Younee

PIONEER OF “FREE CLASSIC & JAZZ”

Younee, composer and singer-songwriter from South Korea, has long left her mark, not only due to her unique and virtuoso piano playing. By means of her awesome power of improvisation and that exceptional gift of being able to improvise and to compose freely on a classical foundation, she has defined her very own style: Free Classic & Jazz!

It is with Younee’s spontaneous and freely composed musical pieces in the course of her breathtaking live appearances that she succeeds to win over her audiences again and again. This is why her next album will feature live-recordings of her most exciting live compositions from concerts between 2017 and 2019. Her first two albums had taken the bestseller charts by storm, catapulting her to the No. 1 position. While her German debut album “Jugendstil” (2014) had still relied on Mozart, Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, and other “classics” as inspiration, Younee, on her next album “My Piano” (2016), by way of her incredible technique and 11 self-penned compositions, had virtually lit brilliant fireworks between furioso and pianissimo, taking the listener on a highly emotional journey into a new world of piano music. Down to the last note, everything happens intuitively, spontaneously, unexpectedly without ever slipping into the realm of “kitsch”, or hiding behind a virtuosity because of virtuosity’s sake. “That’s me” says Younee, who has made her current home in Bavaria. The manner in which Younee presents her music to a live audience does not only have its charm, each time it is as if she were reinventing her own music over again.

Younee appeals to a wide audience. Men, as well as women, young and old people alike! They are united by their love of listening to music. And that is all that is needed to fall in love with this artist who has recently been granted German citizenship. Younee, the classically trained Korean pianist, plays – almost – anything, and everything receives her very own stamp. Classic, blues, jazz, or pop melodies, and, yes, sometimes she even sings with a voice that gets under your skin. She presents all of that filled with passionate radiance and charm.

Already at the age of five, Younee had started playing the piano and inventing her own little melodies, as she has later mentioned in an interview. She has maintained and improved that ability in the course of her subsequent music studies in Seoul. Today, she ranks among the few international female pianists who can handle the classical métier equally well as she does jazz and improvisation. On “My Piano”, her current album, she has further broadened this diversity. You get a taste of rousing stride-piano as well as of classic, blues, pop, and jazz. Furious runs and fugue themes give witness of the remarkable strength of her themes and songs. They are all self-penned, and they underline how superficial that obsession with categorization and differentiation may prove time and time again. With aplomb and her precise way of playing she casts aside all stylistic boundaries, makes music out of pure passion and for the love of her audience.

Younee: Improvisations Live in Germany

Read "Improvisations Live in Germany" reviewed by Alberto Bazzurro

by Alberto Bazzurro
August 1, 2025

La quarantenne (il prossimo 20 ottobre) pianista coreana Younee è nota per la sua abitudine a mischiare jazz e classica, terreno (l'insieme, il totale) su cui questo doppio album live, registrato tutto in terra tedesca fra il 2017 e il 2022, due ore e venti di musica piuttosto tirata, interrotta soltanto dalle presentazioni dei vari brani, proposte con un filo di voce per poche decine di secondi ciascuna (i vari segmenti intitolati “Moderation"), si muove con estrema disinvoltura, venendo a ...

Catching Up With

The Musical Universe According to Younee

by Lawrence Peryer
November 1, 2024

At a concert in Nuremberg, surrounded by vintage automobiles, someone in the audience shouted “Cuba!" when YOUNEE asked for a theme to improvise upon. Though she had never visited Havana, the South Korean pianist spun a groove from the classic cars around her, channeling an imagined scene of sunlit streets and chrome bumpers. Such moments of pure musical reaction fill her performances. Her double album, Improvisations Live in Germany (Fulminantmusic, 2024), captures these bursts of creation in concert ...

