Dongryul Lee

Dongryul Lee’s music is deeply oriented around acoustical phenomena and virtuosic classical performance practice. He seeks to write music that creates profound aural experiences with both dramaturgy and pathos. Lee finds inspirations in spiritual, literary, and scientific elements, encompassing a diverse range of topics from Borgesian poetics to Number Theory. His compositions have been performed by ensembles such as the Avanti!, Kairos, Contemporanea, Jupiter, MIVOS, Callithumpian Consort, GMCL, S.E.M., Conference Ensemble, Paramirabo, and Illinois Modern Ensemble. He was awarded the Kate Neal Kinley Memorial Fellowship in 2020; the third prize in the first Bartók World Competition in Budapest, November 2018; the Presser Foundation Award, which supported the performance of Unending Rose with Kairos quartett (Berlin, 2019–2020); the Special Prize Piero Pezzé in the Composition Competition Città di Udine (Italy, 2018); and Second Prize in the 3rd GMCL Competition (Portugal, 2017). His dissertation research on virtual bells realized by using the Finite Element Method will be presented at the IRCAM Forum Workshop in Montreal in February 2021. His Quasi una macchina was performed by the S.E.M. Ensemble (New York City), the Callithumpian Consort (Boston), the GMCL (Lisbon); his Parastrata has been performed in four different cities in Europe and North America.

Lee serves as the 2020-21 Postdoctoral Researcher for the University of Chicago's Center for Contemporary Composition. He earned a DMA degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he held a lecturer and research assistant position. Lee also holds degrees in computer science (BS) and music composition (BM) from Yonsei University and the Eastman School respectively. His primary composition teachers include Reynold Tharp, Jukka Tiensuu, Heinrich Taube, Stephen Taylor, Erin Gee, Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez, Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon, David Liptak, and Tae-hoon Kim. He studied conducting with Brad Lubman and Mark Davis Scatterday. Lee’s upcoming projects include new works for Grossman Ensemble (Chicago), Axiom Quintet (Chicago), Miranda Cuckson (New York), and the Callithumpian Consort (Boston) to be premiered in 2021.