Lena Park

Lena Park
Background information
Also known as	Park Jung-hyun
Born	(1976-03-23) March 23, 1976 Los Angeles, California, United States
Genres	K-pop J-pop R&B
Occupation(s)	Singer, songwriter, musician, arranger, record producer
Instruments	Vocals, piano, saxophone, guitar
Years active	1998–present
Labels	Kakao M (Mun Hwa In)[1][2] (2017-present)
Korean name
Hangul	박정현
Hanja	朴正炫
Revised Romanization	Bak Jeong-hyeon
McCune–Reischauer	Pak Chŏnghyŏn

Park Jung-hyun (Hangul: 박정현; born March 23, 1976), also known as Lena Park (Hangul: 리나 박), is a Korean-American singer based in South Korea.^[3] She debuted in 1998 with the album, Piece.^[4] She is known in South Korea as "the nation's fairy" due to her small stature and strong singing voice.^[5]

Early life and education

Born in Los Angeles, California, Park began singing as a child in the choir of her father's church. She won several singing contests before recording an amateur gospel album in 1993 when she was 16 years old.^[6]

Park attended UCLA for one year before beginning her singing career in 1998. She later transferred to Columbia University, where she graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. in English and Comparative Literature in 2010, and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa.^[7][8]

Career

Park released her first Korean album, Piece, in 1998. The album sold more than 500,000 copies, even though she wasn't comfortable enough to do promotions on talk shows. She did not speak Korean very well until she released her first album.. In 1999, A Second Helping was released. It also was well received by both fans and the critics. Park's third album, "Naturally", was mixed in both South Korea and the United States.

After a yearlong break from singing because of her studies in the United States, she came back in 2002 with her album called Op.4. More comfortable with the media, she became much more accessible for talk shows and performances. In 2002, her song "꿈에" (In a Dream) was a big success and enabled her to enter foreign markets, such as Singapore. The South Korean government select Park to represent South Korea in the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2002 FIFA World Cup. At the end of 2002, a "best of" album was released and she played a series of concerts. Live recordings from these concerts were compiled into her first special live album in CDs and DVD. Park, along with Brown Eyes (band), Chemistry (band), and Sowelu, formed the special unit conveniently called "Voices of Korea/Japan" and made the title song for the 2002 FIFA World Cup Official Album – Songs of Korea/Japan. She later debuted in the Japanese music industry where she received moderate success. ^[9] She is especially proud of her fifth Korean language album, On & On, because she felt that she was finally comfortable and confident singing and composing in Korean. It took her about two years to make the album and, during that time, she became very involved with the production and creative work behind the album; she helped with many of the song arrangements, played the piano and guitar for some of the tracks, and composed four of the songs on the album. In 2007, she performed the opening theme Inori~You Raise Me Up～ (祈り～You Raise Me Up～) of the Japanese anime television series Romeo x Juliet, which is a Japanese cover of Rolf Løvland and Brendan Graham's song You Raise Me Up. The single also includes a cover of the English version. Her sixth Korean album, Come To Where I Am, was released on December 11, 2007. All songs were written and produced by herself. On February 27, 2009, she released her seventh album titled 10 Ways To Say I Love You with nine new tracks and "Secret" (Korean: 비밀) as lead track. On June 6, of the same year, she released a repackaged edition to include another title track, "Flood of tears" (Korean: 눈물이 주룩주룩).

After announcing the release of her eighth studio album, videos of her with composers she was working with for her album introducing her songs were released online. Shortly after, on June 19, 2012, her album Parallax was released with the title track, "Sorry" (Korean: 미안해), being a remake of the Spanish language song Mientes by Mexican pop band Camila.^[10] After that, in July she featured for the Psy song What Would Have Been(어땠을까;ottessulkka), that sold over 2.000.000 digital copies in 2012. At the end of the year she released the Christmas song White Winter (하얀 겨울) with Kim Bom-soo and the special album Gift, with a reboot of Parallax album songs and where she sings again the songs of I Am a Singer program.

In 2013 she released the cover of Atlantis Girl (아틀란티스 소녀), originally sung by BoA, for hwangseongje project superhero 1st Line up, the O.S.T My Everything for the variety show We Got Married and the O.S.T. My Wish/Only In My Heart (마음으로만) for The Heirs drama. On September 18, 2013 she won the special episode of I Am A Singer - Best 10 (나는 가수다 명곡 Best 10), beating Insooni for only three votes.

In 2014 she started the project Syncrofusion with Next Year (그 다음해) and the M/V of Double Kiss, closing it in October with "Syncrofusion 싱크로퓨전 ) 2nd Lena Park + Brand New Music" and a cover of her song Sweet (달아요;feat. Verbal Jint) as lead track. She participated twice in the program Immortal Songs 2 (불후의 명곡2), for the first time for Lee Sun-hee special, singing Turning the Pages of Memories (추억의 책장을 넘기면), he second time for Michael Bolton singing Completely. In December she collaborated with Dynamic Duo for "SsSs" (싱숭생숭) digital single.

In September she became an English-speaking DJ for the newest KBS radio show, One Fine Day, on KBS World Radio New. In December, Park officially signed a management contract with LOEN Entertainment (now kakao M)'s indie sub-label "Mun Hwa In".^[2] Again in December, she partecipied in Mnet program The Master for three episodes, singing a different version of her hit 꿈에 (In Dreams), 하비샴의 왈츠 (Miss Havisham's Waltz) and left the program covering 담배가게 아가씨. In December 21, Lena Park has been confirmed to join to Begin Again 2, the second season of a reality program where famous musicians from South Korea travel overseas to sing. During December 22–25 she has held her solo winter concert, named “Let It Snow” as the last year, at the SK Olympic Handball Stadium.

During the first months of 2018 she recorded for the reality show Begin Again 2 while in February 27 sang for The 10th anniversary of the death of composer Lee Young-hoon. In April 7 sang with others artists for POSCO's 50th Anniversary Celebration Concert at the Pohang Culture and Arts Center and on April 21 she sang 창밖의 여자 (The Woman Outside The Window) for the first part of Cho Yong Pil special of Immortal Song. In May Lena Park team appear for the first time in Begin Again 2 in the last part of the seventh episode introducing her team, replacing Kim Yoon-ah team. In the program she could sang some of her hit like 꿈에 (In Dreams), 달아요 (Sweet) and You Mean Everything To Me, duetting very often with the member of her team, in particular with Lee Su-hyun of Akdong Musician. Her cover of Someone Like You of Adele got a lot of success in TV.Naver site web, surpassing 43.000 likes. On 19 June, she released the single The Wonder 1st DS with 같은 우산 (Same Umbrella) as title track. After that, she will release another single and before the end of year the ninth album to mark the 20th anniversary of her debut.

Discography

Awards

See also

• I Am a Singer
• History of the Korean Americans in Los Angeles

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Lena Park.

• Official website (in Korean)
• 박정현 Lena Park (@musiclenapark) Facebook
• Lena Park on Twitter