Cynthia Cozette Lee

Cynthia Cozette Lee, also known as Cynthia Cozette or Nazik Cynthia Cozette (born October 19, 1953, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) is a contemporary African-American classical music composer and librettist. Cozette was the first African-American woman to graduate from the University of Pennsylvania with a Masters of Arts Degree in music composition . Cozette was also the first African-American woman graduate of the University of Pennsylvania to be instructed in music composition by the American composers, George Crumb and George Rochberg.

Cozette is the great-granddaughter of Warren Garner, an African slave who fought during the American Civil War in the 4th Regiment Infantry of the United States Colored Troops. Cozette began her formal music training at 8 years old by studying piano with Carmen Rummo, a Duquesne University professor. She began studying flute at 10 years old. Her early flute teachers were Alois Hrabak, a former flutist with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and Bernard Goldberg, the principal flutist of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. Cozette received the Victor Saudek Flute Award in 1969 to study with Goldberg. She began her musical composition training at 16 years old with Joseph Wilcox Jenkins, a Duquesne University music composition professor. Cozette's prize for winning an honorable mention award in the Pittsburgh Flute Club Composition Contest in 1969 was to have composition lessons with Jenkins. Cozette attended Jacksonville University from 1971 to 1973 and her music composition teachers included William Hoskins. Cozette attended Carnegie Mellon University from 1973 to 1975. Cozette performed her senior recital in 1975 with Gary Chang, a fellow music composition student at Carnegie Mellon. She graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in 1975 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in Music Composition. Her music composition teachers at Carnegie Mellon included Leonardo Balada and Roland Leich. Cozette attended the University of Pennsylvania and graduated in 1977 with a Master of Arts Degree in Music Composition from the university. Her music composition teachers at University of Pennsylvania included George Crumb and George Rochberg. Cozette studied music copying from 1977 to 1978 at the Juilliard School of Music with Arnold Arnstein, the personal music copyist to Leonard Bernstein, Gian-Carlo Menotti and Samuel Barber. She received her Master of Public Administration Degree from Rutgers University in 2005. She received her doctorate degree in education from Rowan University in 2009.

From the beginning of her composing career Cozette’s music style was influenced by the French impressionistic composers, Debussy and Ravel. Cozette's music composition training directly stems from Eusebius Mandyczewski, a close friend and amanuensis of Johannes Brahms through her music composition instructors, Roland Leich and George Rochberg. Both of these instructors were students of Rosario Scalero, a pupil of Mandyczewski. Cozette's Black heritage greatly influences her music composition through her selection of music themes. Cozette completed two one act operas, Adea and The Black Guitar in 1982. However, had difficulty with obtaining publications of her works and recordings. Cozette started sketches on her opera based on the life of her great-grandfather who fought as a soldier in the Civil War and turned to writing smaller compositions for solo flute and piano. Cozette has won national music awards for her compositions. Her Nigerian Treasures for Solo Unaccompanied Flute received a College Music Society Composition Award in 1985 and the work was premiered at the College Music Society Conference in Vancouver, British Columbia during November, 1985. Cozette’s Colors for Women’s Chorus and Percussion Ensemble received 3rd Prize in the 1975 Mu Phi Epsilon Music Composition Contest. Cozette’s The Martyr written for baritone and orchestra received 2nd Prize in the 1979 Mu Phi Epsilon Composition Contest. Cozette was named to Mu Phi Epsilon's member list of outstanding Artists, Composers, Musicologists and Educators (ACME honor). Finding music composition not a lucrative profession, Cozette turned to writing poetry and fiction novels in 2000. She also returned to songwriting with her sister, Hazel Ann Lee, and co-wrote the musical, Magazine Watchtime. Cozette’s original music compositions have not been published. However, nineteen of her vocal, instrumental and operatic works are registered with the Library of Congress through the United States Copyright Office.

