| Country | United States of America |
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| Occupation | Composer |
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| Categories | Contemporary |
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COMPOSER: YE SUNG LEE
Ye Sung Lee, a Korean-American composer, educator, and pianist, composes for traditional ensembles, solos, and operas, as well as compositions incorporating electronic media. In addition, she has collaborated with Korean traditional dancer/choreographer Mihi Seo, coloratura soprano Katherine Keem, visual artist Christian Schütz, playwright Laura Harrington, opera director Leon Major, and Ben Lorentzen, the lead vocal of the rock band, Sonic Cult.
A graduate of Boston University (B.M. in piano and composition), Johns Hopkins University’s Peabody Conservatory of Music (computer music), and the University of Maryland (D.M.A. in composition), Lee studied with composers Thomas Benjamin, Charles Dodge, Mark E. Wilson, Geoffrey Wright and Chen Yi. She has also studied with Allain Gaussin and Horatiu Radulescu in Paris, and attended the American Conservatory of Fontainebleau.
Lee has been awarded several grants and scholarships, including the Korean Cultural Foundation Artist Grant, the Korea Monitor Artist Grant, the Peabody Career Grant, and the University of Maryland Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship. Other awards include First Place in the Prix d’Été Competition for Der Wanderer for MIDI Piano and Electronics, the Walsum Composition Award for TEKOAH, premiered by the Opus 3 Trio, and the International Society of American Music Composer Award for As the Thread of Tao written for the Chamber Ensemble. Lee has received numerous commissions, including ones from the Maryland Opera Studio for the opera SSIBAJI (translation: The Surrogate Wife), Russian Chamber Arts Society for “Yesterday, Today, & Forever” a song cycle based on the poems by Russian poets Larissa Miller and Bella Akhmadulina, and the Korean Cultural Foundation.
Lee's music has been performed throughout the United States and abroad, including at the Sidney Harman Hall Shakespeare Theatre, IMAX Theatre Maryland Science Center, Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, Friedberg Concert Hall, McNeir Hall, Baltimore Theatre Project, Korea Monitor Arts Gallery, and the International Computer Music Conference in Beijing, China. As an active secondary school education instructor, Lee currently chairs the Thomas Benjamin Composition Competition in Maryland, under the auspices of the Howard County Music Teachers Association, and is a member of the composition faculty of the Young Composers Program at the University of Maryland Baltimore County.