Hyun Kyung Lee is a Korean-born composer, pianist, educator, and music arranger currently based in New York City. Her works have been performed across the United States, Korea, Japan, and Europe by a wide range of esteemed ensembles, including the American Modern Ensemble, Da Capo Chamber Players, Contemporaneous, Mivos Quartet, Vigil Ensemble, and CME Ensemble. Her music has been showcased at major international festivals and concert series, such as the Brevard Music Center Summer Institute and Festival, the Asian Classical Music Initiative Conference, New Music Series at William Paterson University, Con Vivo Music (CVM), Art Fair 14C, and the Daegu Contemporary Music Festival.
Hyun Kyung is also a highly regarded arranger and collaborator known for her innovative and expressive orchestrations. One of her most celebrated projects is the Beatles on Baroque concert, where she meticulously reimagined classic Beatles songs through a Baroque lens, creating a unique and celebrated sonic fusion of eras. Her commitment to interdisciplinary creativity is evident through collaborations with artists across different fields, including choreographer Artis Smith and visual artists Seongmin Ahn and Heather Williams.
Dr. Lee has earned significant recognition for both her academic research and artistic practice. During her doctoral studies at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY), she received several major academic and artistic fellowships, including the prestigious Graduate Center Teaching Fellowship, the Presidential Research Fund for Doctoral Student Travel Grant, an Elebash Scholarship, and the Morton Feldman Composition Award from CUNY Brooklyn College. Internationally, her unique voice in contemporary classical composition has been recognized by awards from esteemed Korean institutions such as The Korea Times, the Contemporary Music Society in Seoul, ISCM Section Korea, and the Daegu Contemporary Music Festival.
As a scholar, Dr. Lee has actively presented her research at conferences and symposia around the world, including the Penn State New Music Festival and Symposium, the International Conference on Women’s Work in Music (WWM) in the United Kingdom, and the Asian Classical Music Initiative (ACMI). Her Doctoral dissertation, titled “Unsuk Chin’s Hyper-Sheng: Sonic and Structural Development in Šu for Sheng and Orchestra,” offers a detailed analytical study of Chin’s groundbreaking work, exploring how the composer integrates the Chinese sheng and full orchestra to form a “hyper-sheng,” a structural and sonic extension of the traditional solo instrument.
Hyun Kyung maintains an active performance career as a pianist, having appeared with the Korea Symphony Orchestra and the Korea Wind Society Ensemble, and performing regularly in both solo and collaborative settings. She is also a dedicated church musician, serving regularly as a pianist, accompanist, and arranger in liturgical contexts.
A strong advocate for music as a form of cultural and social engagement, she is the founder and co-director of the Global Peace and Music Foundation (GPAMF), an organization dedicated to creating music that promotes world peace and addresses related social issues. Her contributions as a cultural ambassador have been notably significant: from 2018 to 2019, she led a binational concert project in New York and Seoul with violinist Ji In Yang, commemorating the PyeongChang Winter Olympics. This series, supported by the Organizing Committee and the Korean Cultural Center, highlighted the vital role of music in cultural diplomacy and dialogue.
Hyun Kyung has been a faculty member at CUNY Brooklyn College since 2014, where she teaches a comprehensive range of subjects, including music theory, composition, aural skills, and keyboard studies at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. She is also the Director of the Composers at the Piano Concert Series, a distinguished program within the Brooklyn College Composers’ Forum that highlights original works performed by the composers themselves. She earned her Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) in Composition from CUNY Graduate Center and her Master of Music (MM) from Brooklyn College. Her academic training includes intensive studies with distinguished composers and scholars such as Tania León, David Schober, Ben Bierman, Jeff Nichols, Ursula Oppens, Anne Stone, Gee-Bum Kim, and Seungwoo Paik.