Mr. Randy Lee recently retired after 37 years of music teaching (32 years at Hermantown, 5 at McGregor, MN) which included instrumental performance groups, lessons, jazz, classroom music, and even choirs early in his career.
Mr Lee is currently an adjunct music staff member for the Twin Ports three colleges/universities. He was named a Promethean Award winner (outstanding alum) by UMD in 2019 and one of the Music Educators of the Year by MMEA (MN Music Educators’ Assoc.) in 2018. He has conducted many honor band and honor jazz events in the state and region and has presented on instrumental music teaching topics at national and state conferences. He has served as section coach (saxophone/clar) for various honors events including the MN High School All-State Band and Jazz Band, adjudicated for the Eau Claire Jazz Festival and Iowa High Sch Jazz Championships, and served as the Jazz Education Chair for the MN Music Educators’ Board of Directors. Mr. Lee is state chair and Past National President and past Secretary of the American School Band Directors’ Association. He is also a member of Phi Beta Mu, NAFME, and the MN Band Directors Association (MBDA). Additionally, he sings in the Twin Ports Choral Project, a fine choir in the Twin Ports, and in his church choir.
Randy has a Bachelors of Music degree in Education, from UMD and a Masters of Science degree in Education-Instruction, from UWS.
He’s taught many summers, in addition to the Hermantown summer lesson program, for the UMD Band Camp (North Shore Summer Music Experience) and for the Northland Youth Music Program (NYMP) and has also been hired by UMD for clinics and other instruction.
He was a founding board member and officer of NoteWorthy Kids (NWK) - a regional non-profit, tax-exempt group seeking funds to provide music lessons to low-income, school aged kids. Randy is the founder (1990), conductor, Artistic Director, and featured woodwind soloist of the Big Time Jazz Orchestra, a 501(c)3 tax exempt organization, made up of the finest big band jazz musicians in the region, which performs concerts of music from the jazz masters, as well as new works, for charitable causes, for school jazz students, and for general audiences.
He is a busy woodwind performer in the region playing a wide variety of events, especially for various jazz related performances, from background events to Dixieland bands to Latin American music ensembles to wedding receptions to big band concerts. He and/or his bands have been hired to accompany the Guy Lombardo, Russ Morgan, Harry James, and Jimmy Dorsey orchestras, the Temptations, Bobby Vee, Four Tops, Mills Brothers, Wayne Newton, Drifters, Bobby Vinton, Johnny Mathis, Steve Lippia, and Marvin Hamlisch. He’s performed at nearly every location in the region (including six casinos from NW MN to Eastern WI and the Dells as well as with the Duluth-Superior Symphony Orchestra, Lake Superior Chamber Orchestra, Itasca Symphony Orchestra, Twin Ports Wind Orchestra, Lucius Woods Performing Arts Center (Solon Springs), Big Top Chautauqua (Bayfield) and as a guest performer with nearly all regional college and high school bands/jazz bands.