Deconstruction and Rebuilding of Cultural Heritage Through Music

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Throughout history, we have deconstructed and rebuilt our cultural heritage. As a composer or a performer, one often confronts decisions with how to interpret historical and musical vocabularies, and how it leads to our own original voices as artists. Three Korean composers will share their original music and voices.

Presenting elements of music with comparisons between the East and West, Dr. Jeong-Seok Lee will demonstrate the distinct differences on “Shigimsae” (the Korean way of ornamentation in music) and play his oboe. He will also discuss the contributions of Shigimsae to western contemporary music. To further highlight the differences, Dr. Lee will be joined by the world renowned artist, gamin, to play the piri, a traditional Korean double reed instrument.

Composer Paul Yeon Lee will focus on his own music, Concertino for Piri and Chamber Orchestra, composed in 2016. Concertino for Piri and Chamber Orchestra was commissioned and premiered by the Korean Symphony Orchestra in February 2017. Mr. Lee will discuss examples of piri shigimsae that he has used in his contemporary work, which are very popular in traditional Korean music.

Lastly, composer Jeeyoung Kim will share her composition, Tryst for oboe, cello, and gayageum with a female voice. Commissioned by Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble in 2002, Tryst has been performed worldwide. Dr. Kim’s composition demonstrates how she embraces Korean history, culture, and literature in her music, and how she has used traditional Korean music in a contemporary way.

Author Bio

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Jeong Seok Lee received his musical training at the Han Yang University in Korea. Dr. Lee was appointed principal oboe of the Korean Youth Orchestra. After graduating from Han Yang University, he served as principal oboe at the Seoul Symphony Orchestra. He received his M.M. degree from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, where he was a student of Stephen Taylor. He has received a Doctor of Musical Art degree for oboe and conducting at the Graduate Center of CUNY. Dr. Lee is one of the last students of Ronald Roseman.

Dr. Lee often appears as a soloist in Korea and the United States, and performs in both chamber music and orchestral concerts. He serves as the music director of the chamber music group, Sonata da Chiesa. He is also the director of the Forest Art School in Forest Hill. In addition, he also teaches chamber music at Queens College. As a side note, he is an active music columnist of the New York Korean Times.


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Paul Yeon Lee is a composer-in-residence at Korean Symphony Orchestra, which is the national orchestra in South Korea. He has been named one of the “25 Contemporary Composers Helping to Push String Music to New Heights” by Strings Magazine in 2012. The critics have praised Lee’s music that “… stormed the heavens with sweeping melodic gestures, romantic yearning” (The Washington Post), “… deserves many more performances… It’s a perfect example of how lyrical and richly textured a modern work can be" (Stings Magazine), "… stunning coloristic effects" (San Francisco Classical Voice) and “... A towering, often ferocious work… genuine… Lee is keeping an old flame very, very alive while fueling it with something that could only have been invented in this century” (Lucid Culture).

Lee's honors and awards include two prestigious awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, American Composers Orchestra commission award, Symphony in C Young Composers’ Competition, MacDowell Colony and International Gugak Workshop Fellowship in South Korea. Lee has received commissions including from Pascal Rogé, Anthony J. Cirone, Ian Maksin, Duo Sutre-Kim, American Composers Orchestra and Korean Symphony Orchestra. Lee's music is published by Theodore Presser Company, Edition Peters and Chester Music.


Presented By:

Jeeyoung Kim is Korean-born composer, studying composition at Yonsei University (B.M.) in Korea and Indiana University (M.M.), and received a Doctor of Musical Arts from Yale University. Dr. Kim's music harmonizes the unique cultural aspects from Eastern and Western traditions. Her music has received critical acclaim from The New York Times, New York Classical Review, and San Francisco Chronicle. Her two pieces, Tryst and Ancient Bell, both were commissioned and toured worldwide by The Silk Road Ensemble, led by Yo-Yo Ma. Her opera, From My Mother’s Mother, was commissioned and premiered in November 2012 by The Houston Grand Opera, and has been performed in New York and Washington D.C.

Dr. Kim has won numerous awards and recognition from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), International Alliance for Women in Music (IAWM), National Association of Composers, USA (NACUSA), and Meet the Composer. In 2001-2002, she was awarded the Bunting Fellowship at Harvard University, where she composed and researched Asian music and philosophy.