The South Korean jazz singer and composer Song Yi Jeon is making her first appearance at the festival, but is certain to make an immediate impact with her hypnotic and flexible voice, with which she is capable of phenomenal improvisation. She studied classical composition in Graz, jazz singing in Basel, and went on to hone her unique sound further at Boston’s Berklee College of Music. Her debut album
Movement Of Lives was released in 2018, and four years after that, she recorded the dual album
Home with guitarist Vinicius Gomes. The leading magazine
DownBeat was full of praise and awarded the album 4.5 stars. In 2023, Yi Jeon was chosen from a large group of promising vocalists for the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative program, which matches young talents with internationally recognized masters of the arts. As a result, she was able to have Dianne Reeves be her mentor for two years, and continued to grow under her wings. At the festival, she is set to perform with her
Song Yi Jeon Nonet featuring
Samulnori Newdot.
