Cue
Performance
October 23, 2026 · Galvin Hall, Evanston (forthcoming)
Context
To be premiered by the Contemporary Music Ensemble (CME)
Be Piano
Performance
October 16, 2026 · DiMenna Center, New York (forthcoming)
Context
To be premiered by Duo Tesserae
Unfamiliaritic familiar unfamiliarity
Performers
Josh Modney, violin
Performance
April 10, 2025 · Regenstein MCR, Evanston
Documentation
Greetings III
Performers
Rowan Jones, clarinet
Performance
August 1, 2025 · Open Space, Darmstadt
Context
Selected Participant, Clarinet Workshop, Internationales Musikinstitut Darmstadt (IMD)
Documentation
Violin
Context
Violin recorded by Wookhyun Lacey Kwon, March 2025 · Chicago
Documentation
Yecheon
Performers
Evelin Degen, flute
Carter Williams, viola d'amore
Matthias Geuting, organ
Peter Eisold, percussion
Jennie Boultbee, dancer
Mateusz Bogdanowicz, dancer
Performance
August 15, 2025 · Lutheran Church, San Antonio
Context
Selected Composer, 2025 Collaborative Composition Initiative (CCI) Workshop
Written for PART Ensemble
Documentation
Idiomatic Redemption (failed)
Performers
Ford Fourqurean, bass clarinet
Matheus Souza, violin
Iva Casian-Lakoš, cello
Daniel Anastasio, piano
Performance
August 14, 2025 · McNay Art Museum, San Antonio
Context
Written for George Schroeder's sculpture Redemption IV as a site-specific sound-walk projection
Premiered by Unheard-of Ensemble
Documentation
Overlapped Ta-da Data
Performers
Marius Staible, accordion
Daniel Roth, accordion
Performance
April 12, 2024 · Tenri Cultural Institute, New York
April 16, 2024 · <Unerhörte Musik>, BKA-Theater, Berlin
July 4, 2026 · <ACHTELTON>, St. Johannis-Kirche, Hitzacker
Context
Commissioned and premiered by Con:Trust
Documentation
If Our Words Were Whiskey II
Performers
Isaac Boone, soprano saxophone
Ila Gupta, alto saxophone
Sam Alvarez, tenor saxophone
Kurt Cox, baritone saxophone
Recording
April 18, 2024 · Northwestern University, Evanston
Context
Recording session with Masso Saxophone Quartet
If Our Words Were Whiskey I
Performers
Taihi Chen, violin
Yeji Pyun, violin
Jeongjae Lee, viola
Alan Hlozek, cello
Performance
May 1, 2023 · Ades Performance Space, New York
Documentation
±1
Performers
Stephanie Dressler, flute
Savannah Mae Gentry, alto flute
Tommy Shermulis, bass clarinet
Hwanee Pak, percussion
Nacho Ojeda Romero, piano
Yeji Pyun, violin
Clara Cho, cello
Alan Hlozek, cello
Glenn Alexander II, conductor and indicator
Performance
October 7, 2022 · Ades Performance Space, New York
Documentation
Greetings II
Performers
Emmalie Tello, bass clarinet
Hunter Somogie, electric guitar
Performance
April 26, 2022 · Greenfield Hall, New York
Documentation
Fancy Doubt
Performers
Manhattan School of Music Orchestras
Glenn Alexander II, conductor
Performance
April 8, 2022 · Neidorff-Karpati Hall, New York
Context
Written as the thesis for the Master of Music degree at Manhattan School of Music
Documentation
Greetings I
Performers
Emmalie Tello, bass clarinet
Performance
April 2, 2022 · Ades Performance Space, New York
Documentation
Happening
Performers
Stephanie Dressler, flute
Emmalie Tello, clarinet
Florian David Gamberger, horn
Nicole Brancato, piano
Marius Staible, accordion
Teagan Faran, violin
Timon Knötzele, viola
Clara Lindenbaum, cello
Roc Fargas i Castells, conductor
Performance
November 13, 2021 · Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt Weimar, Weimar
November 14, 2021 · Gesellschaftshaus, Magdeburg
April 14, 2022 · Ades Performance Space, New York
April 16, 2022 · Christ Church Riverdale, New York
Context
Selected Composer, collaborative project with Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt Weimar and Manhattan School of Music
Premiered by a joint ensemble of the two schools
Documentation
Live and let live
Performers
Minhyuk Won, clarinet
Dasom Ham, piano
Performance
June 28, 2021 · Concert Hall, Kookmin University, Seoul
Context
Premiered at <Decomposition>, a concert by the Kookmin University composers' collective
