Photo Credit: Nicholas Yoon
***The following excerpt is from my interview with Professor Lee. Click here for the shortened interview! Unfortunately, the full interview is not available as the Talk Talk Korea site is under construction. When the site is updated, I will share the link to the interview.***
Professor Katherine In-Young Lee is Associate Professor in Ethnomusicology at the Herb Alpert School of Music, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). She earned two BM degrees in Piano Performance and Musicology at the University of Michigan; MA in Ethnomusicology from the University of Washington, and Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from Harvard University. She has previously taught at the University of California, Davis (UC Davis) as an assistant professor in the Music Department. Her research interests include Korean music, East Asia, music and politics, sound studies, global circulations of form, ethnography, transnational adoption, and Cold War politics. Her book, Dynamic Korea and Rhythmic Form (Wesleyan 2018) was awarded the Béla BartókPrize for Outstanding Ethnomusicology from the ASCAP Foundation in 2019. I had the honor to interview Professor Lee through email on 13 November 2020. In this interview, she details her journey in the fields of ethnomusicology and Korean studies, shares profound insights on samul nori (a contemporary percussion genre from South Korea), and gives advice to individuals who desire to learn more about Korea.
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