BOGYEONG LEE

"[Lee] is deeply devoted to Naoumoff’s music... The recording offers excellent sound quality... Lee is both a sincere and a highly capable advocate for Naoumoff’s music. She has a fine instinct for lyricism, and makes Naoumoff’s melodic lines sing naturally and expressively. She is not hesitant to let a phrase whisper, or to let it thunder. Throughout every piece of this program, Lee invests the music with a level of care and depth of feeling that most composers only fantasize about."

Myron Silberstein, Fanfare [March/April 2023]

"If you like variety you won’t be disappointed... Everything is listenable and you certainly won’t be bored... The lighter and more delicate pieces are played with an airy, mystical quality... If you’re adventurous, you may find this worthwhile."

Fisch, American Record Guide [January/february 2023]

"In addition to this recording being an introduction to Naoumoff as a composer, we also enjoy the pianism of Bogyeong Lee, a Korean protégé. As one of his students, she blossomed into becoming internationally acclaimed performer."

Joel C. Thompson, Cherry Grove Music Review [November 2022]

"Lee is a strong advocate for this material and gives listeners plenty of chances to find enjoyable elements within these uniformly well-crafted pieces."

Mark J. Estren, InfoDad [November 2022]

“Selecting pieces, reading notes, exploring my fingerings, researching composer’s intentions towards the compositions, adjusting all of them to my interpretation, is for me like being a leader of an expedition. The process is a ceaseless combination of joy, hardship, cheerfulness, and having fun. I want to keep moving forward and present my discoveries to the audience. The reward from that process is absolutely priceless” [ Bogyeong Lee ]

Bogyeong Lee’s prodigious abilities became apparent at the age of five. Admitted to the Incheon Korean Education Center for Gifted Children, Lee pursued her career as a pianist at Incheon Arts High School and the College of Music at Dankook University. Mentored by Professor Youngbang Cho and graduating magna cum laude in piano performance, Lee received the University Presidential Award and Excellence in Honors Performance Award at Dankook University, confirming her place among South Korea’s next generation of musical talent. An international career beckoned with a move to the United States. In 2015, Lee graduated from the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University under the tutelage of Professor Émile Naoumoff and was awarded for her artistic excellence. Doctoral studies followed with Dr. Ksenia Nosikova under a full  scholarship with University of Iowa’s School of Music. Recognized for her exceptional talents in her homeland, Lee is now establishing an international career with rapid acclaim. She is a winner of the American Prize in Piano Performance (the Lorin Hollander Award), First Prize Winner of International Music Competition ‘Brussels’ Grand Prize Virtuoso, award winner with the WPTA Singapore International Piano Competition, gold medal recipient with the Grand Prize Virtuoso Competition, and winner of the American Protégé International Music Talent Competition. Active on the world stage, Lee has been embraced by the classical community for her fluid and dynamic virtuoso performances. She has been praised by IU piano faculty members as a musician with an artistic aura, whose interpretations do justice to the repertoire she plays. Comfortable with both solo and orchestral performances, Lee embraces the raw emotion and undying love in every touch of the piano keys. Her passion burns as bright today as it did when she began playing as a five-year-old in Korea.

Born in Sofia in 1962, Emile Naoumoff was just five years old when he began studying piano. His parents brought the young prodigy to Paris at the age of seven into the tutelage of Nadia Boulanger, one of the greatest music teachers of the  20th century. Herself a pupil of Gabriel Fauré, she chose Emile to be her final disciple carrying her musical legacy forward, calling him the gift of her old age.Naoumoff’s 10 years studying very intensely with her were both rigorous and nurturing, inspiringly revealing his individual artistic and creative path. That excellence seeking placed Naoumoff into  a musical circle of auspicious mentors such as Clifford Curzon, Igor Markevitch, Robert and Gaby Casadesus, Nikita Magaloff, Jean Françaix, Henri Dutilleux, Leonard Bernstein, Soulima Stravinsky, Aram Khachaturian, Sviatoslav Richter and, notably, Lord Yehudi Menhuin, who conducted the premiere of Naoumoff’s first piano concerto when the composer at the piano was just 10 years old. Alongside the guidance of Boulanger and that of her assistant Dieudonné in solfège, music analysis, keyboard harmony, counterpoint, fugue and composition, Naoumoff studied piano at the Paris Conservatory with Lélia Gousseau and Pierre Sancan as well as chamber music with Geneviève Joy. While at the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris, he studied conducting with Pierre Dervaux and by the time he was 18 was signed by the noted music publisher, Schott Music. Naoumoff’s career highlights include engagements with many of the world’s great orchestras, including Edvard Grieg’s Piano Concerto with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, and his own piano concerto’s paraphrase of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition with the National Symphony Orchestra under Mstislav Rostropovich at the Kennedy Center. A teacher at heart, Naoumoff followed in Boulanger’s steps, taking over her summer classes at the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau, France, following her death in late 1979. He later joined the Paris Conservatory prior to establishing his own summer academy in 1996 at the Château de Rangiport in Gargenville, France. Since 1998, Naoumoff has been Professor of piano at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music in Bloomington, Indiana.
  ÉMILE NAOUMOFF (b.1962)
VALSE POUR NADIA (1996)
 
DANSES BULGARES (1972)
I.          Ruchenitsa
II.         Bavna Ruchenitsa
III.         Païdushko Horo – Canon
 
FLOWING SOULETUDE (Souletude No.24) (2015)
 
NOCTURNO – Silent Ancient Alley of Tryavna (1970)
 
PASTORALE (1970)
 
BURLESQUE BRILLANTE (1974)
 
QUATRE PRÉLUDES (1988)
I.          Meditatif
II.          Plaintif 
III.         Tourbillonnant  
IV.        Rhapsodique
           
FOUR INVENTIONS (1972)
Invention No.1 (Moderato)
Invention No.2 (Andante)
Invention No.3 (Moderato)
Invention No.4 (Animato)
 
REQUIEM (1969)
 
SEVEN SISTERS BALLADE (2012)
 
MENUET (1969)
 
BULGARIA 1300 – Theme and Variations (2016)
 

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Recorded 2020-2021 in the Concert Hall in the Voxman Music Building at the
University of Iowa. Recorded, edited and mastered by James Edel and Christopher
Jensen. Additional mastering: Joe Procopio.
 



MSR Classics