American Sketches

This album is a love letter to American music from a Korean-born artist who could barely speak English when she came to the United States at the age of seven. Kristin Lee went on to study at Juilliard, and even took lessons with a legend, Itzhak Perlman. She is a stunning virtuoso, with dazzling agility expressed in a joyful, rhythmically buoyant style. That musical personality fits this presentation nicely, which consists of mostly 20th century works that can put in the light classical category (which is not a criticism). Her program is enhanced, culturally, with a strong bias towards the influence of jazz on the American musical identity, with contributions from J. J. Johnson (a bluesy “Lament”) and Thelonious Monk (his soulful ballad “Monk’s Mood,” inspired by the John Coltrane rendition), and also ragtime, with Scott Joplin, of course, but also modern rags from John Novacek. The oldest music played by Lee is from Henry “Harry” Thacker Burleigh, whose four Southland Sketches, written in 1916, are a lovely example of his formal settings of spirituals, a practice that was a major influence on Dvořák earlier in Burleigh’s career. All told, this is an enjoyable calling card for a fine young artist, whetting the appetite for meatier fare.