Youn Sun Nah

Born in Seoul, South Korea, on August 28, 1969, Na Yoon-sun is better known by her stage name, Youn Sun Nah. The daughter of a choral conductor and a musical theatre actress and singer, she learned to play the piano at the age of five, then studied literature, before returning to music and singing in particular. She performed gospel music with the Korean Symphony Orchestra, then took part in musicals. Her taste for French chanson led her to move to Paris in 1995 to study at the CIM jazz school, then at the Institut National de Musique de Beauvais and the Conservatoire Nadia et Lili Boulanger. Concerts in clubs and awards at competitions such as the Festival de La Défense led up to the recording of her first album, Reflet (2001), released in South Korea. She then went on to perform with a quintet, winning French audiences with the following albums: Light for the People (2002), Down by Love (2003) and, above all, So I Am (2004). In 2005, Youn Sun Nah won the Grand Prix de la révélation at the Juan-les-Pins Jazz Festival. In 2009, the album Voyage, for the German label Act, saw her collaborate with Lars Danielsson, Ulf Wakenius, Mathias Eick and Xavier Desandre Navarre. Her repertoire of jazz, chanson, pop and rock standards is underpinned by a gentle, elegant and playful voice. Honored with the title of Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres in 2009, the singer formed an acoustic duo with guitarist Ulf Wakenius on the album Same Girl (2010), which reached number one on the French jazz charts and won the Prix du Jazz Vocal from the Académie du Jazz and an Echo Award. After the album Lento (2013), followed by a world tour, Youn Sun Nah sang at the opening ceremony of the Sochi Winter Olympics (2014). She successively recorded the albums She Moves On (2017), with the participation of guitarist Marc Ribot, then Immersion (2019) and Waking World (2022), which for the first time consists entirely of her own compositions. A tribute to female jazz and pop performers, Elles, follows in 2024.