A correction was added to this article April 19.

Because of an editing error, lecturer and clarinetist Daniel Leeson was misquoted in the April 18 article “Deciphering `The Mozart Forgeries.'” Leeson said he wanted his Mozart novel to reach clarinetists who loved Mozart’s “Clarinet Concerto” but weren’t familiar with its history. He did not say, as the article implied, that he was unfamiliar with the work himself. Also, because of a reporting error, the article stated that next year is the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s death. It is the 250th anniversary of his birth. The Daily regrets these errors.

Daniel Leeson sang a piece of music in second grade and it changed his life.

“It hit me between the head; I was knocked out,” he says.

Leeson’s interest in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart began when he sang “The Magic Flute” with his classmates. His passion remains strong.

“I’ve never known why anyone likes a particular composer,” he says.

“I suppose it’s a matter of genetics.”

Leeson says he started to play the clarinet when he was nine because his brother played it.

“We took lessons on one clarinet, one mouthpiece and one reed, and we shared it, but [my brother] never practiced,” he says. “I was more serious about it.”

He continued lessons, but realized when he got to college he didn’t want to make a living by playing the clarinet. Instead, he studied mathematics, what he calls “the queen of sciences,” and began a 30-year career at IBM.

He continued to practice and occasionally played with orchestras when it didn’t interfere with his job.

“It didn’t pay enough to give me the kind of life I wanted to live,” he says.

“I wanted to have family and children and live well, and I could not do that with the clarinet.”

Now that he is retired, Leeson has played as a full-time professional musician. He has also had time to do research, especially on Mozart. Leeson’s mathematical background helped him develop a theory, which he will present Monday, about Mozart’s mathematical intellect and how the number theory — the study of the properties of numbers — influenced his composition.

“I’m not maintaining that Mozart was a creative mathematician,” he says.

“Mozart played with numbers, except the number sets showed he had a particularly good mathematical intellect.”

The idea for this theory came after studying one of Mozart’s manuscripts, because it was covered with numbers, Leeson says. He spent months studying the manuscript, but only deciphered about 20 percent of it.

“That 20 percent of the code scared me half to death because what he did was something that was very profound mathematically,” he says.

Leeson says Mozart had no education or schooling and did not realize how profound his discovery was.

“It’s remarkable not because of what it is, but who did it,” he says. “What he discovered was, in effect, something that Sir Isaac Newton worked on about 30 or 40 years later.”

Leeson will also present a lecture Tuesday about his book, “The Mozart Forgeries,” a work of fiction about two people who try to forge the autographs of the Mozart “Clarinet Concerto” and the “Clarinet Quintet.”

He said one reason he wrote this book was because of the profit potential associated with next year’s celebration of the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s death.

“Now, it’s true I worked hard to write the books because I love Mozart very dearly, but I wasn’t going to write a book that no one was going to read,” he says.

The book is fiction based on historical fact and has been compared to “The DaVinci Code.”

“I had a desire to reach clarinet players who loved the work … but, in reality, I don’t know anything about it,” he says.

His celebration of Mozart goes beyond the celebrating anniversaries.

“As far as I’m concerned, every day of the year I celebrate him,” he says.

What: “The Mozart Forgeries”

Where: Martha-Ellen Tye Recital Hall

When: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday

Cost: Free