YoungJun Lee is a South Korean-born composer and interdisciplinary artist based in Baltimore and New York City. His work spans orchestral music, chamber ensembles, opera, multimedia installations, and socially engaged projects. Through his practice, Lee explores time, memory, identity, and the power of sound in uncertain societies. He is a co-founder of the New Uncertainty Collective, curating performances in the U.S., Korea, and beyond—including concerts such as Violin Extravaganza, Trio at Three, and Korean Composers’ Night.
Lee’s music has been performed internationally by JACK Quartet, Arditti Quartet, Mivos Quartet, Ensemble L’Itinéraire, Tacet(i) Ensemble, the Brasilia National Theater Orchestra, and the Peabody Concert Orchestra, which premiered his orchestral work under Stefan Asbury. He was awarded 1st Prize in the 2024 Macht Orchestral Composition Competition and has also received prizes from Fontainebleau (Prix de Collaboration Inter-Écoles), Ise-Shima International Competition, and many others. His music has been featured at renowned festivals and residencies, including ICIT Thailand, Domaine Forget, Darmstadt. His works have recently been featured at the Voix Nouvelles program at the Fondation Royaumont (France), as well as at other international festivals.
At MacDowell, Lee completed the first half of a percussion quartet commissioned by the Kinetic Quartet. He also collected extensive source recordings for the quartet’s electronic components and produced detailed sketches for the sculptural segment of his ongoing sound installation Nan.