From 1982 to 1984, Cozette produced and hosted her own classical music radio interview program on WPEB Public Radio entitled Classical Reflections. Her radio program was a forum for African-American classical musicians in Philadelphia to discuss their life and works. She also promoted African-American classical musicians by being a classical music consultant for a weekly radio show called The Marketplace created by Joe Adams for WUHY PBS Radio station from 1976 to 1977 (WUHY is now called WHYY-FM). Cozette produced and performed her one-woman show, Songs I Wrote For Broadway, in 2001 for the Women of Color Festival in New York.

• Lee, C. (November, 2000). Build a bias-free classroom. NJEA Review, 14-16.
• Lee, C. (2010). D.O.O.R.S. of Change: Capacity Building to Differentiated Instruction. Dissertation Published by ProQuest.
• Literary Works Unpublished
  • The Autograph Seekers by Cynthia Cozette Lee
  • Endings a Book of Poems by Hazel Lee and Cynthia Cozette Lee
  • The Elephant Ride a Book of Poems by Cynthia Cozette Lee
  • Gracie of Gazzam Hill Children’s Book
  • Shakespeare’s Crossing a Children’s Book by Cynthia Cozette Lee

• Lee, Cynthia Cozette. (2010). D.O.O.R.S. of Change: Capacity Building To Differentiated Instruction (Rowan University) (Doctoral Dissertation). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses database. (UMI No. 3396307).

Vocal and choral works

• Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day-Shakespeare Sonnet for high voice and piano
• Don’t Ever Forget Me for soprano and harpsichord
• The First Time I Saw Your Face for soprano and piano
• Four Songs on Freedom for alto, baritone and piano
• 4 Sketches on Black Poems for soprano, baritone, tenor and piano
• Colors for women’s chorus and percussion ensemble
• The Three Tributes for baritone and piano
• The Martyr for baritone and piano
• The Black Guitar/La Guitarra Negra opera in one act
• Bless the Lord Thy God for chorus and piano
• On the Suicide of an African Friend for soprano, flute and piano
• Who Can Find a Virtuous Woman?
• “Harlem” from 4 Sketches on Black Poems
• “Life of Need” Consuela’s aria from The Black Guitar
• Las Cancionnes De Puerto Rico for chorus and piano
• The Doctor’s Song Cycle for soprano and piano

Chamber works

• The Nymph a flute duet
• Lamentations of a Ghetto Child for woodwind quartet and piano
• String Trio Sonata
• Holes and Gaps for solo unaccompanied violin
• Sweets for Four Flutes – Flute Quartet
• Dirges on Sparky’s Death for guitar and piano
• Serenande in Memoriam: To a Runaway Slave for woodwind octet
• My Love for tenor voice and piano Adea opera
• Lady Mariko Suite for flute and piano (Renamed later – Reflections of the Orient)
• The Spanish Guitarist and His Dancer for solo piano (later added to The Steps of the Art Museum piano suite)
• The Steps of the Art Museum Three Poems for the piano
• Nigerian Treasures for solo unaccompanied flute
• Fantaisie on an Air Forgotten for flute and piano
• The Centaur a pictorial essay for violin and piano
• Rivers an African Tribute for solo unaccompanied flute
• Threnody for the Move Victims suite for violin, piano and whistle
• Pittsburgh Memoirs a Suite for Flute Trio
• African Enchantments for 2 flutes and percussion
• The Paris String Quartet in 3 movements
• The Andy Warhol Piano Suite
• Magazine Watchtime song from Secretaries Musical
• On Angel’s Wings

Operas

• Adea opera in one act and three scenes – piano/voice score
• The Black Guitar/La Guitarra Negra Opera in One Act
• The Colored Troop – opera in 2 acts

Musicals

• Slavery 2000 (music by Cynthia Cozette Lee and lyrics by Hazel Ann Lee (Renamed-Slavery Year 3000)
• Vocal Selections – Get Up Early, Why Should You Go, I Am an Underthing, Sunshine Song, If You Were Here
• Secretaries musical play script and musical score
• Songs I Wrote for Broadway a Musical Review

Orchestral

• The Martyr for baritone and orchestra
• Ebony Reflections for chamber orchestra
• Nepenthe Concerto for piano and orchestra