Soojin Lee - Artist in Residence at the MacPhail Center for Music
김현채 : 처음에 미국으로 오시게 된 계기가 궁금해요.
Hyunchae Kim: I’m curious about how you first came to the United States.
Soojin Lee: I came to the U.S. in 2004 when I got married. My husband was studying in the U.S. at the time, so I thought it would be good for me to do the same. I had finished all my coursework for my master’s degree in Korea and had only the thesis left, but because I needed to complete my degree before coming to the US, we set a wedding date and I forced out a thesis… (laughs). Once I came to the US, I wanted to study ethnomusicology, so I earned a master’s degree in that. After that, I had a baby, and because of my husband’s job, we briefly moved back to Korea, where I spent a few years working on my US master’s thesis. We moved to Minnesota in 2011, and at that time, I still thought we might return to Korea someday, so I decided to study music education—because I thought that would be more useful in Korea.
Hyunchae Kim: Why was that?
Soojin Lee: Back then, no one in Korean traditional music had a PhD in music education, so my professors recommended it. But I was also interested in music education because my mother was a music teacher. So I began my doctoral program, and by the time I finished, we had pretty much settled down here. I’ve always sort of shaped my life around my family situation. My husband found a stable job in Minnesota, and our child was growing up. I started thinking, What can I do here?
A senior colleague from Seoul National University, whom I met while attending the University of Minnesota, recommended I apply to the MacPhail Center for Music, so that’s how I started working there. I got a lot of things out of the doctoral program, but I think one of the biggest things was networking. And since I specialize in Korean music, I also ended up teaching for JangmiArts, an organization that mainly serves Korean adoptees in Minnesota.
Hyunchae Kim: In Korea, you majored in Korean traditional music performance specializing in gayageum, and in the U.S. you studied ethnomusicology and music education. Students who major in Korean traditional music often struggle with what to study abroad, since foreign universities don’t have Korean traditional music departments. A lot of people recommend ethnomusicology, but it can be a difficult transition for performers so I think they also look for alternative options.
Soojin Lee: I enjoyed ethnomusicology, but the biggest reason I switched fields was because my professors in Korea strongly encouraged me to pursue music education. Even while studying ethnomusicology, I was interested in pedagogy. I had teaching credentials in Korea, briefly taught at a traditional arts high school, and worked as a one-year contracted music teacher at an academic high school. Teaching was enjoyable and suited me.
At one point, I was asked to teach the Korean music portion of an early-childhood music education course at a university. I looked through three or four textbooks for early-childhood educators, and the “Korean music” sections weren’t actually Korean music at all. Not only that, but the information was strange and incorrect. That experience made me realize firsthand that the music education field needed someone with Korean music expertise. I also had to think about future of my career, and I felt it would be better to work into a field where I was truly needed. At that point, my plan was to finish a doctorate in music education and return to Korea to find a position.
Hyunchae Kim: So what made you decide not to return to Korea?
Soojin Lee: Mostly my family. I thought, Let’s try to find work here first. I’m not the type to carve out my own path by force—I tend to take things as they come. When I was finishing my doctorate, I dragged it out as long as I could. Then, they told me I would be dropped if I didn’t submit my dissertation, so I finally wrote it. By then, my husband had a stable job here, and my child was well-adjusted. It didn't occur to me to go back to Korea alone, or move to another state by myself to find a job. If we were going to move, we’d move together; otherwise, I’d find work here, and if we ever returned to Korea, I’d look for work there then.
There were also practical reasons: When I studied for my master’s in Irvine and later for my doctorate in Minnesota, I spent stretches of time living alone because my husband went back to Korea first. When I was studying at the University of Minnesota, it was a long commute—an hour and a half drive from our house. Because it was hard to commute back and forth everyday, I stayed in Minneapolis during the week and returned home on the weekends. Those years were difficult, and I didn’t want to go through that again.
Hyunchae Kim: It must have been really hard, especially with a child. How was life after graduating?
Soojin Lee: After that, I started working at MacPhail Center for Music and did this and that thinking, Someday I’ll make use of this doctorate. After I received my PhD, I naturally wanted to become a professor. I looked into applying for jobs, but since I was based in Rochester, Minnesota, I didn’t want to move my child elsewhere. When I looked at schools nearby, even though I had a doctorate in music education, they required several years of public-school teaching experience. The music education field mostly produces school music teachers, so generally, when there was a job posting at a university in Minnesota, public-school teaching experience was not recommended, but required. Research-focused universities would not have cared as much, but those are usually high-ranking schools, none of which are in Minnesota. So I started working at MacPhail, and as I got more involved there, things just continued from that point.
