Thomas Nee, of Encinitas, Calif, who conducted the former Minneapolis Civic Orchestra from 1954 to 1967, died July 7 in Encinitas. He was 87. Nee introduced contemporary orchestral music and the classics to Twin Cities audiences, and he strove to help young composers.
Nee conducted the St. Paul Civic Orchestra from 1948 to 1951 and was the assistant conductor of the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra (now the Minnesota Orchestra) from 1959 to 1960.
He and Minneapolis composer Eric Stokes ran the "Here" series of concerts at the Walker Art Center in the mid-1960s, and he cofounded the Center Opera Company in Minneapolis, now the Minnesota Opera in St. Paul.
Dominick Argento, a Grammy- and Pulitzer Prize-winning opera composer, said Nee was the "main champion of contemporary music" when he lived in the Twin Cities.
"In the first couple decades of my career in the Twin Cities, he was probably the biggest influence on my career," Argento said. "He was committed to giving any Minnesota composer a chance."
Around 1965, Nee commissioned Argento's symphony "The Mask of Night."
In the 1950s and 1960s, he was the music director of the First Unitarian Society in Minneapolis, where "he would introduce people to little-heard music," said Cynthia Stokes of Minneapolis, a retired flutist for the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra.
His concerts at the Walker and other venues often were full of surprises, said Stokes, whose husband, composer Eric Stokes, and others including Nee, put on happenings in the 1960s.
