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