Documentation
Let out your breath
Performers
Tara Helen O'Connor, flute
Randall Ellis, oboe
Alan R. Kay, clarinet
David Jolley, horn
Frank Morelli, bassoon
Performance
May 4, 2021 · virtual concert
Context
Written as a part of Windscape Ensemble's project You Give Us 26 Minutes…
Documentation
Bias
Performers
Jihyun Park, violin
Performance
November 29, 2019 · Alternative Space LOOP, Seoul
Context
Selected Composer, Hwaum Project Academy, Hwaum Chamber Orchestra
<Echo Chamber>: Sound Effect Seoul 2019 (supported by Arts Council Korea)
Documentation
Rough Trio
Performers
Youkyung Kim, violin
Sangmin Lee, viola
Seokwoo Yoon, cello
Performance
May 29, 2019 · Concert Hall, Kookmin University, Seoul
June 23, 2019 · Music Hall, University of Seoul
Context
First Prize, 30th Eumak Journal Music Competition, Seoul
Premiered by Wiro Ensemble
Documentation
Two
Performers
Jinpark Choi, tenor
Sangmin Lee, viola
Eunji Lee, piano
Performance
May 29, 2019 · Concert Hall, Kookmin University, Seoul
Documentation
Friction
Performers
Sangmin Lee, viola
Eunji Lee, piano
Performance
May 29, 2019 · Concert Hall, Kookmin University, Seoul
Context
Premiered by Wiro Ensemble
Documentation
Arrangement for Wind Orchestra
Performance
Concert Hall, Kookmin University, Seoul
Context
Performed at the 20th Kookmin University Symphonic Wind Orchestra Concert
Wookhyun Kwon권욱현
I work across instrumental and electroacoustic composition. The work stays with what remains as an expectation between an instruction, the sensation of the body carrying it out, and the sound perceived in performance. Instruments, physical effort, and the performance setting become a single material. The expectation takes form through them.
I was born in Uijeongbu, Korea, and work between Chicago and Seoul. The work has been presented in New York, Berlin, Darmstadt, Seoul, and elsewhere. I'm pursuing a PhD in Composition and Music Technology at Northwestern University, studying with Jay Alan Yim, Alex Mincek, and Stephan Moore, and hold degrees from Manhattan School of Music and Kookmin University.
statement...
A score establishes what is expected. It gives precise form to something that cannot be realized exactly. Performance brings that expectation into real time. A concert is controlled to realize the expectation, but never fully controllable. As the work unfolds, instruments, bodies, and relationships shape how its instructions are carried out. Effort, timing, response, and control shape what happens.
Expectation forms my work. It also shapes how the materials function. These expectations begin with familiar assumptions. A pattern will continue. An instruction can be carried out. The same signal will produce the same response. Some are set by musical convention: a performer responds to a cue, an instrument sounds as expected, and an ensemble stays together. The work uses these conventions as material, against what they are for. It keeps their forms but empties their functions.
My work isolates and magnifies different parts of this process. Each score draws one of these expectations into a specific task. In one, a physical movement is repeated in one direction. The restriction intensifies the expectation of its return or repetition. In another, an instrument follows the shape of a sound it cannot physically reproduce. That failure is built into the task. Elsewhere, a conductor's cue stays the same while the ensemble's response changes. A familiar convention remains in place after its function has changed: the gesture stays recognizable while control moves somewhere else.
In sound, an expectation takes form over time. The difference between expectation and execution becomes audible through physical effort in performance. Neither exists without the other, so both stay in the piece. The instruction, the physical action that carries it out, and the resulting sound remain connected, even as the relation among them changes. The work is built from these relations.