OPERA KALEA BUTALSORO 2026 Apollo Global Music Awards Best Composition winner -Jieun LEE 오페라 칼레아 부탈소로 이지은작곡가 베스트 작곡상 수상
Composer Jieun LEE INTRODUCTION
Ji Eun Lee (1974~) is a composer whose work centers on large-scale musical forms, particularly opera and oratorio, through which she explores the relationships between music and narrative, human memory, and contemporary social and ecological questions. Drawing on her musical experience in Korea and Germany, she has developed an individual musical language that brings together the traditions of Western classical music, contemporary approaches to sound, Korean sensibility, and the narrative immediacy of musical theatre and popular music.
In Lee’s music, narrative is not a story imposed upon music but something that emerges through musical structure and time. Vocal lines function not merely to express character psychology, but as structural axes that shape the temporal progression of the music, while orchestration creates breath, space, density, and continuity. Repetition and suspension serve as formal devices through which memory accumulates and time expands. In this way, music moves beyond its role as a background to drama and becomes a language through which narrative itself is constructed.
Her earlier works have explored historical violence, loss, and memory. Through works such as the opera Time Cobweb and the oratorio Martyres, she has examined how individual and collective experiences are remembered and reconstructed through time. This inquiry extends into OPERA KALEA – BUTALSORO, where her artistic concerns expand toward questions of humanity and nature, survival and displacement, climate crisis, and ecological ethics. In KALEA – BUTALSORO, the realities of sea-level rise and climate-induced displacement are transformed into a mythic narrative, with the ocean presented not simply as a setting but as an active presence carrying memory, emotion, and the conditions of survival. Non-verbal elements such as waves, breath, and silence are incorporated into the musical structure, allowing music to become not merely a means of depicting a scene, but an experiential space in itself.
Since 2025, Lee has been involved in officially endorsed projects of the UN Ocean Decade and, since 2026, in projects officially recognized through the UNESCO-IOC Blue Thread initiative. As an artist member of ODTIF (Ocean Data Tapestry International Forum), she collaborates with scientists, educators, and policy experts. Through presentations at international forums and academic events on Ocean Literacy and the marine environment, she explores how scientific knowledge and data can be reinterpreted through artistic language and transformed into sensory experience. Her ongoing practice investigates the potential of art as a language of empathy and communication that can reshape how we perceive the relationship between humanity and the ocean. Through new opera and oratorio projects centered on the ocean, she continues to expand her creative practice at the intersection of art, science, education, and society.
For Lee, music is not merely a means of explaining or communicating something. It is a space through which we sense and remember the world, reconsider our own position, and reflect on our relationships with others and with the world around us. Through opera and large-scale musical forms, she brings contemporary social and ecological questions into the structures of musical time and form, continually seeking new relationships between art and life, and between humanity and nature.
National Grant and support Selected Works (for its World Premiere)
2025 Opera KALEA – BUTALSORO (115 min.)
(Selected for the ARCO Selection: Best New Opera by the Arts Council Korea-2024)
2023 Oratorio Martyres (100 min.)
(Selected for the Best Original Musical Repertoire by the Seoul Foundation for Arts
and Culture (SFAC))
2022 Cantata First Love (35 min.)
2022 Cantata The Foundation Stone (40 min.)
2022 Opera Time Cobweb (150 min.)
(Selected for the ARCO Selection: Best New Opera by the Arts Council Korea-2021)
Awards & Honors
2026 Apollo Global Music Awards Winner, Best Composition Opera KALEA BUTALSORO
2026 Neum Underwater Film Festival Orca we remember
Best Original Music Orca we remember
(Director Jae Chung Kim, Composer Jieun Lee)
2026 Marin County Fair International Festival of Short Film Video, California, USA
Environmental 3rd, festival awards Orca we remember
(Director Jae Chung Kim, Composer Jieun Lee)
2026 Clouzine International Music awards (USA) Best Classical Live Opera Album,
OPERA KALEA BUTALSORO Best live Album
2026 Global Music Awards(USA) Silver medal
The Opera Kalea Butalsoro, opera, creativity/originality
(OPERA KALEA BUTALSORO live Album)
2025 Korea Opera Award
Best world premiere Opera KALEA BUTALSORO
2025 AOA International Awards
Composer Award for Opera KALEA BUTALSORO
2025 Carl Reinecke International Music Competition
Opera Grand Prize Opera KALEA BUTALSORO
(Grand Prize in category Musical Theatre/Opera & Original Composition)
2025 Vivaldi International Music Competition
Grand Prize for Best Choral Work & Best Composer Award (Oratorio Martyres)
2025 Concours International de Musique Jean-Philippe Rameau
Grand Prize for Classical Music Video Orca we remember
(DirectorJae Chung Kim, Composer Jieun Lee)
2025 Max Bruch International Music Competition
Platinum Prize Opera KALEA BUTALSORO
(in category Musical Theatre, Opera & Original Composition)
Digital Albums
2026 Albums for the Ocean Initiative Series Global digital release by NAXOS Music
(Composed by Jieun Lee)
Monologue on the Wave performed by Seunghee Lee (Haegeum)
Deep Susurrus performed by Hyoyoung Kim (Saenghwang)
Ocean Sisu performed by Changsun Lee (Daegeum)
2025 THE OPERA KALEA – BUTALSORO (Live)
2025 Aquarius Quantum: On a Theme from THE OPERA KALEA
2024 Initiative by classical music artists to respond to the climate crisis
(Composed by Jieun Lee)
Breezing Piano, Dying Ocean performed by Jueun Grace Kim
On the Sea Cliff performed by Kyungmi anna Lee
The Legend of the Labyrinth: Across Antarctica performed by Jueun Kim
2023 Irresistible Scent of Oratorio Martyres
2023 Pie Jesu Domine Oratorio Martyres
2023 Into the Time Cobweb
2023 Oratorio Martyres: World Premiere, Acts I & II (Live) The Shrine of Music
(Original Soundtrack)
2023 Cantata: The Foundation Stone (Live)
2022 My Dear Uigwe
The Story of Uigwe
Time Ghost: Immersive Sound Opera
For Oegyujanggak Uigwe
Publications / Scores
Vocal Score for the World Premiere of the Opera KALEA – BUTALSORO, Act I (2025)
Vocal Score for the World Premiere of the Opera KALEA – BUTALSORO, Act II (2025)
Score for the World Premiere of the Oratorio Martyres, Act I (2023)
Score for the World Premiere of the Oratorio Martyres, Act II (2023)
Opera Time Cobweb – Highlights (Vocal Score) (2022)
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