There is a child-like quality to playing an instrument, according to violinist and violist Yura Lee.
"It feels like an adult version of playing in the playground with the most fascinating tools.
"It sparks humour, joy — all the things that, as a child, is such a first language for us."
As adults, life becomes more complicated and we lose our connection to these childhood feelings.
But Lee says playing her instruments reminds her of the joy from childhood "every single day".
"I think that’s the power of music, as a player and as a listener, that we can go somewhere that we can’t always go.
"And that place that we go is something that really heals us as human beings."
The South Korean-born, Los Angeles and Copenhagen-based musician is among several internationally renowned artists performing at this year’s At the World’s Edge (AWE) Music Festival, which starts next month across the Queenstown Lakes district.
The chamber music festival, now celebrating its fifth year, will feature seven curated programmes in Queenstown, Wanaka, Cromwell and Bannockburn, all exploring the complex relationship between music and nature.
Lee, who arrived in Wellington last week and performed with Orchestra Wellington, said she was "absolutely loving" her first time visiting New Zealand — the people, nature and "even the weather".
In the first few days she had spent in the country, she noticed an innate care and respect towards the nature.
"It’s the kind of care that I think it’s lost in a lot of other parts of the world.
"To be honest, it’s really inspiring to be at a place where the goodness of human being seems to exist at the forefront of people’s minds.
"I’ve been appreciating that a lot."
Lee says she is "a very short person with very small hands".
Those physical limitations allow her to play only a couple of instruments — those being the violin and viola — and even then, the viola is "stretching it quite far".
She began playing music from a very young age, as a hobby, and was "obsessed" with orchestration, voicing, harmonisation and how the whole picture of a composition was constructed.
Back then, what instrument she ended up playing "was of absolute no interest to me".
But Lee says what she actually wants to be playing is the piano.
"Basically, I want to experience music from all directions, all perspectives.
"An analogy would be you’re both the farmer and the cook.
"You get to see music from all sorts of interesting sides"
The viola came into her life when she was about 10 years old — and even then, she tried to play it like a cello, Lee says.
"I was really jealous at cellists being able to play bass lines with really deep sounds.
"The closest I could get was a little viola."
The viola gave context to every single harmony in a piece, influencing other players without them necessarily knowing it.
It was "a little bit like being a producer of a record rather than the singer".
Looking at a piece from both macro and micro perspectives at the same time was very challenging, but something she really loved doing.
It was also not often a performer could play both the violin and viola, as they were completely different instruments with different muscular, physical and mental demands.
She found it hard to choose between the two.
"That’s why I keep playing both because I cannot choose.
"Even though it’s a pain to travel with and twice more music that I have to practise.
"But it is a little bit more fun to be a backseat driver, which the viola is, rather than the driver, which the violin is."
Lee says to play an instrument is to be bound by the laws of nature and physics — such as gravity, friction and resistance.
Nature is the biggest inspiration for musicians as it reminds them of the parameters they need to respect and follow, she says.
The moments musicians often feel closest to the music living inside their heads are, ironically, when they are furthest away from nature, Lee says.
"The very first thing that I did when I came to Wellington was take a very, very long walk around the water.
"That is, for me, how I reset myself so that I could absorb all the music that I want to be absorbing in the next days."
Usage of the senses was also very important.
The only sense musicians did not use was smell, Lee said.
Yet it is a sense she is particularly attuned to, as well as the emotions that certain smells can evoke.
"My favourite thing is when I wake up in a forest or after a rainy day and then you smell the dew on the trees, especially the pine family of trees.
"That just brings me to the best mental place where anything and everything is possible creatively."
With 31 years of professional experience under her belt, Lee says most gigs she travels for involve being in a city for only a couple of days at a time.
"Basically, all I get to see is the airport, the hall and my hotel.
"Just being able to go to all these different places for the AWE festival, being able to be in the most beautiful part of an already beautiful country, it’s such a luxury to be able to absorb your environment, which I almost never get to do, honestly."
Every day could feel like a whole lifetime emotionally for musicians, and she hoped to be inspired as much as possible by New Zealand’s surroundings, she said.
Musicians from all around the world were converging on the Queenstown Lakes district for the festival — each with a unique life trajectory, personality and culture they grew up with, Lee said.
Adding them together was like chemistry.
"I think it’ll be a fantastic combination of different personalities coming together for one goal.
"Each time you play something with people that are different from you, there is a certain magic that happens."
TO SEE:
At the World’s Edge Music Festival 2025, Queenstown Lakes, October 4-17.
"Intimate Voices", Saturday October 4, 4pm and 7.30pm, Rippon, Wānaka; "Barroco", Sunday October 5, 2pm and 5pm, Rippon, Wānaka; "Claviers", Monday October 6, 7.30pm, Te Atamira, Queenstown; "Orbit", Thursday October 9, 6pm, Cloudy Bay Shed, Cromwell; "Reverie", Friday October 10, 7.30pm, Te Atamira, Queenstown; "Whorl", Saturday October 11, 2pm and 5pm, Coronation Hall, Bannockburn; "Horizon", Sunday October 12, 2pm and 5.30pm, Te Atamira, Queenstown.
