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.
Read moreTags
Album Review
- April by Dan Bilawsky
- April by Jerome Wilson
- April by Angelo Leonardi
- Daring Mind by Angelo Leonardi
- Daring Mind by Jack Bowers
Radio & Podcasts
Read more articles“"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
Darcy James Argue
composer/conductorPhotos
Album Discography
Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson
Revived Mind
From: Daring MindBy Jihye Lee