Paul Yeon Lee

Alumni
BM, San Jose State University, 1996 (Music Composition)
MM, University of Michigan, 1998
DMA, University of Michigan, in progress

PAUL YEON LEE is committed to writing the most poignant, eloquent, and passionate music that he can imagine. His music has received many performances by individual artists and ensembles throughout the United States including the Contemporary Music Ensemble at Mannes College of Music, Speculum Musicae, Charleston String Quartet, University of Missouri-Kansas City Musica Nova Ensemble, University of Michigan Philharmonia Symphony Orchestra, University of Michigan Symphony Orchestra, Haddonfield Symphony, Redwood Symphony, Indiana University Chamber Orchestra, Wayne State University Orchestra, and American Composers Orchestra.

His music has been conducted by numerous conductors including Thomas Baldner, Daniel Hege, Laura Jackson, Eric Kujawsky, Kypros Markou, Rossen Milanov, and Jeffrey Milarsky. Lee has received many commissions including from Redwood Symphony in Northern California; Anthony J. Cirone, chair of percussion department at the Indiana University in Bloomington; Stephen Czarkowski, cellist in NYC; Joshua Friedlander, violinist at the Florida State University; and recently, the 2001 Helen F. Whitaker Commission from the American Composers Orchestra, which will premiere his new orchestra piece at Carnegie Hall in the 2003-2004 season.

Lee has received many honors and awards including a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the ACO Whitaker New Music Reading Sessions, the Haddonfield Symphony Young Composers' Competition, two Eva Thompson Philips Composition Awards, ASCAP, SJSU Dean Scholarship, and the Mentor Graphics Foundation. Lee has been a fellow at Atlantic Center for the Arts, California State University Summer Arts Composers' Workshop at Long Beach, the Mid-West Composers' Symposium at Oberlin Conservatory in Ohio, the Mid-America Composers' Festival at Grinnell College in Iowa, the Kansas Symposium of New Music at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, and numerous SCI Conferences including the 1999 National Annual Conference in New York.

Lee is currently a doctoral student in composition at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His principal teachers have included Leslie Bassett, William Bolcom, Pablo E. Furman, Bright Sheng, and Allen Strange. He is a member of ASCAP and SCI. His music is published by Theodore Presser Company.

A review of Paul's work:
"Lee's prize-winning score, Silhouette, got the evening off to a thunderous start. The 12-minute orchestral score starts with a staccato outburst and then unfolds in a series of short episodes filled with pounding rhythms, bold colors and dissonant effects. Hege (conductor) led a brash performance that caught the dark power of Lee's music."
------Robert Baxter, Courier-Post: March 22, 1999

Re. premiere performance of "Silhouette, for orchestra
Date: march 20 , 1999
Performed by the Haddonfield Symphony
Directed by Daniel Hege


Performances

Elegy - violin, violincello, and piano
• 1997 50th Annual Mid-West Composers' Symposium - Oberlin Conservatory, Ohio
• 1999 SCI National Annual Conference at Mannes College of Music, New York performed by the Contemporary Music Ensemble

Sanjo No.2 - viola

• 1997 SCI Regional II Annual Conference - Crane School of Music SUNY Potsdam, New York by Kenneth Martinson
• 1998 SCI Region II Annual Conference - SUNY Stony Brook, New York
• 1998 SCI Region I Annual Conference - Connecticut College, Connecticut by Charleston String Quartet.

Despair - Bb clarinet and violincello

• 1995 SCI Regional III Annual Conference - Franklin and Marshall College, Pennsylvania
• 1996 California State University Summer Arts Festival - CSU Long Beach was performed by Speculum Musicae..

• 1995 and 1996 Eva Thompson Philips Composition Awards
  
• 1996 California State University Summer Arts Festival Scholarship
  
• 1996 SJSU Dean's Scholarship
  
• 1999 University of Michigan graduate student fellowship
  
• 1999 Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters
  
• 1999 Haddonfield Symphony Young Composers' Competition for "Silhouette", premiered by the Haddonfield Symphony under maestro Daniel Hege
• 2001 Whitaker Commission

Listen to Paul's music!

Click the links below to listen to Paul's music.

Elegy (For violin, violincello, and piano)
Sanjo No.2 (for viola solo)
Silhouette (for orchestra)