer Prize for Music.

He studied with Roger Sessions at Princeton University, with Frederick Jacobi at the Juilliard School of Music, with Otto Luening at Columbia University, and with Aaron Copland and was living as a freelance composer in New York City .

He composed six operas, the music for the Broadway comedy Teahouse of the August Moon, a ballet, a ballet suite, two symphonies, a Polynesian suite, a dance piece and a concerto grosso for strings, a string quartet, orchestral songs, choral works and piano pieces. Joan Field premiered his violin concerto.