Lee Santana
Biography Lee Santana
Lee Santana
was born into a musicians family in Florida at the end of the baby-boomer era. Into his youth he played a lot of jazz-rock music, and a little classical on the side, from the age of 16 on, classical music grew on him. As a boomer-anything is possible- youth, his role models went from fusion composer-players to classical composer-players. As a guitarist-lutenist these role models became earlier and earlier and has rested in a life long dynamic discussion with player-composers of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.
In order to better ,follow his star‘, Santana moved to Europe in 1984. There he met the gamba virtuose Hille Perl, and an intense creative process began which continues to evolve thirty years later.
After many journeyman‘s years, working for many of the best ensembles, conductors and soloists, Lee has become the projector of his own concepts and plans, working as soloist or with Hille, or with their groups The Age of Passions, Los Otros or Sirius Viols. As a team, Hille and Lee also enjoy working with their friends Dorothee Mields and Maurice Steger.
As a composer, Lee is presently concerned with a large Requiem for the Nuclear Age, as well as music for a video/performance ‚Love’s Beginnings’ which will be shown in Feldkirch Austria next year. Stylistically, he has taken his own path, refusing to bog down in the expectations and clichés of the post modern „new“ music movement.
His forthcoming solo CD is entitled ‚A Song of Divine Love‘ and is a kind of extended light-meditation, with works from J.S.Bach,Lee Santana und S.L.Weiß. His present work reflects a growing conviction in the fundamental goodness and interconnectedness of just about everything, and a deep gratitude for the privilege of music making, and for the love and support of family and friends.