Süddeutsche Zeitung
“Having relocated to Germany, she began to pool all her abilities and passion in her playing: the classical technique and use of form, the melodic power of pop, as well as rhythmic finesse and improvisational freedom of jazz. Only a very few classical pianists are able to improvise. Younee handles this with equal virtuosity as she works with pop melodies.“

Bonner Generalanzeiger
“A beautifully composed amalgam of classic, jazz, and pop, first-rate quality paired with feeling for moments and development, grand emotion, and naturalness. Again and again she will listen in to the well-constructed harmony, letting herself get inspired to freely improvised pieces. The audience is blown away.“

Süddeutsche Zeitung
“Having relocated to Germany, she began to pool all her abilities and passion in her playing: the classical technique and use of form, the melodic power of pop, as well as rhythmic finesse and improvisational freedom of jazz. Only a very few classical pianists are able to improvise. Younee handles this with equal virtuosity as she works with pop melodies.“

Bonner Generalanzeiger
“A beautifully composed amalgam of classic, jazz, and pop, first-rate quality paired with feeling for moments and development, grand emotion, and naturalness. Again and again she will listen in to the well-constructed harmony, letting herself get inspired to freely improvised pieces. The audience is blown away.“

dpa Deutsche Presse-Agentur
"Younee composes, improvises, sings, plays the piano – and all of that convincingly.” "Younee doesn’t need 'The X Factor' or 'The Wow Factor', because she is youneeQue."

ARD/Kultur-Tipp
“It sounds modern and jazzy. Here, you will find no saccharine pop, no fabric softener….THANK YOU!“

ZDF/MoMa
“Younee from South Korea is a real superstar over there, mixing classical music with blues and jazz!“

ARD/Klick-Klack
“Younee is a real crossover artist. Intuitively, she blends classical, pop, and jazz.“

Stern
"Melody crazy multi-talent: Younee with 'My Piano'. Star-pianist Younee succeeds again with her second self-penned album as a singer and songwriter. With 'My Piano' she shows her expertise as a composer, artist, and singer"

Nürnberger Nachrichten
“Younee is a phenomenon: the pianist with breathtaking touch and a gravity-defying dexterity alternates effortlessly between classical, jazz, and pop.“

Jazzthetik
"Younee is a musical phenomenon." "This cannot be true. But then again it is."

Crescendo
"From vocally melodic to rock/funk, this pianist arouses all facettes with stylistic confidence, always adding classical virtuosity and technical perfection. A refreshing and lively musical encounter!"

Jazzthing
"Playful, melody loving, and extremely nimble-fingered, Younee creates emotional moments full of beauty, from dreamy to furious, but always sounding absolutely natural."

Jazzpodium
"... that this is a multi-talent at the grand piano one enjoys listening intently to during her spontaneous improvisation without losing track of the harmonies."

Nordwestradio
Dr. Wolfgang Rumpf (Music editor at Nordwestradio Kultursender Radio Bremen): “...Younee´s CD “My Piano” is a Keith Jarrett update in classical music...”

Concerti August
"Younee is tearing down all formerly existing categories of jazz, classical, and crossover with her forceful, yet pensive improvisations."

Bonner Rundschau
“In Younee’s accentuated piano playing everything is fully intuitive, spontaneous, and – above all – unexpected … sometimes, it will seem, also to herself. Hard to believe what is happening at that piano. She took the audience by storm.”

Bonner Generalanzeiger
From the dashing “Toccata and Blues“ we move over to that dreamy “Ansbach Blues“ and “Piano Virus“ with its highly infective groove. Younee is an imaginative and versatile pianist, as well as an accomplished composer, and she even sings on the bonus-live-CD, and very well at that: The jazzy ballad ”Hello, Hello“, her own composition, and Mendelssohn’s “Auf Flügeln des Gesanges“ in a haunting interpretation. „Younee’s current CD ›My Piano‹ intensifies the listening pleasure and introduces us to the work of a pianist, who won’t deny her classical training, searches a proximity to pop, rock, and jazz, shows great insight in the blues, and has a heart for new music.”

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