Composer. Born Benjamin George Lisiansky to a Jewish watchmaker then working in Harbin, China, he relocated with his family to San Francisco as a toddler and moved to Los Angeles in 1939. He started piano lessons at age five and produced his initial compositions as a teenager. Following his World War II US Army service, he studied at the University of Southern California (USC) and privately with composer George Antheil. His first significant breakthrough came with the 1954 "Profile for Orchestra", which was performed and broadcast by the NBC Symphony Orchestra. Guggenheim and Fulbright fellowships took him to Europe for seven years of further study, primarily in Paris. After returning to the US Lees served as a professor of composition at Baltimore's Peabody Conservatory, and at New York's Manhattan School of Music and Juilliard. From 1974 to the end of his life he made his living from commissions, his best known piece probably being the 1985 Symphony No. 4, "Memorial Candles", performed by the Dallas Symphony to mark the 40th anniversary of the Holocaust. Other major achievements include "Concerto for Brass Choir and Orchestra" (1983) for the Dallas Symphony, "String Quartet No. 3" (1982) for the Tokyo String Quartet, the 1989 "String Quartet No. 4" for San Francisco's Aurora String Quartet, and a 1992 "Horn Concerto" premiered by the Pittsburgh Symphony. Lees received a 2004 Grammy Award nomination for his 1986 Symphony No. 5, "Kalmar Nyckel", named for a ship that brought 17th century Swedish immigrants to America. He settled in Palm Springs, California in 1990. At his death he had a large recorded legacy (primarily on the Naxos label) in print. Lees once commented on his continuing to compose into old age: "Composers never retire. We work until we cannot hold the pencil anymore".