Artist, composer, organist, painter, and visual artist, Kyong Mee Choi deeply values originality, imagination, and craftsmanship. While challenging, any endeavor to bring these together in single work leads to the most satisfying result for Choi, so she makes certain these principles are a part of her artistic practice and process. Being able to freely transfer between conceptual (structural) and intuitive thinking allows Choi to be more effective as an artist. Another important aspect to her creative process is to deeply immerse herself in the work. For Choi, creating art is not purely a technical exercise; it involves the integration of patience, persistence, discipline and faith in oneself. As a composer, her creative work includes chamber, acousmatic, electroacoustic, interactive, and multimedia works, the latter incorporating visual art, lighting, and dance movement. Painting and visual art has led her to experiment with the integration of sound and image into a single artwork. Cohesive structure, rich timbre, diverse gestures, and organic evolution are the main goals of Choi’s compositions. Choi has received several prestigious awards and grants including John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, Robert Helps Prize, Aaron Copland Award, Illinois Arts Council Fellowship, First prize of ASCAP/SEAMUS Award, Second prize at VI Concurso Internacional de Música Eletroacústica de São Paulo, Honorary Mentions from Musique et d’Art Sonore Electroacoustiques de Bourges, Musica Nova, Society of Electroacoustic Music of Czech Republic, Luigi Russolo International Competition, and Destellos Competition. She was a Finalist of the Contest for the International Contemporary Music Contest “Citta’ di Udine and Concurso Internacional de Composicai eletroacoustica in Brazil among others. Her music was published at SCI, EMS, ERM, SEAMUS, Détonants Voyages (Studio Forum, France), CIMESP (São Paulo, Brazil) and PARMA. She is an Associate Professor of Music Composition at Roosevelt University in Chicago where she teaches composition and electro-acoustic music.
Tender Spirit II for video is a sequel of Tender Spirit I for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, percussion and electronics. Both pieces share the same electronic part. These pieces are dedicated to the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, which took away precious lives of children and teachers.