Constellations ...

On July 16, 1997, before a packed international audience in the courtyard of the Palais Princier in Monte Carlo, L'Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo, under the direction of James DePreist, gave the world premiere of Constellations, commissioned by the orchestra to commemorate the 700th anniversary of the Grimaldi Dynasty. The response to this ten-minute work was immediate and enthusiastic.

Pierre-Petite, leading critic of the Paris newspaper LeFigaro, wrote as follows: "It was the American composer Benjamin Lees who initiated the fireworks with a short work, Constellations. It is about ten minutes of absolute freedom containing without doubt, a hint of tonality but which is transformed by uninterrupted sprays of arabesques, cascades of sonorities, of instrumental discoveries, of a remarkable transparency and invention. It is, in fact, a mini-concerto for percussion and orchestra which evokes, with a kind of subtle magic, that which one formerly called the harmony of the spheres. The challenge (of the work) is perfectly formed, and its success incontestable."

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