Ep 93 Colin Lee

Colin Lee talks to Martin Lawes about his musicology-oriented
approach as a Nordoff-Robbins trained music therapist, and
about the newly published Oxford Handbook of Queer and Trans
Music Therapy which he edited. The podcast begins and ends
with music. To start with, a composition by a
music therapist commissioned to begin the handbook. To
conclude, an improvisation from a music therapy session
where Colin explains his musical decision-making as a
therapist.

Colin Andrew Lee studied piano at the Nordwestdeutsche
Musikakademie and subsequently earned his postgraduate
diploma in music therapy from the Nordoff-Robbins Music
Therapy Centre, London, UK. Colin was awarded the Music
Therapy Charity research fellowship completing his doctoral
thesis on the analysis of improvisations with people living
with HIV/AIDS at London Lighthouse, a center for people
facing the challenge of AIDS. He continued his clinical work
at Sir Michael Sobell House Hospice, Oxford, UK.
After immigrating to North America, Colin taught at Berklee
College of Music, Boston, USA, and later at Wilfrid Laurier
University, Waterloo, Canada. Following the publication of
Music at the Edge: The music therapy experiences of a
musician with AIDS (1996, 2016), he subsequently created the
theory of aesthetic music therapy that was the subject of
Colin's monograph, The Architecture of Aesthetic Music
Therapy (2003). Colin recently edited The Oxford Handbook of
Queer and Trans Music Therapy (2024), and is currently
editing The Oxford Handbook of Improvisation in
Music Therapy. His research interests also include the
analysis of postminimalist composers and their influence on
the study of applied health musicology.


References

Lee, C. A. (2024) The Oxford Handbook of Queer and Trans Music
Therapy.
Oxford University Press.
https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780192898364.001.0001

Lee, C. A. & Dromey, C. (2023). Towards an applied health
musicology:
Aesthetic music therapy and beyond. In C. Dromey (Ed.), The
Routledge
Companion to Applied Musicology (pp. 184-191). Routledge.
https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003042983