Okkyung Lee

Born in Daejon/South Korea.

Okkyung Lee has created a body of work blurring genre boundaries through collaborations and compositions while pushing the limitation of contemporary cello performance techniques. Her music draws from noise and extended techniques, jazz, Western classical, Korean traditional, and popular music. She received her bachelor’s degree in contemporary writing and production and film scoring from Berklee College of Music, Boston, MA/USA in 1998 and a master’s degree in contemporary improvisation from the New England Conservatory of Music, Boston in 2000.

Since moving to New York in 2000, she has released more than 20 albums including the latest solo record Ghil produced by Lasse Marhaug on EditionsMego/Ideologic Organ and Noisy Love Songs (for George Dyer) on Tzadik. She has performed and recorded with numerous artists from wide ranges such as Laurie Anderson, David Behrman, Mark Fell, Douglas Gordon, Jenny Hval, Vijay Iyer, Christian Marclay, Ikue Mori, Lawrence D »Butch« Morris, Marina Rosenfeld, Jim o’Rourke, Evan Parker, Wadada Leo Smith, C Spencer Yeh, and John Zorn to name just a few.
Since 2010, she is developing a site-specific duo project with the New York based dancer andchoreographer Michelle Boulé and is currently developing a video project. She has opened for the legendary experimental rock group Swans in May 2015 in Northern Europe and Great Britain. In 2015, Okkyung Lee presented new compositions commissioned for members of the London Sinfonietta as a part of Christian Marclay’s exhibit at White Cube in London.

Okkyung Lee received the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award in 2015 and the Foundation For Contemporary Arts Grant in 2010.