Saturday 15 June 2024, 7.30pm
Hugely excited to welcome cellist, composer, and improviser, Okkyung Lee for three days of solo performance and collaborations with London-based and Korean artsts - her first residency here since 2019!
For the third and final nigh of her residency, Okkyung revisits her trio alongside saxophonist John Butcher, and bassist, John Edwards, who first performed together in 2013. Tonight they'll also be joined by Korean musicians Eunyoung Kim (piano) and Junyoung Song (drums) for a very special quintet set.
Okkyung Lee is a cellist, composer, and improviser who moves freely between artistic disciples and contingencies. Since 2000 she has worked in disparate contexts as a solo artist and collaborator with creators in a wide range of disciplines. A native of South Korea, Lee has taken a broad array of inspirations—including noise, improvisation, jazz, western classical, and her homeland’s traditional and popular music—and used them to forge a highly distinctive approach.
Although Okkyung is probably known best for her improvisational work utilizing visceral extended techniques on her instrument, she has been creating various types of compositions and site-specific works, responding to its architecture, audience, or objects surrounding her, producing an immersive experience that also challenges the built-in hierarchy in traditional concert settings. She has appeared on more than 30 albums, including the latest release 나를 (Na-Reul) on Corbett vs Dempsey, and Teum (The Silvery Slit), written for acclaimed Acousmonium by GRM and live cello, released on GRM Portraits/Editions Mego.
She has been commissioned to compose music and assemble projects for Explore Ensemble (London, UK), Time Spans Festival (New York, USA), Groupe de Recherches Musicales (Paris, France), Sonic Acts Festival (Amsterdam, The Netherlands), Borealis Festival (Bergen, Norway), Donaueschingen Music Festival (Donaueschingen, Germany) and Nam June Paik Art Center (Yong-In, South Korea). She has performed in Museum of Modern Art (New York), Whitney Museums of American Art (New York, USA), The Met Breuer (New York, USA), Museum Tinguely (Basel, Switzerland), Museo del Novecento (Milan, Italy), Serpentine Galleries (London, UK), White Cube Galleries (London, UK) and many others.
Born in Brighton and living in London, John Butcher is a saxophonist whose work ranges through improvisation, his own compositions, multi tracked pieces and explorations with feedback, unusual acoustics and non-concert locations. He is well known as a solo performer who attempts to engage with a sense of place. Resonant Spaces, for example, is a collection of performances recorded during a tour of unusual locations in Scotland and the Orkney Islands.
Butcher originally studied Physics, but after publishing a PH.D (1982) on quantum chromodynamics he left academia and took off with music. He has since collaborated with hundreds of artists, some for many decades, including Derek Bailey, Eddie Prévost, Angharad Davies, John Stevens’ Spontaneous Music Ensemble, Okkyung Lee, Andy Moor, Sophie Agnel, Christian Marclay, Pat Thomas, Phil Minton, Rhodri Davies, Tony Buck, Magda Mayas, John Russell, Chris Corsano, Steve Beresford, Ståle Liavik Solberg, and Matthew Shipp.
Additionally he values occasional encounters - with large groups ranging from the WDR Sinfonieorchester (as soloist), and the 20+ piece EX Orkest to duos with Akio Suzuki, Liz Allbee, Keiji Haino, Isabelle Duthois, David Toop, Mariam Rezaei, Fred Frith and Joe McPhee.
Recent compositions include “Fluid Fixations” (an hcmf commission), “Penny Wands” for Futurist Intonarumori, “Good Liquor…” for the London Sinfonietta and “Tarab Cuts” (shortlisted for a British Composer’s Award).
"Over 40 years of sustained performance and publishing, English saxophonist, improvisor and composer John Butcher has shaped much of what soprano and tenor saxophone can do, and what their roles and vocabulary in improvised music might be. I’ve always heard Butcher’s playing as a kind of nose-to-tail saxophony, where the whole instrument from reed-tip to brim of bell is available, accessible and articulate. Few other saxophonists slice as sharply back into the physical history, material (and physics) of the instrument, across its near 200 year history. When Hector Berlioz wrote of his friend Adolphe Sax’s then fresh invention, “the varied beauty of its accent, sometimes serious, sometimes calm, sometimes impassioned, dreamy or melancholic, or vague”, he could have been imagining Butcher's distinctively clean but complex, enquiring soundworld." WIRE - October 2024. The Primer by Seymour Wright
John Edwards is a true virtuoso whose staggering range of techniques and boundless musical imagination have redefined the possibility of the double bass and dramatically expanded its role, whether playing solo or with others. Perpetually in demand, he has played with Evan Parker, Roscoe Mitchell, Sunny Murray, Derek Bailey, Joe McPhee, Lol Coxhill, Louis Moholo, Peter Brötzmann, Mulatu Astatke, Jonny Greenwood and countless others.
"I think John Edwards is absolutely remarkable: there’s never been anything like him before, anywhere in jazz." - Richard Williams, The Blue Moment
Eunyoung Kim is a pianist, composer, and improviser in Seoul, Korea. Building her musical foundation based on her earlier training in classical and church music, she incorporated jazz into her musical framework. During her studies in the US, her exposure to improvised music expanded the breadth of her musical inspiration.
Since returning to Korea in 2013, Kim has performed as a leader and sideman at various Asian festivals such as Beijing World Music Week, Beishan World Music Festival, Kumamoto Street Art-flex Jazz Festival, Jarasum Jazz Festival, and JazzKorea Festival.
In 2018, she released her debut album titled Silent Child, as the leader of the KEY Trio presenting her original compositions, while the most recent album Earworm, is her first solo piano album establishing her identity as an improviser. Additionally some of the tracks from Earworm have been featured on BBC Radio program Freeness.
Eunyoung was recognized as the 2016 Rising Star Pianist by Jazz People Magazine in Korea and appeared on the prestigious Korean national broadcast music program EBS space Gonggam as the New Face of Jazz in 2019. She also continues collaborating with K-pop musicians such as Jung Mijo and Parc Jae Jung as pianist and arranger.
Junyoung Song is a prolific drummer based in Seoul, South Korea, working primarily in jazz and free improvisation. He has released two albums as a solo artist titled Solo and Solo
Live, showcasing his passion for unaccompanied drum music. After moving back to Korea upon receiving his degrees from Berklee College of Music and New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, he has collaborated with numerous Korean musicians from both jazz and pop music, most notably with Sunjae Lee, Jongshin Yoon, Lucid Fall, Mijo Jung, and Mid-air Thief. His versatility and talent have established him as a respected figure in the Korean creative music scene.
