Ruth Lee is an award-winning composer and harpist interested in mythology, nature and anthropology. She explores primarily acoustic and electro-acoustic soundworlds, ranging from traditional western notation to graphic scores based on photography and in-situ sketches. Winner of the Sioned Williams Harp Prize at the United Kingdom Harp Competition, the Iain Macleòid Young Composer Award at the Edinburgh International Harp Festival and the Wales International Harp Festival Competition for Composition, her work has been recognised at many of the leading festivals across the UK.
Frequently driven by narratives, sometimes found and at other times self-created, she has been described as a ‘musical story-teller’ with ‘her own inner voice’ (Sioned Williams, UKHA Review). Passionate about the creation of new music, Ruth currently enjoys creating work for solo and chamber groups, as well as collaborating with artists in other mediums to create multi-disciplinary works. She is a graduate of the University of York (First-Class BA Hons. Music 2019) where she was awarded The Wilfrid Mellers Prize for Music and a Concerto Award, performing Deborah Henson-Conant’s ‘Soñando en Español’. She studied harp with Eleanor Turner and Charlotte Seale.
She recently presented a solo programme featuring her own compositions at the World Harp Congress and she is very grateful for the support of the United Kingdom Harp Association who selected her as an Emerging Artist of 2020-21. Alongside her performance schedule, she works for Live Music Now, maintains a private teaching studio, and creates courses for musicians of all ages and abilities on her online teaching studio.