Frederick C. and Alice Slee

The Frederick C. and Alice Slee Chamber Hall is the principal music performance venue on the University at Buffalo's North Campus. It was dedicated November 19, 1981.

Frederick Caldecott Slee (1870-1954), a Harvard Law School graduate, was a prominent corporate lawyer in Buffalo. While at Harvard, Mr. Slee also studied music theory and composition, studies he later continued at the Sorbonne. The Music Library possesses ca. 42 musical compositions by Frederick Slee, all but one in manuscript.

Frederick Slee and his wife Alice were great aficionados of chamber music. Mr. Slee performed as either a violinist or violist and the Slees had a special room built for the performance of chamber music at their house on Saybrook Place. The Slees were especially fond of the Beethoven string quartets and established an endowment at the University for an annual performance of the complete cycle. In setting up the concert programs the Slees prescribed the order in which the quartets are to be performed and that order of performance is still followed according to their wishes. The endowment was also used to fund a Slee professorship in the Music Department. Lists of the Slee Professors and the string quartet ensembles which have performed the Slee Beethoven cycle are available elsewhere in our Web pages.

August 2001 Music Library Staff musique@acsu.buffalo.edu http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/units/music/slee.html