Charmaine Lee - I trust her to go on living (for James Wright)

Image: Charmaine Lee and Luke Cheng

Charmaine Lee's I trust her to go on living (for James Wright) refracts and reflects the voice as self.

Artist Biography

Charmaine Lee (b. 1991) is a New York-based vocalist from Sydney, Australia. Her music is predominantly improvised, favoring a uniquely personal approach to vocal expression concerned with spontaneity, playfulness, and risk-taking. Beyond extended vocal technique, Charmaine uses amplification, feedback, and microphones to augment and distort the voice.

Charmaine has performed with leading improvisers id m theft able, Sam Pluta, Tyshawn Sorey, Nate Wooley, and C. Spencer Yeh, and maintains ongoing collaborations with Ikue Mori, Conrad Tao, Victoria Shen, and Eric Wubbels. Charmaine has performed at the Lincoln Center, ISSUE Project Room, the Kitchen, Roulette, The Poetry Project, and MoMA and participated in festivals including Resonant Bodies and Huddersfield Contemporary. She been featured in group exhibitions including The Moon Represents My Heart: Music, Memory and Belonging at the Museum of Chinese in America (2019). As a composer, Charmaine has been commissioned by HBO Max, International Contemporary Ensemble, the Wet Ink Ensemble, and Spektral Quartet. She has lectured at institutions including Princeton University, Columbia University, Stanford University, and The New School. Charmaine was an Artist-in-Residence at ISSUE Project Room (2019) and Van Lier Fellow at Roulette (2021). She currently serves on the Board of ISSUE Project Room and on the Editorial Board of Sound American.