Hyunchae Kim: What kind of institution is MacPhail?
Soojin Lee: MacPhail is a nonprofit music education organization that’s been around for nearly 100 years. It has programs for everyone—from 6-month-old babies to people in their 100s. Many private music schools are just businesses offering lessons, but MacPhail doesn’t just offer lessons; it also partners with schools that don’t have music teachers and sends instructors there. Schools in rural areas or with limited budgets often lack teachers. Even here in Rochester, where I am, one teacher has to cover two schools. MacPhail also runs nursing-home programs, music therapy programs, and many others. They’ve expanded in recent years to include artists who do electronic music, jazz, and so on—so they welcomed someone like me who does Korean traditional music.
Hyunchae Kim: So do they employ all those musicians?
Soojin Lee: It’s not salaried. You get paid only for the hours you teach. Not many people are salaried. But since it’s the biggest community music school in the area, teaching there gives you credibility—musicians in the region recognize it.
Hyunchae Kim: Is it possible for artists to make a living that way?
Soojin Lee: It depends. Even in Korea, musicians earn most of their living through lessons. It’s hard to live solely off performances. I think it’s the same here. I perform, but performance is not my main source of income. I try to take all performance requests, but the nature of freelance work is that demand is always fluctuating. The work you take on could depend on how you define an “artist,” but living only off performances is definitely difficult.
Hyunchae Kim: Does MacPhail also organize performances?
Soojin Lee: Yes. They host concerts and also offer recital opportunities for faculty. There are four major concerts each year, one of which is called “Faculty Spotlight,” where faculty are invited to perform and receive a performance fee.
Hyunchae Kim: So at MacPhail, it seems most of the income comes from teaching. Are there artists who teach enough to fully support themselves?
Soojin Lee: Yes—piano and violin teachers are able to do that. I know a voice teacher who teaches around 40 hours a week, plus weekends. I think you need around 40 hours a week to qualify for health insurance. This is possible only for popular instruments.
I teach gayageum and have about 6–7 students at MacPhail, and another 6 at JangmiArts. MacPhail also has many programs, so occasionally, they’ll contact me when they need an instructor for something. For example, they might ask me to teach the nursing-home program one year. And then there’s the School Partnership program that hires resident artists. I do that as well.
Hyunchae Kim: Which schools do you go to?
Soojin Lee: MacPhail’s School Partnership Department selects resident artists who specialize in non-Western music. MacPhail pays us, and schools get to host us for free. It’s usually assigned in one-year terms, but I’ve been doing it for about 4–5 years now. For the program, I’m required to teach 40 hours a year. MacPhail connects me to schools, but if there’s a school near my home that I want to work with, we contact that school and I teach there. Altogether, I’ve met about 25,000 students in Minnesota. Some schools have me teach every grade from kindergarten to 5th grade.
Hyunchae Kim: That’s incredible!
Soojin Lee: The curriculum varies by school. I sing with them, play the gayageum for them, and if they request it or the conditions allow, I also teach samulnori. I really enjoy it. When I first came here and started music education at the University of Minnesota, I introduced samulnori at a workshop for MMEA (Minnesota Music Educators Association). A music teacher from my town, Rochester, attended the workshop and afterward bought about 10–15 janggu. So I went to that school to teach, and other schools in the area are able to borrow the drums so I can teach there too.
Hyunchae Kim: I see. Then when you go to schools to teach, do you typically provide all the instruments?
Soojin Lee: Yes. When I teach in Rochester, that school usually takes care of it and I have some janggu of my own. I once considered starting a nonprofit to teach Korean traditional music here… but then the pandemic happened and that plan fell apart.
Hyunchae Kim: Do you still hope to create an organization like that someday?
Soojin Lee: Not right away, but yes, I’m considering it. Minnesota already has the JangmiArts organization in Minneapolis, and collaborating with them is great, but they’re based in the Twin Cities. I live 1.5 hours away, in southeast Minnesota, and I’d like to build something based out here.
