Bora Yoon
Encyclopedia
Bora Yoon is an American musician who uses unconventional instruments in her music.
, Illinois. A graduate of Ithaca College’s Conservatory of Music and creative writing program, she is classically trained in the school of studied thought and improvisational sciences, with a first love of choral music.
She explores where sound connects to the subliminal through the timbre languages offered in the voice, violin (now viola), water, ancient Tibetan singing bowls, cell phones, music boxes, glockenspiel, guitar, walkie talkies, metronomes, shortwave radios, kitchenware, found sounds, and electronics.
Using a sound designer’s approach to performance composition with song form, she can ably tune to sizzling bacon fat and harmonize to the whir of a G5, to create music that plays with sensory associations and spatial idiosyncrasies, with much spontaneity and little regard to the classifying genres of instrumentation.
UK's WIRE magazine noted Yoon's "nuanced timbre and careful of space [as] enchanting attributes of her airy and almost disembodied performance." The Ithacan said "Yoon is a remarkable talent..." while Noise Art Magazine wrote "...operatic and intense, genre-scrambling and iconoclastic... smart and different... a cut or three above the rest." Her work and musical innovations have been featured on the front page of the Wall Street Journal.
Yoon’s wide-ranging talents have led to collaborative performances with electronics giant SAMSUNG, media philosopher DJ Spooky, and the late poet Sekou Sundiata in the America Project and multimedia swansong: The 51st (dream) state. She has performed with Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble, Maestro Helmuth Rilling, members of Bang On A Can All Stars, guitarist Kaki King, multimedia artist R. Luke DuBois
, tabla artist Suphala, beatbox artists Adam Matta and Taylor McFerrin, and Voices of Ascension choir.
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On April 27, 2008, the Young People's Chorus of New York City presented the world premiere of Semaphore Conductus, a spatial acoustic choral sound installation inspired by the conduction of energy, signals, and sounding devices (conch, gramophone, megaphone, cell phones) commissioned for, and sung in surround-sound by, the Young People’s Chorus of New York at Columbia University's Miller Theatre.
On January 31, 2009, the SAYAKA Ladies Consort of Tokyo, directed by Ko Matsushita, presented the world premiere of "CPS/RPM", the sequel of Semaphore Conductus, in Casals Hall, Nihon University, Tokyo Japan, to critical acclaim.
Bora Yoon has provided the musical score for dance film 'Heute Nacht' by An Films, and 'Faces of Seoul', an independent film by Korean filmmaker Gina Kim, due for release in 2010.
Early life
Yoon grew up in the United States outside ChicagoChicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, Illinois. A graduate of Ithaca College’s Conservatory of Music and creative writing program, she is classically trained in the school of studied thought and improvisational sciences, with a first love of choral music.
Musical genre
Yoon's eclectic musical style uses unconventional sources (everyday found objects, chamber instruments and digital devices) to generate music.She explores where sound connects to the subliminal through the timbre languages offered in the voice, violin (now viola), water, ancient Tibetan singing bowls, cell phones, music boxes, glockenspiel, guitar, walkie talkies, metronomes, shortwave radios, kitchenware, found sounds, and electronics.
Using a sound designer’s approach to performance composition with song form, she can ably tune to sizzling bacon fat and harmonize to the whir of a G5, to create music that plays with sensory associations and spatial idiosyncrasies, with much spontaneity and little regard to the classifying genres of instrumentation.
UK's WIRE magazine noted Yoon's "nuanced timbre and careful of space [as] enchanting attributes of her airy and almost disembodied performance." The Ithacan said "Yoon is a remarkable talent..." while Noise Art Magazine wrote "...operatic and intense, genre-scrambling and iconoclastic... smart and different... a cut or three above the rest." Her work and musical innovations have been featured on the front page of the Wall Street Journal.
