March 31, 2025

We Are Art People in conversation with Okkyung Lee

1 hour 31 minutes

Okkyung Lee is a cellist, composer and improviser. She was born in South Korea and moved to Boston (USA) in 1992, to study Contemporary Writing and Production and Film Scoring at Berklee College of Music and continued with a Master’s degree at the New England Conservatory of Music in Contemporary Improvisation.

Okkyung moved to New York in the 2000s and fell with ease, into the avant-garde music scene that included performance nights at Tonic, the Knitting Factory and a plethora of artists and musicians that she was able to stretch, move, bend — and create a sonic world with. Over the last two decades, Okkyung has been widely recognized for her improvisational works and instrumental compositions. She has collaborated with artists from a range of disciplines including Arca, Mark Fell, Ellen Fullman, Douglas Gordon, Christian Marclay, Marina Rosenfeld, Thurston Moore, Ikue Mori and Rashad Becker. In 2016, Okkyung formed Yeo-Neun Quartet and composes music for a harp (Maeve Gilchrist), cello, double bass (Eivind Opsvik), and piano (Jacob Sacks). Okkyung has performed internationally as a solo artist and composer including; Borealis Festival (Bergen, Norway), Donaueschingen Music Festival (Donaueschingen, Germany), Museum of Modern Art (New York), Whitney Museum of American Art (New York, USA), The Met Breuer (New York, USA), Museo del Novecento (Milan, Italy), Serpentine Galleries (London, UK), White Cube Galleries (London, UK) and has recently moved to Berlin, where she is the recipient of the 12-month DAAD Artists-in-Berlin residency program.

Links:

@okkyung_lee

Yeo-Neun https://shelterpress.bandcamp.com/album/yeo-neun

Show notes:

Knitting Factory w/Joe Maneri

Tonic (music venue)

Bach Cello Suite 6

Richard Abrams, George Lewis and Roscoe Mitchell Venice Biennale [2003]

Christian Marclay and Okkyung Lee Perform Calder's Small Sphere and Heavy Sphere, Whitney Museum [2017]

Bergen Kunsthall, Still Hoping for a miracle?

Upcoming events:

Lisa Ullén-Okkyung Lee https://exploratorium-berlin.de/en/events/stage/lisa-ullen-okkyung-lee-duo/