Founder & Artistic Director

A visionary leader with a bold depth of field and admired among his peers for accomplishing the unimaginable for many players and patrons in the classical music world, Lee Pringle has mastered cultivating and curating programs including but not limited to spirituals, gospel, chamber, and orchestral presentations that span the evolution of his life experiences. 

Unwavering, unapologetic, and uncompromising when advocating for the accomplishments of those from his community, in the past nine years Lee has amassed an impressive body of work providing musicians of African ancestry a platform to showcase their talents.

Movie and television orchestral string soundtracks of the 1970s and 1980s stirred a young Lee Pringle to dream of a life far removed from his rural South Carolina home. Like many African-American children in the South, he was immersed in music from an early age, from the Sunbeam Choir at his childhood church, Mt. Pisgah AME, to band and choral activities in high school. 

Those experiences influenced Mr. Pringle as he vocally matured into an accomplished tenor. He has sung and soloed with professional and community organizations throughout South and North Carolina and abroad. In addition to performing, Mr. Pringle undertook many production activities. Eventually he formed his own marketing and production firm, Buster-Elsie Productions, focused on marketing strategies to present indigenous music of the African continent on concert and opera stages. 

Exhibiting a unique and rare skill set, Buster-Elsie Productions has co-produced and assisted in forming the Charleston International Festival of Choirs and the African Choral Festival in Ghana, West Africa. The enterprise has also produced more than 150 orchestral and choral concerts, numerous solo vocal and piano recitals regionally and internationally, and continues to promote emerging vocalists from across the country through recital performances.

In addition to conceiving and creating the Colour of Music Festival, Lee Pringle is the founder and president of the Charleston Gospel Choir, a 75-member choir now in its 22nd season. For more than a decade, Mr. Pringle had a consulting role with the Charleston Symphony Orchestra as executive producer of four major annual productions, including its popular Gospel Christmas and Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial concerts.

For the past fifteen years, his goal to enhance and expand appreciation of the African-American Spiritual and Black classically trained musicians’ contributions to the genre was the steppingstone for founding the Charleston Spiritual Ensemble and Charleston Spiritual Ensemble Chorale, both recognized for their excellence in vocal performances with immense followings throughout the Carolinas. In 2012,  Mr. Pringle led the two groups on a choral tour to Ghana, the African embarkation point for many who eventually became enslaved in the Americas. 

The Colour of Music Festival has been a nine-year dream in the making with its strategic goal to nurture and showcase the talents of Black classical musicians and composers throughout the U.S. and abroad in 2023 and beyond.