April – Jihye Lee Orchestra

April is the debut album by South Korean composer, arranger, and conductor Jihye Lee, independently released in 2017 following a successful crowdfunding campaign. The work is structured as a conceptual suite in response to the Sewol ferry disaster, which occurred in South Korea in 2014.

The album features an eighteen-piece big band that brings together educators and prominent instrumentalists from the Boston and New York scenes—among them Sean Jones, Greg Hopkins, Alain Mallet, Bruce Bartlett, and Mark Walker—expanding the timbral possibilities of contemporary orchestral jazz.

Across six original compositions, the repertoire explores the integration of the Western harmonic tradition of big bandswith an expressive sensitivity rooted in Korean culture, shifting from passages of dense tonal friction to moments of melodic clarity.

The album establishes Lee's aesthetic foundations within the large-ensemble format, characterized by a programmatic approach where orchestration serves as a vehicle for social narrative and psychological exploration.