Christopher James Lees, resident conductor at the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra, photographed in the 2025 New York City Marathon. Photo courtesy of Christopher James Lees.
In Monday’s (1/12) Charlotte Observer (North Carolina), writer Théoden Janes has an ongoing column in which he runs with notable Charlotte residents. “This week’s interviewee: Christopher James Lees, 44, who has served as resident conductor for the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra since 2018 … Lees also is music director of the Rock Hill Symphony Orchestra. Lees: The running club community in Charlotte is so active and alive…. Because I work nights and weekends, it’s a different sort of planning for getting the miles in to actually do the proper training … Sometimes it’s me and my podcasts, and sometimes it’s me and my friends…. I might put on some classical music that I’m working on, just to get more and more familiar with it. And then if it’s speedwork, I might put on a BPM (Beats Per Minute) playlist and listen to some driving techno … If I want to just steep in a Mahler symphony … you could do a full six or seven miles on one single piece of music…. Beyond classical, there’s some Jacob Collier and some Snarky Puppy. There’s some upbeat pop music, like Andy Grammar. For the speedwork, it’s pretty edgy EDM, electronica…. The Charlotte Symphony, the musicians, really are my musical family, because we’ve done hundreds of concerts together at this point…. We’re still coming up with new and different ideas of how to get musical experiences to all parts of our city.”