Musical work and tours
As a performer, Yoon has toured her experimental soundwork internationally, presenting her works at Lincoln Center, Brooklyn Academy of Music, the KBS/Nam June Paik Museum in Seoul, Patravadi Theatre in Bangkok, the Melbourne International Arts Festival, the Guggenheim Museum, Tonic, Roselee Goldberg’s PERFORMA Arts Biennial, John Zorn’s Stone, the annual Pop!Tech conference, MTV Networks, and in universities across the globe, including residencies at Bard College and the Walker Art Center. Additionally, she has curated experimental music for the SummerScreen series in the historic McCarren Pool, premiered a one-woman experimental opera by Paul Steven Ray, and created new vinyl-pressed works in collaboration with Reykjavik-based sound artist Ben Frost (Bedroom Community) for the Journal of Popular Noise (Spring/Summer Issue 08).Yoon’s wide-ranging talents have led to collaborative performances with electronics giant SAMSUNG, media philosopher DJ Spooky, and the late poet Sekou Sundiata in the America Project and multimedia swansong: The 51st (dream) state. She has performed with Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble, Maestro Helmuth Rilling, members of Bang On A Can All Stars, guitarist Kaki King, multimedia artist R. Luke DuBois
R. Luke DuBois
Roger Luke DuBois is an American composer, performer, conceptual new media artist, programmer, record producer and pedagogue based in New York City.-Biography:...
, tabla artist Suphala, beatbox artists Adam Matta and Taylor McFerrin, and Voices of Ascension choir.
Spatial Composition & Sound Design
An accomplished composer, Yoon addresses the dimensionality of space and sound in her original works: she conceived the stereophonic sound mural “Doppler Dreams” for seven sopranos on bicycles in Brooklyn’s 55000 sq ft (5,109.7 m²), empty McCarren Pool for the site-specific dance piece Agora II, and created and performed the multi-speaker live sound score for the aerial dance piece Rapture, reverberated off the dynamic curves of Frank Gehry’s Fisher Center (Bard College) as part of a collaboration with award-winning choreographer Noémie LafranceNoémie Lafrance
Noémie Lafrance is a Canadian-born choreographer living and working in New York since 1994. She is known for making large-scale site-specific dance performances that uses the architecture of the city as settings for her work...
.
On April 27, 2008, the Young People's Chorus of New York City presented the world premiere of Semaphore Conductus, a spatial acoustic choral sound installation inspired by the conduction of energy, signals, and sounding devices (conch, gramophone, megaphone, cell phones) commissioned for, and sung in surround-sound by, the Young People’s Chorus of New York at Columbia University's Miller Theatre.
On January 31, 2009, the SAYAKA Ladies Consort of Tokyo, directed by Ko Matsushita, presented the world premiere of "CPS/RPM", the sequel of Semaphore Conductus, in Casals Hall, Nihon University, Tokyo Japan, to critical acclaim.
Film work
Bora Yoon stars in Samsung Anycall commercial film for the "Talk Play Love" advertising campaign, broadcast in South Korea in 2007-8.Bora Yoon has provided the musical score for dance film 'Heute Nacht' by An Films, and 'Faces of Seoul', an independent film by Korean filmmaker Gina Kim, due for release in 2010.
Honors and awards
- 2002 International John Lennon Songwriting ContestJohn Lennon Songwriting ContestThe John Lennon Songwriting Contest, named for the former member of The Beatles, is a songwriting competition for songwriters, open to amateurs and professionals. The contest accepts instrumental pieces as well as songs with a vocal component. Though all entries must include a CD, cassette, or...
- 11th annual Billboard Songwriting Contest (Jazz Division)
- award recipient of the Arion Foundation
Discography
- Bora Yoon (1999), debut solo album
- JAAM (2000), Mutant Soul Records, Access 58 (UK)& Gerd (Netherlands).
- Proscenium (2003), award winning 2nd full-length solo album
- Sound UnBound (2008), Published by MIT Press, Music Compilation released by SubRosa
- Dreaming of Revenge (2008), featured on violin in "Air & Kilometers", Kaki King (Velour Music).
- Journal of Popular Noise (2008), Vol. 3, Issue 9, 7"45LP with Ben Frost (Bedroom Community)
- ( (( PHONATION )) ) (2008), 3rd solo record