Artist of the week - Park Jung Hyun

Jul 12, 2009

PROFILE
Name: Park Jung-hyun
Born: March 23rd, 1976 in Los Angeles

Debut Year/Debut Song: 1998/My Day
Instruments: Vocals, piano
Official Website: www.lenapark.pe.kr
Hobbies: Cooking, sewing, reading, chewing gum

BIOGRAPHY

Featured artist of this week is the daughter of a pastor at a Korean congregation in Los Angeles, Park Jung-hyun,also known as Lena Park. She started showing talent in performance, especially gospel singing and ballet, when she was very young. At age 16, the Korean-American singer released an amateur gospel album and seven years later in 1998 she came to Korea to begin her career as a professional singer while also mastering the Korean language, a goal she hoped to achieve before turning 25.

Her first album "Piece," mostly composed of R&B ballads, sold over 300,000 copies in 1998, when the Korean pop music industry was in its slump in the wake of the Asian financial crisis. Park eventually ranked among the top K-pop divas that are characterized by outstanding singing ability rather than mere attractiveness, and her sweet yet powerful voice earned her the nickname "Little fairy of R&B." However, her later albums, "A Second Helping" and "Naturally," both of which sold over 400,000 copies, proved her music was not confined to R&B. She has experimented with soul, gospel, jazz to rock, funky and trip-hop. Park, musically and emotionally inspired by U2 and Bono, says her ultimate goal is to fuse the genres to one album color.

In 2002, Park participated in making the official album of the 2002 Korea Japan FIFA World Cup with Korean duo Brown Eyes, Japanese duo band Chemistry and Japanese singer Sowelu. The six artists sang "Let’s Get Together" at the opening ceremony of the 2002 World Cup Games in Seoul and also performed together at an official World Cup concert at the Tokyo dome as well as at the World Cup closing ceremony. With this rare opportunity, Park faced potential to move into Northeast Asian markets such as Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Park consequently released her Op.4 album the same year and in 2003 her first live album entitled "Live Op.4 Concert Project Fourth Movement The Album." Versatility best describes Park. Although she has written only a few of the songs in her albums, her ultimate goal is to become a singer-songwriter. She also wants to write literature, her "long-time passion."

She back in 2005 with the fifth R&B album On&On. This album has a stylish blend of hot music genres that are steadily combined to an energetic whole via Lena’s skillful command of captivating R&B rhythms. She also is the producer, lyricist and vocal arranger she weaves her latest magic spell around music lovers through her latest 14-track packed long player that offers a touch of oriental sounds on her grand new tune Moon (track 4) accompanied by top musician Chen Ming’s passionate erhu (a kind of Asian violin) play.

For the sixth album, Come To Where I Am she acting as a singer/songwriter again. She wrote more songs in this album. She is famous known for her her vocal talent and try to change to become a songwriter/producer with this album. With this album, she can freely explores her musical creativity, not just composing and penning the songs, but also overseeing the whole process of production as well as its musical direction concept.

She also have been included in several drama soundtrack and works with Japanese singers during her break.

For this year of 2009, she been releasing the new seventh studio album with title ’10 Ways To Say I Love You’ and three months after that she released the repackaged album. The album become hit success among her fans. The title song "Tears Flowing" of her repackaged 7th album features the crystal clear powerful vocal of Park Jung Hyun.

DISCOGRAPHY

* Piece (Vol. 1, 1998) : Intro, My Day, P.S. I Love You, 2gether, Reverse, The Player (feat. Players), Long Time…(acoustic version), Lately, Deeper than Love, Interlude, One More Time, Long Time…(R&B version)

* A Second Helping (Vol. 2, 1999) : In a Dream, Blind Love, Letters, Final Night, Us, A Confession, Friends, A New Beginning, Never Again, Take it Back, Withering in the Wind, Ordinary

PURCHASE THE ALBUM
* Naturally (Vol. 3, 2000) : Say No More, You Mean Everything To Me, Rewind 10 Minutes, Always…, Come Back to Me, Always On Your Side, Black Diary, No, Like a Lie, It’s Me, Better Now, The Beginning

* Forever (2001) : Intro, 3:30 AM, The Final Hours, A Misunderstanding, One Summer Night ‘97, First Snow, What do I Do?, The Day You Left, Nonchalance, Baby’s Groove, We Are Friends, Outro

* Op.4 (Vol.4, 2002 ) : Plastic Flower, In Dreams, Someone, Some Day, A New Life, The Ugly Duckling, At the Beauty Parlor, Jealousy, Another Day Without You, Goodbye, Everything Will Be Alright, Dear Mom, Puff

PURCHASE THE ALBUM
* Live Op.4 Concert Project 4th Movement (2003) :

CD1
Intro of Finale, 2gether, Someone, Another Day Without You, You Mean Everything To Me, Final Night, Friends, Blind Love, Letters, Take it Back, Ordinary, At the Beauty Parlor, Long Time…, My Day, P.S. I Love You
CD 2
Lately, Rewind 10 Minutes, Black Diary, The Beginning, Always…, The Ugly Duckling, Some Day, It’s Me, In Dreams, In Paradise, An, Hidden Track (Remix)

PURCHASE THE ALBUM
* On&On (Vol. 5, 2005) :