Dear Jazz Orchestra (디어 재즈 오케스트라, also written 디어재즈오케스트라) is a South Korean string orchestra of about twenty players that arranges and performs jazz-based music, and Korean press notices bill it as the country's first string jazz orchestra. It was put together around the violinist, singer-songwriter and conductor Kang Echae (강이채), who is credited as producer on its releases and conducts it. The players listed on its recordings are young Korean string players on violin, viola and cello, with double bass, piano, percussion, guitar and mandolin alongside. Very little has been written about the group beyond concert notices and release texts, so this profile covers what those sources state and says plainly where they stop.

The founding year is reported two ways. The business daily Newstomato wrote in November 2019 that the orchestra was formed in 2016 after being chosen for the Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture's Seoul Youth Arts Troupe support programme, and that it had rehearsed together once a week since. In an October 2024 interview with the Korea Herald, Kang said she founded it in 2019, wanting technically strong classical players to try broader styles. The earlier date has support elsewhere: the Korean Wikipedia entry for the Seoul Forest Jazz Festival lists the group (as 디어재즈오케스트라) on the second day of the festival's first edition, October 8, 2017, and a 2021 release text says the singer Sunwoo Jung-a (선우정아) had appeared as a special guest at the orchestra's 2018 solo concert The City Runs. This profile therefore gives the formation year as 2016, and treats 2019 as the year of its recording debut.

Kang Echae is its constant. The Korea Herald describes her as a jazz violinist, singer-songwriter and leader of the orchestra; she started violin at six, was classically trained, discovered jazz in middle school through Django Reinhardt's "Minor Swing" and studied at Berklee College of Music. Discogs gives her birth date as December 10, 1988 in Jinju and her Berklee years as 2008 to 2011, and the release text for the debut names the cellist Eugene Friesen, a six-time Grammy winner, as her teacher. Her own releases include the solo album Radical Paradise (2016) and the duo Echae en Route; the bassist Daeho Kim (김대호), who plays on that album, co-wrote the closing piece of the orchestra's debut with her.

The debut, A New Pulse, came out on November 29, 2019 on Leeway Music & Media. It is a five-track release that Apple Music files as an EP and Melon as a regular album, running about twenty-nine minutes. Newstomato's notice said it covered Latin, ballad, bossa nova, rock and classical colours on a jazz base. Its title track, "Small Fish Big Sea" (작은 물고기 큰 바다), is a fusion of bluegrass, country and rock written by the French musician Mathias Minquet and arranged by 김진환, with a banjo opening that gives way to full strings. "Ponteio" is Edu Lobo's Brazilian piece arranged by Eugene Friesen; "Route56" is by the guitarist and mandolinist 하범석, arranged by 최문석, and takes its title from the idea of a drive down America's Route 66 played in alternating five and six beats; "Sapphire" is a Friesen composition scored for strings alone; and "Breezefall" (바람녘) was written and arranged by Daeho Kim and Kang Echae. Kang Echae produced the record, the concertmaster 백나영 co-produced it, and the engineer 강효민, whom Newstomato describes as having worked with Pat Metheny, Ryuichi Sakamoto and Yo-Yo Ma, recorded, mixed and mastered it. A release concert of the same name was held at Hyundai Card Understage in Seoul on December 15, 2019.

In 2020 and 2021 the orchestra started a series of vocal singles called Sing For You. Volume 1, released on November 26, 2020, features the singer-songwriter Ahn Shin-ae (안신애, billed on Apple Music as Shinae An) of The Barberettes: "Lucky Star" is another Mathias Minquet piece, made with support from the Seoul Music Creation Support Center, and the second track is an orchestral remake of Cho Yong-pil's "이젠 그랬으면 좋겠네," with Minquet arranging and Kang and the violist 백준우 adding string orchestration; Apple Music lists it under the English title "Let It Be." Volume 2, released on February 25, 2021, features Sunwoo Jung-a: "Oh Tomorrow" is an original by Kang, with lyrics by 몬구 and Sunwoo, influenced by Latin soul and funk soul, and "Classic" is an orchestral version of Sunwoo's song from her album Serenade, arranged by Sunwoo and Kang with Kang conducting. A music video for "Oh Tomorrow" shot on Jeju Island and featuring the actor Jung Ryeo-won (정려원) was released ahead of the single. The Melon release text added that a full-length album was in preparation for 2021; none was found on Apple Music, Melon, Genie or Bugs. On Apple Music the second single is copyrighted to Dear Jazz Orchestra itself, dated 2023, and filed under K-Pop.

The orchestra also appears in a 2020 anthology. "Breezefall" (바람녘, Onstage version) opens the seventh volume of Only ONSTAGE, the jazz instalment of a ten-part digital series that the Naver Cultural Foundation's music programme Onstage issued for its tenth anniversary, released on December 9, 2020. Onstage also published studio-session videos of the orchestra playing "Breezefall," "Sapphire" and "Ponteio," and a Hyundai Card Music Library video of "Ponteio" exists.

The concert notices run to 2024. On September 28, 2022 the orchestra played ten pieces in the small hall of the Anseong Matchum Art Hall (안성맞춤아트홀) in Gyeonggi Province, a Culture Day programme, and the Newsseoul notice again called it Korea's first string jazz orchestra of about twenty members. On July 13, 2024 the Hanam Cultural Foundation presented it at the Hanam Culture and Arts Center with Ahn Shin-ae, playing the album pieces live with solos for individual players; it was the first time the two had performed together, although they had already recorded. In October 2024 the Korea Herald interviewed Kang as one of the Korean artists booked for that year's Jarasum Jazz Festival, and described her as working on film scores. No recording after the 2021 singles and no concert after July 2024 turned up in the sources consulted.

What is not known: a complete member list (only credited players on each release are named below), whether any release exists after 2021, any award or nomination, and whether the group is currently active. It has no entry on Discogs, MusicBrainz or Wikipedia.

The group describes its approach as writing, arranging and playing on a jazz foundation with Latin, ballad, bossa nova, rock and classical material, and the recordings bear that out piece by piece: bluegrass-rock fusion on "Small Fish Big Sea," a Brazilian rhythm section feel on "Ponteio," a rock-leaning odd-meter piece with electric guitar on "Route56," a strings-only chamber score on "Sapphire," Latin-soul groove on "Oh Tomorrow," and an Argentine chacarera rhythm under the Cho Yong-pil remake. The rhythm section of double bass, piano, percussion and guitar or mandolin sits under the strings, and soloists step out of the sections, which the Hanam report singles out. The press describes the sound as both jazzy and classical.

The scope question is open. Melon files the releases under jazz and acid, fusion and pop, Apple Music files the 2019 EP and first single under jazz and the second single under K-Pop, and Newstomato calls the group a fusion orchestra, not a jazz orchestra. The first-of-its-kind claim comes from concert notices and release text, not from an independent history. Against that, Melon and Apple Music list the artist as a jazz act, the 2017 Seoul Forest Jazz Festival and the 2020 Onstage jazz anthology booked it as one, its leader is a jazz violinist who was interviewed with the Korean jazz artists of the 2024 Jarasum festival, and the vocal singles feature jazz-adjacent Korean songwriters. This profile treats it as an orchestral jazz group with a strong crossover streak.