Everett Lee

Everett Lee (born in 1913) "was [a]...violinist who led the orchestra in the original Broadway production of Carmen Jones and played the oboe on stage in the country club scene." In 1945, he was the "first African American to conduct a major Broadway production." Leonard Bernstein asked Lee to conduct On the Town, which marked the "...first time a black conductor led an all-white production." In 1946, Lee won a "Koussevitzky Music Foundation Award to conduct at Tanglewood." In 1952, he was "appointed director of the opera department at Columbia University...and was also awarded a Fulbright scholarship that allowed him to travel to Europe. In 1953, Lee was the "...first black musician to conduct a white symphony orchestra in the south of the States...in Louisville, Kentucky." In 1955, he was the "...first musician of colour to conduct a major opera company in the US with a performance of La Traviata at the New York City Opera." He was appointed chief conductor of the Norrköping Symphony in Sweden in 1962. In 1976, he conducted the New York Philharmonic for the first time, and he performed a piece by African American composer "...David Baker to mark Martin Luther King's birthday." In 1979, he became music director of the Bogotá Philharmonic Orchestra in Colombia.