July 2023 (for solo violin)

This is a gift for Gil Shaham,

written with loving memories of performing the Barber Violin Concerto with Mr. Shaham in the National Youth Orchestra of the U.S.A. in celebration of NYO-USA’s 10th anniversary.

This is a sonic imagination of what Barber on a walk, in the midst of envisioning his Violin Concerto, would be like, with references to the memorable melodic materials from the piece.

I hope to forever remember and cherish Mr. Shaham’s bright, heartwarming smile and magical playing through this piece.

July 2023 (for alto saxophone)

With a feeling of anticipation, joy and flight, this is my piece to celebrate the beginning of a new chapter in life.

Commissioned by Caden Helmer and premiered at the NYO2 Chamber Music Extravaganza concert on July 13th, 2023 by Caden Helmer, Vivian Chang, Cadence Shevy, Isabelle Son, and Caleb Graupera.

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NEW: Orchestra Version!

Commissioned by The Little Orchestra Society for their show, Treblemaker’s History of Music (Sept. 30 & Oct. 1st, 2023).

July 2022 (for solo marimba)

A short piece written after a wonderful meting with a percussionist at the National Youth Orchestra of the USA 2022, Glenn Choe! I will never forget the way Glenn came up to me saying that he loves composers and collaborating with them. He made my day when he sent me this video today, keeping his promise that he would play this little piece for me someday. Thank you, Glenn :)

April 2023 (for cello and accordion)

I was moved to write this piece after reading “EPICAC”, the heart-wrenchingly beautiful short story by Kurt Vonnegut that features the fictional EPICAC computer, the largest and smartest on Earth built to solve hefty world issues. Through his interactions with the unnamed narrator, who wants to woo his sweetheart Pat into marriage, EPICAC learns to love and becomes infatuated with Pat himself.  

With the cello as the narrator’s voice and the accordion as EPICAC, this piece illustrates the unusual friendship of man and machine and its haunting ending.

Premiered at the Juilliard Pre-College Composition Senior Recital on April 22nd, 2023.

April 2023 (for solo trombone)

“In the origin, women were truly the sun, genuine human beings. Now, women are the moon. Living by the light of others and shining with a pale, sickly light, like the face of someone with an illness. We must now take back our sun that has been hidden away.”

- Hiratsuka Raichō

Commissioned and premiered by Grace Ng at her Juilliard Pre-College Senior Recital on May 6th, 2023.

illustrated by Satoko Kitagawa

『元始、女性は実に太陽であった。真正の 人であった。今、女性は月である。他に よって生き、他の光によって輝く、病人の ような蒼白い顔の月である。... 私ども は、かくされてしまった我が太陽を今や 取り戻さなければならぬ。』

- 平塚 らいちょう

Nov. 2022 - April 2023 (for four-hand piano)

Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis reimagined. Instead of spending the remaining days of his life suffering and caged in the mockery of what his life used to be as a human, what if Gregor jumped out of the window and flew away?

“Als Gregor Samsa eines Morgens aus unruhigen Träumen erwachte, fand er sich in seinem Bett zu einem ungeheueren Ungeziefer verwandelt.
”

— As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.

Premiered at the Juilliard Pre-College Composition Senior Recital on April 22nd, 2023.

illustrated by Nicole Balsirow

Sept. 2022 - Jan. 2023 (for SAT voices)

Is the fierce and ferocious tiger scared of anything in this world? What could it be? Inspired by Pansori, a traditional Korean genre of musical

storytelling, this piece seeks to tell the story of the Korean folk tale about a tiger that mistakes a dried persimmon for a terrifying, unearthly beast. The word “dried persimmon” is left in Korean (곶감 / “gojgam”) to bring out the foreign nature of the character.

Commissioned by The May Festival for CINKOA: CINCINNATI KOREAN CHOIR.

World Premiere by CINKOA at 25 for 25: A New Time for Choral Music on March 19th, 2023.

illustrated by Satoko Kitagawa

Jan. 2023 (for flute, violin, cello, and piano)

The second chapter of Avast, Ye! begins as the pirate captain and the crew set sail again after a successful treasure hunt. Soon, the celestial singing of maidens drift towards them in the salty air, calling and beckoning. Peculiar, that maidens would be found amidst the untamed waves of the sea. But the pirates are given no room for even a seed of suspicion, as they sail deeper and deeper into the sirens’ nest.

Extended techniques such as the seagull effect on cello and scraping the fronts of the white keys on piano were used to illustrate a lively ship and its crew on a voyage.

World premiere by the Nu Deco Ensemble at National YoungArts Week 2023.

YoungArts Week 2023

illustrated by Satoko Kitagawa

May 2022 (for strings orchestra and ocarina)

for Mr. D & the Siwanoy Sinfonietta

“Bald Eagle...is a Bird of bad moral Character. He does not get his Living honestly...[he] is too lazy to fish for himself. [While a turkey is] a much more respectable Bird, and withal a true original Native of America...He is besides, though a little vain & silly, a Bird of Courage.” - Benjamin Franklin.

Franklin’s letter to his daughter reveals his criticism of the original eagle design for the Great Seal, saying that it looked more like a turkey. So what if the turkey was our National Bird?

Performed by the Siwanoy Sinfonietta at the Tuckahoe Strings “American Voices” Concert 2022.

Nov. 2021 - April 2022 (for full orchestra)

Inspired by Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, this piece illustrates the eloquent, stirring story of Hester Prynne, a resident of the Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony who conceives a daughter through an affair and is forced to suffer through a life of social degradation, repentance, and loneliness. Each movement focuses on a major character of the novel and explores the themes of sin, knowledge, the nature of evil, human identity, and female independence.

Scarlet Symphony Mvt. 1 - Hester, the Adulterer

Yuri Lee

Hester, the Adulterer: The town awakes, restless and anxious as the people gather to watch Hester Prynne emerge from the prison and make her way to the scaffold, where she will be publicly condemned. Women in the crowd squawk and complain about the embroidered badge of a letter “A”, a symbol of her crime as an adulterer, beautifully stitched in gold and scarlet. It is as if the first violins are singing: “Hester Prynne, the adulterer, there she is up there. Look at her with her red dress and gold thread” (m.24-26). Hester’s inner thoughts, represented by the solo violin, are overwhelmed by the surrounding turbulence of shaming and alienation.

National YoungArts 2023 Finalist Winner

Orchestra Winner of The National Young Composers Challenge 2022.

Winner of the Juilliard Pre-College Composition Competition 2022.

Performed by the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra at the National Young Composers Challenge Composium on April 2nd, 2023.

illustrated by Satoko Kitagawa