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Youn Sun Nah

Youn Sun Nah was born and raised in Seoul in a voice-loving family; her father was a choirmaster and her mother a musical actress. She learned to play the piano as a child but concentrated on her general studies until she graduated from Konkuk University with a degree in Arts in 1992.

The following year, she was invited by the Korean Symphony Orchestra to sing gospel songs. She made her first steps on record and on stage. Following this experience, she was noticed and hired in musicals. A career opened up for her but she was not convinced that she was on the right track. She finally decided to go back to school to study music and singing in depth.

A Francophile and a song lover, she came to Paris in the autumn of 1995. She enrolled at the Institut National de Musique de Beauvais, at the Nadia and Lili Boulanger Conservatory and at the CIM, a school of jazz and contemporary music. It was there that something clicked.

At the turn of the year 2000, she made her first tours and won prizes in jazz festivals competitions. This was the beginning of a long list of distinctions culminating with the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres title awarded by the French Ministry of Culture in 2009 and the Sejong Culture Prize awarded by the Korean government in 2014.

From her first album Reflets, released in 2001 in Korea, to 2008 Voyage, which was released worldwide, she gradually established herself as a vocal jazz star.

It is with Same girl, released in 2010, that her career takes on an international dimension. This album is a critical and commercial success in Europe, particularly in France (gold disc and Jazz Academy Award) and Germany (Echo Jazz Award), as well as in Korea (Korean Music Award). She then travelled to the biggest international jazz festivals, including Montreux Jazz, which also entrusted her with the Presidency of the Jury of the Voix competition in 2013.

The Lento album, released in 2013, also went gold in France and Germany, making her one of the most important contemporary figures in jazz.

As seasons go by, her voice and her personality leave their mark and touch hearts all over the world. Between 2009 and 2015, Youn Sun Nah gave more than 500 concerts around the world, most of them sold out. On 23 February 2014, she made a stop in Sochi to sing at the Winter Olympics closing ceremony.

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Radio & Podcasts

Youn Sun Nah, Herb Geller, Mark Masters and More

Read "Youn Sun Nah, Herb Geller, Mark Masters and More" reviewed by Jerome Wilson


This show features, among other things, vocals from Youn Sun Nah and Susanne Abbuehl, saxophone from Herb Geller and Melissa Aldana, and big band work from Mark Masters and William Parker. Playlist Henry Threadgill Sextett “I Can't Wait To Get Back Home" from The Complete Novus & Columbia Recordings of Henry Threadgill & Air (Mosaic) 00:00 Jeff Rupert with Veronica Swift “Beauty Becomes Her" from Let's Sail Away (Rupe Media) 00:53 Herb Geller “The Law" from A Jazz ...

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Radio & Podcasts

Ginger Baker + Youn Sun Nah, Brahja, Natacha Atlas and Other New Releases

Read "Ginger Baker + Youn Sun Nah, Brahja, Natacha Atlas and Other New Releases" reviewed by Ludovico Granvassu


A remembrance of Ginger Baker, the jazziest drummer rock music ever had, and a stack of new releases for this week's edition of Mondo Jazz, featuring ensembles that bridge musical cultures -from the Michael Leonhart Orchestra to Brajia, Ajoyo, the Jazzaar Global Ensemble, the Go: Organic Orchestra and Brooklyn Raga Massive -compelling global singers like Youn Sun Nah, Natacha Atlas, Sarah Elizabeth Charles and Petra Haden, as well as Wynton Marsalis' new music for film. Happy listening! ...

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Live Review

Jazz à Juan 2014

Read "Jazz à Juan 2014" reviewed by Jean-Pierre Goffin


54th Jazz à Juan Juan-les-Pins, Antibes France On the sunny Côte d'Azur, Juan-les-Pins offers a jazz festival every year by mixing all-stars bands, and daring to take risks in offering new artists not exclusively from the jazz sphere. Jazz à Juan (Jazz in Juan) is first of all a wonderful site, the timeless decor of the Gould pine grove a unique place with the Mediterranean Sea as a backdrop. As Booker T. Jones said after ...

5
Album Review

Youn Sun Nah: Lento

Read "Lento" reviewed by Franz A. Matzner


With Lento Korean Vocalist Youn Sun Nah once again captivates with an eclectic mix of source material and her ability to evidently manipulate her voice to achieve any effect she so chooses.Nah has crafted a style so purely her own and so compelling, the only valid point of comparison is her previous work. In that vein, Lento represents a less overtly surprising album than her previous endeavor, Same Girl, taking instead a more consistently somber tone. And while ...