Rochester is relatively diverse, but not as much as other cities. There are about 200 Koreans, and many Indian and Chinese residents, but it’s mostly white. And just 30 minutes outside town, it’s all rural—mostly white communities who have very little exposure to diverse music, so I’d like to create an organization to serve this region.
Just five or six years ago, when I visited elementary schools and said I was from Korea, students would ask, “North Korea or South Korea?” These days, they’ve been exposed to Korean culture, so they talk about K-pop, or ask if I’ve tried Korean hot dogs. Some kids say they have a mobile game that uses an instrument that sounds like the gayageum.
Hyunchae Kim: Are there children who want to learn gayageum or janggu?
Soojin Lee: Unfortunately, no—not children. All my gayageum students are adults: Korean adoptees or immigrants. Chicago’s KPAC has lots of kids, and when kids are involved, parents get involved too, which gets the whole family in on it, but that’s harder to do when only adults participate. I hope to eventually teach kids and form a youth ensemble, with parents supporting them.
Hyunchae Kim: Couldn’t you collaborate with a Korean school there?
Soojin Lee: There is no Korean school here.
Hyunchae Kim: Oh, really?
Soojin Lee: Yes. There used to be a summer camp for Korean adoptees. I even taught samulnori there, but it’s not around anymore. There are fewer adoptees now, and none of the parents want to step up to run it, so it’s been discontinued from this year.
And Korean immigrants don’t have much interest in traditional music. I once started samulnori and gayageum classes in Rochester, but many people joined because they knew me personally, not because they loved the music—so I felt a lot of pressure. Then the pandemic hit and stopped everything. After the pandemic, I became busy and couldn’t continue those classes. But someday, I want to try teaching a class or starting a group in my area again.
Hyunchae Kim: It sounds really challenging. Changing topics—have you ever received funding for your artistic activities in the U.S.?
Soojin Lee: I’ve received grants twice from MacPhail and once from the Minnesota State Arts Board. That one was the biggest—$10,000 in 2023. I applied as an individual artist. I wanted to create new gayageum pieces. Because there are no other Korean traditional musicians here, the gayageum repertory I can perform is very limited. Also, many of the gayageum pieces that I used to play in Korea end so quietly. I wanted to play pieces that end with a big bang so the audience will burst out in applause.
Hyunchae Kim: Yes—American-style. A lot of American music seems to end that way, so Korean gayageum pieces often feel bare in comparison.
Soojin Lee: And this might be because I graduated from Seoul National University, but the repertoire always felt too serious. There’s no need for me to play technically difficult pieces. I wanted to play music that was approachable and accessible, but I couldn’t find much of that out there, so I wanted to make something myself.
With the Minnesota State Arts Board grant, I organized a concert last summer with musicians I wanted to collaborate with: a pianist from Turkey and a cellist who plays many genres (jazz, classical, tango, bossa nova, etc.), both of whom are MacPhail faculty and I already knew, plus a professor friend from the University of Minnesota who plays Jewish klezmer music on the dulcimer. So I organized a 1-hour program. Each performer played their own piece, and then I learned and performed Jewish, Turkish, and bossa nova pieces so we could perform together, and we also played Korean music together. This was last year. The concert went well, and I’m thinking about expanding the project. The people in Rochester loved it. My goal wasn’t to do something difficult—it was to make music accessible. I wanted audience members to recognize something familiar in the music, and those that did told us afterward how much they enjoyed it.
Hyunchae Kim: I’ve heard that in order to be eligible for these grants, you need proof of residency. Is that true?
Soojin Lee: I’m a U.S. citizen, so I applied with that. Regional grants generally require you to live in that region. For example, Minneapolis city grants can be used only by musicians who live in Minneapolis. Since I don’t, I can’t apply. Visa status can be a major hurdle, but there are other grants you could seek out from the Korean consulate, the Korean government, etc.
Hyunchae Kim: Were the grants you received from MacPhail for faculty?
Soojin Lee: Yes. They were funded by the McKnight Foundation, a major local arts-funding organization. McKnight provides the funding, and MacPhail selects the musicians to support. I applied and received two grants to record albums with a vocalist. One album is finished; the second is… delayed (laughs), because I only work well when the deadline is around the corner. So the second one’s still not out.
Hyunchae Kim: If someone in Korea wanted to come to the U.S. to work as an artist, how would you tell them to prepare?
