BuYoung Lee (이부영) is a South Korean jazz vocalist who has released seven albums under her own name, from European Sketch in 2006 to Lover's Breath in 2023. She was born on July 6, 1970; no source gives her birthplace. Her name is romanized in several ways: the covers of Little Star and Lover's Breath read BuYoung Lee, the cover of Songs of Michel Legrand reads Lee Bu Young, Discogs files her as Bu-Young Lee, Apple Music and Spotify list her as Bu Young Lee, and Korean newspapers write Lee Bu-young. Her best-known honor is the Korean Music Award for Best Jazz & Crossover Album in the jazz category for Little Star, presented at the 13th ceremony in 2016.

She did not start in jazz. In a December 2021 interview with the news agency Yonhap she said her career began when she won the grand prize at the 1993 Korean Song Festival (한국가요제), a pop-song competition, and that she ended up in jazz almost by accident: she went to study in the Netherlands on the advice of people around her, never expecting jazz to become her profession. Korean Wikipedia lists a jazz vocal bachelor's degree from the Rotterdam conservatory in 2004 and a master's degree from Codarts in 2006, and Codarts is the school that grew out of the Rotterdam conservatory. Concert listings from her promoter give her training as Rotterdam Conservatory. Her first jazz album followed in 2006.

Her early records were made in Korea after her return. One Day (Rubato, 2010) is an eleven-song set, mostly standards, and its Apple Music edition carries the Dutch pianist Rob van Bavel as co-billed. Reverie (2011) places Bill Evans's "Waltz for Debby" beside two pieces titled "Pavane", one marked Ravel and one Fauré, and a track called "Ravel's Tomb". By 2013 the Korean press was describing her as an "impressionist" jazz vocalist, a label that has followed her since. That September she took part in a Korea-Japan exchange concert called Three Arrows with 이부영 at Audio Guy Studio in Seoul, with the drummer Gene Jackson, the bassist Kengo Nakamura and the pianist Taiko Kikuchi, organized by the concert promoter Plus Hitch.

Little Star (2015) is the record that made her name. She made it as a duo with the Ukrainian-born pianist Vadim Neselovskyi, a Berklee professor, for Audioguy Records, the Seoul audiophile label founded in 2000 by the recording engineer Choi Jung-hoon. A Korean news preview from August 2015 describes how the project grew from a performance of "All the Things You Are" by the two musicians, and announces a release concert on September 9, 2015 at the Seoul Anglican Cathedral in Jeong-dong. The album mixes American songbook material, among them "Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most", "Once Upon a Summertime", "Darn That Dream" and "Lover", with an original of her own, "Little Star". It was issued as a hybrid SACD, and Discogs dates it November 24, 2015. According to that preview, the pianist Fred Hersch praised her musicality, natural improvisation, emotional sincerity and the conversation between the two players. At the 13th Korean Music Awards, held on February 29, 2016 at the Guro Arts Valley Arts Theater in Seoul, Little Star won Best Jazz & Crossover Album in the jazz category. In her acceptance remarks she asked for support for musicians who have no way of reaching listeners beyond a small circle of enthusiasts.

Her next project turned to one composer. Songs of Michel Legrand was recorded in 2016 at Audioguy Studio with the guitarist Younwoo Park (박윤우) and released in 2017, first on vinyl; Discogs dates the LP July 28, 2017. It is eight songs by Michel Legrand, among them "Magic", "Watch What Happens", "The Windmills of Your Mind" and "You Must Believe in Spring". Discogs credits her with the arrangements as well as the vocals. Streaming services carry the record under a 2020 reissue date.

Love, Like a Song, her sixth album, came out on November 19, 2021 on Romanworks, with the pianist Song Young-joo (송영주), Park on guitar and Yeo Hyun-woo (여현우) on clarinet. In the Yonhap interview she described the record as about love, said jazz had felt difficult for a long time and that she had learned to let go of the tension on this one, and called jazz her life and herself. A showcase followed on December 19, 2021 at the Solgaram Art Hall in Paju. The album was nominated for Best Jazz Vocal Album at the 19th Korean Music Awards, whose ceremony was held on March 1, 2022; the prize went to Maria Kim for With Strings: Dream of You.

Lover's Breath (애호가의 호흡), her seventh album, was released on November 22, 2023 on the label KDM. Her promoter describes it as new interpretations of standards and new songs in a warm, slow-breathing acoustic trio with Park and Yeo, and the trio toured small venues in spring 2024, including a Seoul concert at Audio Guy Studio on April 6, 2024. On June 28, 2026 the same trio performed a Michel Legrand songbook concert at Audio Guy Studio as part of the Fête de la Musique program in Korea, marking 140 years of diplomatic relations between France and Korea. The promoter's biographies add that she has been invited to the MAMA Jazz Festival in Mauritius.

She is also a teacher. A 2015 Korean report calls her a full-time professor of vocals in the practical music department at Howon University, and the 2021 Yonhap interview describes her as a full-time professor in the practical music department at Seoul Theological University (서울신학대학교), where she is said to prefer building on students' strengths to correcting their weaknesses.

She has not been quoted in the sources located on which singers shaped her, so this section sticks to what the records and the writing about them show. The Korean press has called her an "impressionist" vocalist since at least 2013, and the Yonhap interview describes her voice as husky and mid-low in register. A 2013 concert preview, repeated in 2015, credits her Dutch schooling with a style that combines the swing feel of American mainstream jazz with the more analytical approach of European jazz.

Her records are small-group, acoustic and close-miked, and most of the repertoire is the standard songbook. Little Star is a duo of voice and piano, Songs of Michel Legrand a set built around guitar, and her later trio with Younwoo Park and Yeo Hyun-woo adds clarinet or saxophone. Audioguy Records, which issued Little Star and the Legrand album, is known for natural, lightly edited sound, and the Legrand disc was cut to vinyl. Reverie shows a classical streak in her repertoire, with its two Pavane tracks beside a Bill Evans waltz. As a writer she is represented by the title song "Little Star", which Discogs credits to her.