6
Album Review

Youn Sun Nah: Lento

Read "Lento" reviewed by Ian Patterson


Youn Sun Nah's rejection of a multi-record deal with French outfit Label Bleu to preserve her artistic freedom indicated that a change was in the air, following five recordings with her French 5tet band. Signed up by German label ACT, Nah released two critically and commercially successful albums, Voyage (2009) and Same Girl (2010), with the same core group of guitarist Ulf Wakenius, bassist Lars Danielsson and percussionist Xavier Desandre-Navarre. Both albums borrowed from the language of jazz, folk and ...

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Album Review

Youn Sun Nah: Same Girl

Read "Same Girl" reviewed by Ian Patterson


Korean singer Youn Sun Nah has come a long way in a short time, since casting off from her French quintet of a decade and turning down a five-album deal from Label Bleu, in order to pursue absolute artistic freedom. Her ACT debut, Voyage (ACT Music, 2009), was a stylish introduction to a strikingly original voice, one which blurred the lines between jazz, folk and pop. On Same Girl, the core musicians from Voyage remain, as does the music's eclectic ...

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Album Review

Youn Sun Nah: Same Girl

Read "Same Girl" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay


Same Girl is Youn Sun Nah's seventh album, and finds the young Korean singer continuing to explore an eclectic mix of original songs and left-field covers in the company of the stylish trio that joined her on Voyage (ACT, 2009). By turns funny, inventive, dramatic, melodramatic and reflective Same Girl confirms Nah's abilities as a vocalist and interpreter. Guitarist Ulf Wakenius, bassist Lars Danielsson and percussionist Xavier Desandre-Navarre all played on Voyage, and keeping the ensemble together ...

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Festival

The Jazz Bakery Presents 2014 Angel City Jazz Festival Lineup Announced

The Jazz Bakery Presents 2014 Angel City Jazz Festival Lineup Announced

Source: Marshall Lamm Promotions & Public Relations

Angel City Arts today announced the programming for the 2014 Angel City Jazz Festival presented by the Jazz Bakery. Los Angeles’s only non-commercial jazz and new music festival, Angel City, is a celebration of cutting edge music at the city’s most exciting and prestigious venues including LACMA, REDCAT, Blue Whale, The Aratani Theatre, Zipper Concert Hall at The Colburn School, and Barnsdall Art Park. The festival will feature innovative and original musicians from around the world. The curated programming will ...

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Festival

Souillac Jazz Festival Line-Up, 19-26 July 2014

Souillac Jazz Festival Line-Up, 19-26 July 2014

Source: Erica Meltzer

“JAZZ, A VEHICLE FOR PEACE, DIALOGUE AND UNITY THAT TRANSCENDS BORDERS AND CULTURES” (UNESCO, 2011) Souillac, France: This small town in the Department of the Lot, southwestern France, will resound with some of the best contemporary music during the Souillac Jazz Festival on 19-26 July. Hosted in a popular tourist region renowned for its unique natural and cultural heritage, “Souillac en jazz” offers festival-goers numerous opportunities to break boundaries and pepper their visit with jazz: + Stroll alongside a marching ...

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Recording

Korean Vocalist Youn Sun Nah Draws on Chanson, Folk, Pop and Jazz Influences for New ACT Music Album, "Lento", Available June 11

Korean Vocalist Youn Sun Nah Draws on Chanson, Folk, Pop and Jazz Influences for New ACT Music Album, "Lento", Available June 11

Source: DL Media

Female singers who manage to stir a whole genre are seldom found. Diana Krall and Norah Jones are such outstanding talents who gave vocal jazz a whole new colour, and Korean singer Youn Sun Nah has been equally phenomenal. In the last few years she has conquered the music world with her albums Voyage (2009) and Same Girl (2010) released on ACT Music. “A miracle,” “a great piece of art,” “enchanting,” “a world-class singer” – just some of the overwhelmingly ...

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Interview

Korean Jazz Singer Youn Sun Nah Interviewed at AAJ

Korean Jazz Singer Youn Sun Nah Interviewed at AAJ

Source: All About Jazz

Since she moved to Paris in 1995, Korean jazz singer Youn Sun Nah has won over French and Korean audiences alike with her rather special voice; dramatic, sensuous and bluesy, it is a tantalizing cross between Bjork and Melody Gardot. Hers is a jazz soul.

For years, she led the Youn Sun Nah 5Tet and has recorded a half-dozen CDs. The most recent, Voyage (ACT, 2009), sees her backed by some of Europe's finest jazz musicians, including Ulf Wakenius, Lars ...

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Lento

ACT Music
2013

buy

Down By Love

Sony Music
2011

buy

Same Girl

ACT Music
2010

buy

Voyage

ACT Music
2009

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