Lee Lane grew up in Phoenix, Arizona where he started to study the viola in a high school beginning strings class. After graduating from the Eastman School of Music, he won a Fulbright Scholarship to study in Italy with violist Bruno Giuranna. With his wife, Susan, Lee subsequently moved to Mexico City to play principal viola with an orchestra there.

Returning to the States, he became Principal Viola of the Kansas City Philharmonic and later Assistant Principal in the Minnesota Orchestra before being hired for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1971 by Sir Georg Solti.

Lee enjoys solo and chamber music on both the viola and the violin, and has been active with many groups in many places, including a faculty string quartet at Eastman School, summers at the Marlboro Music Festival, ensembles in Italy and Mexico, and frequent performances on the Chicago Symphony Chamber Music Series, including collaborations with Wayne Wildman. The viola that Lee plays bears the label of T. Balestrieri, Mantova 1767.