The "Hub of the Musiverse - Immigrant Composers" Concert
Commissioned and Premiered by Dinosaur Annex Music Ensemble
11/16/21

Please watch "48 Paddington Street" (1940-1949), which became the motive for this piece.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=zh7emDGb4cM&t=172s

The Accents for Violin, Viola, and Piano

Instrumentation: 
Clarinet in Bb/Bass Clarinet, Alto Saxophone/Tenor Saxophone, Viola, Double Bass, Piano, Percussion, Electronics

Equilibrium Ensemble Commissioning Project #4: Yoon-Ji Lee
Commissioned and Premiered by Equilibrium Ensemble 
4/15/17

Klusters

premiered by Gamin (Korean traditional instruments), Satoshi Takeishi (percussion), Yoon-Ji Lee (electronics)@ Flushing Town Hall, 2/7/14

Wind and Stone II for Korean Traditional Instruments (piri/senghwang), percussion, and electronics

performed by Momenta String Quartet @ NYU Silver Center, April 21 2014

dedicated to my father, who passed away in 2009.

Delia Elena San Marco after Jorge Luis Borges (2014) For Two Violins

Nine for Two Violins, Senghwang, and Electonics

performed by Hannah Levinson (ensemble mise-en) and Yoon-Ji Lee (electronics-fixed media)at mise-en music festival 2014 in NYC

INTRA II (2014) for Viola And Electronics

premiered by Washington Square Contemporary Society at Tenri Cultural Institute.

Program Note:

The motivation to create this piece comes from the feeling of "찌리릿(zzi-ririt)," which is, in translation, "electrifying." In other words, it is a feeling in which you are coming out of numbness and feeling the blood flowing again. Unusual moments of feeling  찌리릿 may have attending visual, emotional, and sensual components: love at first sight, Le Corbusier's Longchamp church, bungee jumping in Macau Tower (770 feet up), P'ansori (Korean tradition vocal music) live performance, and Marilyn Monroe's standing over a subway grate in a white halter dress (Seven Year Itch). I believe everyone has different experiences with this feeling and unfortunately although it makes us feel alive, it doesn't last for long. Because its impact is really strong, I wondered if as a composer I could create this feeling in my music and present it to the audience.  Because I couldn't find the same word in English, I've kept the Korean one. This piece was composed during my artist residency at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, generously supported by the Jane Geuting Camp Fellowship. 
 


찌리릿! (zzi - Ri - Rit!) for Flute/Piccolo, Violin, Cello, and Piano

*Program Note*
About Face is a musical setting of a poem by Caroline Bergvall. The composition
explores ideas of juxtaposition and montage, primarily that between language and
music. Here language and music keep their separate identities, even as they are joined through proximity, and even as they constantly interact and meld on a material level. In a sense the performers move back and forth, and between, both discourses. There are furthermore many other juxtapositions. At one point in the piece the instrumentalists simultaneously recite different textual material, making a complicated noisiness; in juxtaposition the soprano sings apart.

About Face for soprano & double string quartet

In Dark Sunshine (2009) for Clarinet in Bb/Bass Clarinet, Violin, and Percussion

Straight Waves explores my interest in trying to situate both real and surreal moments in sound. The “real” moments are suggested by obvious and memorable gestures. Yet as we experience these events in increasingly diverse situations, they begin to seem less obvious than we once thought; and at times even project surreal feelings and a sense of mystery. 

      I focused on several technical ways of exploring these ideas. The musical structure moves clearly through different registers: from high to low. By utilizing a montage technique (with a sensitivity towards psychoacoustics), I have tried to turn simple gestures such as chords and glissandos into combinations of complex sounds. 
The idea of this piece also encompasses two different senses of time. One is the length of smaller-scale events. The other is a more global sense, which might be likened to the coalescence of huge structural lines--lines that are a sum of the different local events that capture each [non-linear] moment. By having these two 'times' come together, there is contradiction or confusion in one's listening experience. Time keeps moving but also embodies stasis.  

Straight Waves (2010) for Chamber Ensemble

Liquid Noise for Electronics

percussion trio
performed by TimeTable Ensemble
Feburary 8, 11

Mystic Resonator (2011) for Percussion Trio

@ the Stone
performers:
Yoon-Ji Lee (composition, electronics) Marco Cappelli (electric guitar) Josh Sinton (bass clarinet, baritone saxophone) David Kant (tenor saxophone, electronics) Shoko Nagai (piano) Philip White (modular synth) David Shively (percussion)


A Lunar Halo for Electronics, Electric Guitar, Bass Clarinet/Baritone Saxophone, Tenor Saxophone, Piano, Percussion, and Modular Synth

Pansori, her voices (2006) for electronics

Mise-en @ The Firehouse Space (Feb 20 2012) 

Lyric Montage for clarinet in Bb, viola, cello, and piano

the Cell theatre Dec 9th 2012 performed by Jp McShane and ensemble mise-en

Contact Place after Pina Bausch for Electric Guitar Concerto

Yoon-Ji Lee is a Korean composer based in New York. Her music is sound-based and non-linear with powerful focus regarding moment by moment gestures, textures and tone colors. She also has been experimenting with contextual improvisation (composing certain materials and frameworks for performers to improvise with) as well as intercultural musical sources. Her works have been performed in Korea and around the U.S., by ensembles including JACK Quartet, MIVOS Quartet, Argento Ensemble, International Contemporary Ensemble, and Kammerensemble Neue Musik Berlin and many others. Lee also has many current composition commissions, for Washington Square Contemporary Society and ensemble mise-en, as well as for several solo performers.  Her work Lyric Montage was selected for the 2012 New Music Miami ISCM Festival.  In 2012 Lee also received the Patsy Lu Award, from International Alliance of Women in Music. Previously she was awarded the Henry M. MacCracken Fellowship, which funded her PhD studies at NYU and Jane Geuting Camp Fellowship from Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Lee has participated in artist residencies at Atlantic Center for the Arts, where she worked with Elliott Sharp, VCCA, and Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts.

yoonjilee

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