Lee looks to surprise with help of local improvisers

Let’s get one thing out of the way: Okkyung Lee’s upcoming Vancouver New Music appearance is not going to be about her prowess as a composer, even though she trained in composition and film scoring at Berklee College of Music. Instead, whatever emerges at the Roundhouse Community Arts and Recreation Centre this weekend will be a cocreation with six acclaimed B.C. musicians as much as a showcase for Lee’s singular voice.

“I’m not going there with already a piece in mind,” the Korean-born cellist explains from her New York City home. “In order for me to create a score or even a structure, I need to meet and hear these individual musicians in person to come up with something that makes sense to [the] other people involved and myself.…I’ve checked out their sounds online, but, to me, it’s dangerous for me to have any preconceived ideas of what their sounds and working process are actually like.”

Indeed, many factors are still unresolved when it comes to what Lee will do during her three-day stay here. Some are because she’s an improviser by nature, interested in surprising herself as much as presenting spur-ofthe-moment work to an audience. Still more are due to the fact that she hasn’t chosen—or even met, for the most part—the West Coast artists she’ll be working with. Instead, they’ve been assembled for the occasion by Vancouver New Music artistic director Giorgio Magnanensi as part of the society’s ongoing PARALLELS series.

“The idea.…is to provide local performers an opportunity to work together with exceptional musicians who are willing to lead the group,” Magnanensi tells the

It’s dangerous for me to have any preconceived ideas.

– Okkyung Lee

Straight. “Okkyung Lee is definitely an inspiring presence.”

For this one-night-only undertaking, Lee will be joined by electronic musicians Alanna Ho, Constantine Katsiris, prOphecy sun, Stefan Maier, and Tegan Wahlgren, with the septet being rounded out by cellist Marina Hasselberg. It’s a fairly astonishing array of talent—and with sun also singing and Wahlgren playing violin, a diverse one. It’s important, too, that all of these audio innovators are as adept at improvisation as their nominal leader.

Wary of saying more about a “band” that hasn’t yet convened, Lee is content to leave things there. But based on her track record of working with improvising artists such as guitarist Mary Halvorson and saxophonist John Zorn, avant-rockers Thurston Moore and Swans, and performance artist Laurie Anderson, intrigue and experimentation are assured.

Vancouver New Music and the Roundhouse Community Arts and Recreation Centre present Okkyung Lee on Saturday (November 16).