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Jihye Lee

Jihye Lee is a jazz composer and bandleader based in New York, highly regarded for her personal and adventurous storytelling approach to large-ensemble jazz. “Her music is imaginative and creative” says Jim McNeely, one of Lee’s great mentors. “And she’s not afraid to take some exciting chances in her writing.”

Lee describes composition as a form of record-keeping for herself, as the documentation of her life, the process of finding musical equivalents to the images, thoughts and emotions in her mind. She writes first and foremost for herself, to release her feelings, which makes her music deeply personal. Her goal is to invite listeners into her creative world, to relate to her stories, to reflect on the truth that as humans, we share similar struggles and triumphs regardless of where we come from. It is Lee’s hope that we can create genuine connections with each other through art.

She has organized successful crowdfunding campaigns for April, her 2017 debut album, as well as Daring Mind, her sophomore effort, releasing in March 26, 2021 on Motéma Music. April was was co-produced by Greg Hopkins and recorded with Berklee faculty members and top jazz professionals from the Boston area; the album revealed Lee’s extraordinary gifts at the helm of a top-tier large ensemble, making original music with what The Village Voice called “chamber-like textures, involved harmony and sectional counterpoint, and persistent rhythmic drive.”

Daring Mind, the follow-up, is produced by the innovative composer and Secret Society bandleader Darcy James Argue, with renowned trumpeter Sean Jones appearing as a special guest. It presents compositions from Lee’s Mind Series, including her BMI Charlie Parker Jazz Composition Prize-winning “Unshakable Mind” and her Manny Albam Commission piece “Revived Mind.” The music reflects her struggles, doubts, and hopes while living in the amazing city of New York. All the compositions explore the human mind, heart and soul, the various states of the human psyche from confusion to rage to enlightenment.

A native of South Korea, Lee had no jazz or classical training growing up, though she found success in Korea performing as an indie pop singer. She graduated from Dongduk Women’s University with a degree in Voice Performance, discovering her love of large-ensemble jazz only after beginning her studies at Boston’s Berklee College of Music in 2011. Confidently she began to explore her own identity and voice within this exciting, historically rich medium, winning Berklee’s Duke Ellington Prize just months after declaring her Jazz Composition major (and again the following year). Though she could never have anticipated this new path, she has followed it to greater heights, moving to New York in 2015 and earning a master’s degree at Manhattan School of Music under the guidance of the great Jim McNeely, with generous funding from school scholarships and the CJ Cultural Foundation.

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Radio & Podcasts

Jihye Lee, Dave Holland, Omar Sosa, Bheki Mseleku & Other New Releases

Read "Jihye Lee, Dave Holland, Omar Sosa, Bheki Mseleku & Other New Releases" reviewed by Ludovico Granvassu


Hypnotic tunes, Orchestras, South African piano masters and James Brandon Lewis' prolific vein are the main themes of this show focusing on new and upcoming releases.Happy listening!Playlist Ben Allison “Mondo Jazz Theme (feat. Ted Nash & Pyeng Threadgill)" 0:00 Omar Sosa “Shibinda" An East African Journey (OTA) 0:16 Host talks 4:54 Sam Fribush “[Outtake]" Sam Fribush Organ Trio, Vol. II: The Root (CHM) 7:00 De Beren Gieren “Stress Als Optie" Less Is Endless (Sdban) 11:24 Host ...

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Album Review

Jihye Lee: Daring Mind

Read "Daring Mind" reviewed by Jack Bowers


Korean-born composer Jihye Lee is a musician who knows her own mind, whether it be relentless, unshakable, revived, dissatisfied or Daring, as on her second recording for Motema Records. In 2018, Lee earned the prestigious BMI Charlie Parker Composition Prize for “Unshakable Mind," one of nine diverse themes presented here. Another, “I Dare You," is loosely based on Wayne Shorter's response when asked, “What is jazz?" It is a question Lee must also address, as her music is not only ...

Album Review

Jihye Lee: Daring Mind

Read "Daring Mind" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi


Solo un talento eccezionale come Jihye Lee poteva ottenere risultati così brillanti e personali nel campo dell'orchestrazione jazz partendo quasi da zero. Nata a Seoul ed emigrata negli Stati Uniti da adolescente, quando s'iscrisse al Berklee College conosceva pochissimo il linguaggio musicale afro-americano e per niente la sua dimensione orchestrale. Dopo un decennio, studi di perfezionamento alla Manhattan School of Music col grande Jim McNeely (a cui va riconosciuto parte del merito) e un primo eccellente debutto (April, 2017), la ...

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Album Review

Jihye Lee Orchestra: Daring Mind

Read "Daring Mind" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic


Listening to bandleader/composer Jihye Lee and her mic-drop orchestra is like watching your life flash before your eyes. You see it all: All the richness of spirit one can attain. All the sadness one can espouse. All the waltzing mischief to which one can aspire. Testing malleability at every turn, Lee's on to an eclectic something that doesn't pass through the torpor too often: A lucid, active imagination. Thus Daring Mind, Lee's Motema Music debut, co-produced by Darcy ...

Album Review

Jihye Lee: April

Read "April" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi


Quando s'iscrisse al Berklee College of Music, Jihye Lee aveva una scarsa conoscenza del jazz e nessuna intenzione di arrivare a essere orchestratrice e band-leader. Era un cantante pop coreana agli esordi e voleva espandere i suoi orizzonti musicali. Dopo circa un decennio Jihye presenta questo significativo debutto: una raffinata suite, scritta per un ampio organico di strumentisti bostoniani, molti dei quali attivi nello stesso college. Com'è comprensibile, alcuni aiuti sono giunti dai suoi insegnanti. Da Jim ...

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Album Review

Jihye Lee Orchestra: April

Read "April" reviewed by Jerome Wilson


On April 16, 2014, the ferry Sewol capsized and sank in South Korea killing more than 300 passengers. In Boston that tragedy inspired Berklee College of Music student and Korean native Jihye Lee to put together the powerful music heard on this CD. Lee has assembled a 20-piece ensemble of Boston area musicians to play music from the branch of orchestral jazz that comes out of Gil Evans, Bob Brookmeyer and Maria Schneider, music that ranges from somber to emotional ...

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Album Review

Jihye Lee Orchestra: April

Read "April" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky


On the morning of April 16, 2014, four hundred seventy-six souls were living life as they knew it, traveling on the ferry Sewol from Incheon to Jeju in South Korea. Then it all came to an abrupt halt when the ship capsized and sank. The South Korean Coast Guard, commercial vessels, and fishing boats managed to arrive in time to save more than one hundred seventy lives; the rest were lost, taken by the ship into a watery grave. That ...

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“"With its chamber-like woodwind textures, involved harmony and sectional counterpoint, and persistent rhythmic drive, Lee's music fits comfortably within a resurgent large-ensemble format whose exponents include Maria Schneider, John Hollenbeck, Darcy James Argue, and Andrew Rathbun. But Lee also imbues her compositions withhan, an ineffable sadness that serves as a dramatic element in much Korean art - compare the Brazilian saudade or American blues." ” — David Adler, Village Voice

“"Lee certainly embraced that richness on her remarkable debut, which is redolent of the coloristic bravura of the Maria Schneider Orchestra and the narrative complexity of Jim McNeely's arrangement."” — Shaun Brady, Jazziz

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Darcy James Argue
composer / conductor

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Daring Mind

Motéma Music
2021

buy

April

Self Produced
2017

buy

Revived Mind

From: Daring Mind
By Jihye Lee

Videos

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