Soojin Lee: I’d recommend studying improvised music. Musicians who improvise can collaborate with anyone. If you meet someone here who does improvisation, they can invite you to perform right away. Or maybe arranging skills—being able to adapt any piece to different instruments. My repertory doesn’t include other instruments and solo performance has its limits, so being able to arrange a piece to play with any instrument could be useful. Being equipped with those kinds of skills would be helpful in collaborating with artists.
Hyunchae Kim: Korea focuses so much on “good vs. bad” performance. In the US, people are much more relaxed. Whether an improvisation goes well or poorly, people are still open. Koreans tend to think, What was that? But Americans seem to be less judgemental and just enjoy the sound.
Soojin Lee: They do enjoy it. And the more you get your name out there, the more opportunities that come in. That’s why I don’t just stick to my own repertory. It’s good to nurture the ability to create new pieces. And then I teach at schools, but through MacPhail, I also teach piano at a small town near Rochester—Austin, the city famous for producing Spam and bacon. It’s rural but because of the large company there, people are open-minded. Parents want their kids to learn music, but there are no piano teachers. The company made a large donation to MacPhail to open a site there. Since there are not enough piano teachers and it’s close to my house, I go there once or twice a week. There’s always a waiting list, so I could teach more days, but I don’t want to get my priorities mixed up, so I limit it to two days a week.
Hyunchae Kim: You must be very good at piano!
Soojin Lee: Not at all. I’m nowhere near a skilled pianist—I stopped around mid-Czerny 40 level, like a lot of people who do music in Korea. But here, they don’t necessarily look for performance-oriented pianists—they prefer music educators. From my experience, I think teaching kids how to read and treat music is more important.
Hyunchae Kim: But people need to know that you’re able to offer these services in order for people to ask for them, so how are you able to make these arrangements?
Soojin Lee: I think being part of the MacPhail community makes the opportunities visible. Word goes around—“We need piano teachers in Austin,” or announcements get emailed to all faculty. If I catch wind of something and I think it fits me, I reach out.
I’m also a Student Performance Coordinator, a role given to MacPhail faculty. Beyond instrumentalists like piano or violin teachers, many musicians don’t have many students or performance opportunities. The wind and brass players are surprised that I have six gayageum students. Even with master’s or doctoral degrees, faculty often work hours as a coordinator or front desk person. Administrative roles are also typically filled by MacPhail faculty because many of them need those opportunities.
Hyunchae Kim: So MacPhail is both a talent pool and a job hub. It seems like a great organization for artists. I imagine many artists would want to be part of the faculty. Is it competitive to get in?
Soojin Lee: When openings appear, especially for popular instruments like piano, they recruit often. And once you’re hired, the contract keeps renewing. It’s low-risk for MacPhail because they don’t pay a fixed salary; you earn based on your workload. And in this music world, it’s common for people even with master’s and doctoral degrees to have side jobs.
There are also many performance opportunities in the area. There are a lot of places that provide performance spaces for free. For example, some pubs sell beer and food on the ground floor and have a performance venue in the basement. They provide the space for free, expecting that audience members will buy food and drinks. So then, you can present a performance even without charging admission fees, just asking for donations, and American people can be quite generous with their donations.
I’m not sure what music education is like in Korea now, but I’d say: Don’t stay confined to school. Get out onto the streets, perform in different settings, and learn what everyday people like. That kind of real-world experience could be incredibly valuable.
Hyunchae Kim: Absolutely. In Korea, the traditional-music world and the non-traditional-music world feel very separate, but if they were to step out, I think they would probably think and feel similarly. These days, young gayageum players perform K-pop and original pieces. Academic pieces are mostly for exams and competitions now. Things are changing for the better.
Hyunchae Kim graduated from the Department of Korean Music at Seoul National University with a Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA), formerly served as a lecturer in the Department of Korean Music at Seoul National University, and is currently an Artist in Residence at the Korean Performing Arts Institute of Chicago (KPAC). She is also the Founding Director of Stringway.
Soojin Lee graduated from Seoul National University’s Department of Korean Traditional Music with a Master’s degree in gayageum. She also earned a master’s degree in Ethnomusicology from the University of California, Irvine, and a PhD in Music Education from the University of Minnesota. She is currently an Artist in Residence at the MacPhail Center for Music.
