Born in 1972, LEE Sung-hyun, who adopted the stage name of Mowg, is a bassist, composer and full-time professor of music at the Seoul University of Arts. He had his first contact with music through the piano lessons to which his parents were taking him, but his interest grew significantly when he discovered jazz, blues and rock while listening to radio. He became particularly passionate about jazz music as he started performing occasionally at a live jazz bar in Itaewon after...More

Born in 1972, LEE Sung-hyun, who adopted the stage name of Mowg, is a bassist, composer and full-time professor of music at the Seoul University of Arts. He had his first contact with music through the piano lessons to which his parents were taking him, but his interest grew significantly when he discovered jazz, blues and rock while listening to radio. He became particularly passionate about jazz music as he started performing occasionally at a live jazz bar in Itaewon after high school. Given that his parents were opposed to this vocation, he decided to leave for New York in 1992 so he could follow his own path. Although he entered a music school, he would later declare he did so only to be allowed to stay in the U.S. and that it is in the streets of Harlem that he learned the most. Since he was struggling to make a living as a musician, he would take all kind of gigs, playing the bass as well as the guitar, the keyboard and the drums. As he spent many years touring the country and recording in studios, he met many artists from all over the world. One of them was Yim Pil-sung, an aspiring film director he bumped into in the late 1990s in Los Angeles. He eventually came back to Korea a few years later and released in 2004 his first solo album, which is comprised of rock songs. He was awarded the next year with the Best Performance Award at the Korean Pop Music Award and he has since released two other albums. In 2006, his friend Lim Pil-sung, who had become a sensation with his <Antarctic Journal> (2005), introduced him to some of the most famous directors of the Korean film industry, and KIM Jee-woon offered him to score his segment of the anthology film <Doomsday Book> (eventually released in 2011). This marked the beginning of a long collaboration with KIM, as Mowg has since composed for all of his films, including his Hollywood debut <The Last Stand>. He won three times Best Music at the Blue Dragon Awards, and two times the equivalent accolade at the Grand Bell Awards. His soundtrack for <The Age of Shadows> allowed him to add a few more prizes to his collection. Less