{"id":18406,"date":"2026-06-01T13:02:56","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T17:02:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/?p=18406"},"modified":"2026-06-04T13:14:01","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T17:14:01","slug":"new-artist-of-the-month-soprano-song-hee-lee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/new-artist-of-the-month-soprano-song-hee-lee\/","title":{"rendered":"New Artist of the Month: Soprano Song Hee Lee"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Musical America<\/a><\/p>\n

By Fred Cohn<\/p>\n

Song Hee Lee\u2019s singing, at March\u2019s Met Opera Laffont Competition finals, was brilliant. Small wonder the 28-year-old Seoul-born soprano was named a winner after her tour de force renderings of \u201cTornami a vagheggiar\u201d from Handel\u2019s Alcina<\/em> and Ophelia\u2019s mad scene from Ambroise Thomas\u2019s Hamlet<\/em>. Both selections were notable for the pinpoint accuracy of her coloratura and the sparkle of her leggiero singing.<\/p>\n

It was her maiden appearance at the Met, but she took ownership of stage and auditorium. She was clearly doing exactly what she wanted and exactly where. Lee is a woman who loves to sing.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy parents tell me that when I was a little child, even before I could speak properly, I was memorizing lyrics and humming tunes,\u201d she tells me in a Zoom interview. \u201cThey say I couldn\u2019t keep my mouth shut\u2014which they found kind of fascinating. So they let me take singing lessons, just as a hobby, but I loved it so much that the hobby naturally grew into my passion, and right now it\u2019s my entire life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Childhood voice lessons focused on material like \u201cTomorrow,\u201d from Annie, and the folk song \u201cShenandoah.\u201d These proved of less interest to her than the aria antica \u201cCaro mio ben.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI completely fell in love with it, and I could mimic the style naturally,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Her first exposure to opera came from a Paris Opera DVD of Rameau\u2019s Les Indes Galantes<\/em>, featuring Les Arts Florissants and conducted by William Christie\u2014a man who would later play a significant role in Lee\u2019s artistic development. \u201cI was immediately drawn into it,\u201d she says. \u201cThe production design, the music, the staging\u2014it felt like Disney\u2019s Fantasia<\/em> to me. It was like a culture shock: It made me realize how magical the world of opera is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though music was not prevalent in her childhood household, a consciousness of other artforms was. \u201cMy father owns a design-related business, and many of my relatives work in the visual arts,\u201d she says. \u201cSo maybe that subconsciously helped me focus on artistic accomplishment.\u201d Although they fostered her voice lessons, they did not expect her to become a professional singer, sending her to the liberal arts program at Seoul National University. \u201cThey thought I might quit singing and do something else, or maybe just get married,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

In the middle of her second year at university, though, she flew to New York to audition for Juilliard, and got accepted into the Bachelor of Music program. \u201cWhen I first mentioned that I wanted to move to New York, my parents were like, \u2018Absolutely not!\u2019 They weren\u2019t happy. But I persuaded them to let me come sing here, and it all worked out well. But still, up to this day, they joke, \u2018You could always come back!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Read the full profile.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Musical America By Fred Cohn Song Hee Lee\u2019s singing, at March\u2019s Met Opera Laffont Competition finals, was brilliant. Small wonder the 28-year-old Seoul-born soprano was named a winner after her tour de force renderings of \u201cTornami a vagheggiar\u201d from Handel\u2019s Alcina and Ophelia\u2019s mad scene from Ambroise Thomas\u2019s Hamlet. Both selections were notable for … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16616,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[7514,7438,4440],"class_list":["post-18406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-artist-of-the-month","tag-song-hee-lee","tag-soprano"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18406"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18406\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18408,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18406\/revisions\/18408"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/media\/16616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}