Unsuk Chin


Unsuk Chin is a South Korean composer of classical music, who is based in Berlin, Germany. Chin began her journey with music at a fairly young age, as she taught herself how to play the piano and music theory. She was awarded the Grawemeyer Award in 2004, the Arnold Schönberg Prize in 2005, the Music Composition Prize of the Prince Pierre Foundation in 2010, the Ho-Am Prize in the Arts in 2012, the Wihuri Sibelius Prize in 2017, the Marie-Josée Kravis Prize for New Music of the New York Philharmonic in 2018, the Bach Prize in 2019, as well as the Léonie Sonning Music Prize in 2021.

Biography

Unsuk Chin was born in Seoul, Korea. She studied composition with Sukhi Kang at Seoul National University and won several international prizes in her early 20s. In 1985, Chin won the Gaudeamus Foundation located in Amsterdam, with her musical piece called "Spektra for three celli", which was created for her graduation project. She also received an academic grant to study in Germany, and moved to Germany that same year. She studied with György Ligeti at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg from 1985 to 1988.
In 1988, Unsuk Chin worked as a freelance composer at the electronic music studio of the Technical University of Berlin, realizing seven works: her first electronic piece was called "Gradus ad Infinitum" which was composed in 1989. Her first large orchestral piece, Troerinnen for women's voices, was premiered by the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra in 1990. In 1991, her breakthrough work Acrostic Wordplay was premiered by the Nieuw Ensemble. Since then it has been performed in more than 20 countries in Europe, Asia and North America. Chin's collaboration with the Ensemble Intercontemporain, which has led to several commissions from them, started in 1994 with Fantaisie mecanique. Since 1995, Unsuk Chin has been published exclusively by Boosey & Hawkes. In 1999, Chin began an artistic collaboration with Kent Nagano, who has since premiered six of her works.
Chin's Violin Concerto, for which she was awarded the 2004 University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition, was premiered in 2002 by Viviane Hagner. Since then it has been programmed in 14 countries in Europe, Asia and North America, and performed, among others, by Christian Tetzlaff, the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and Simon Rattle in 2005. In 2007, she was awarded the Kyung-Ahm Prize.
Unsuk Chin's works have been performed by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, New York Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Philharmonia Orchestra, Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Montreal Symphony Orchestra, NDR Symphony Orchestra, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Radio Filharmonisch Orkest, Ensemble intercontemporain, Ensemble Modern, Kronos Quartet, Hilliard Ensemble, Klangforum Wien, Arditti Quartet, London Sinfonietta and Ensemble musikFabrik, and conducted by Kent Nagano, Simon Rattle, Alan Gilbert, Gustavo Dudamel, Myung-Whun Chung, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Neeme Järvi, Peter Eötvös, David Robertson and George Benjamin.
Chin's music has been highlighted at the 2014 Lucerne Festival, the Festival Musica in Strasbourg, the Suntory Summer Festival, the 2013 Stockholm Concert Hall's Tonsätterfestival and at Settembre Musica in Italy. In 2001/2002, Unsuk Chin was appointed composer-in-residence at Deutschen Symphonie-Orchester Berlin.
She was closely associated with the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra from 2006 to 2017, at invitation from Myung-Whun Chung, as their composer-in-residence and director of their Ars Nova Series for contemporary music, which she founded herself and in which more than 200 Korean premieres of central works of classical modernism and contemporary music were being presented, as well as, later on, as the orchestra's Artistic Adviser. Since 2011, she has overseen the London-based Philharmonia Orchestra's Music of Today series at the invitation of its chief conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen.

Awards and recognition

Style

Unsuk Chin does not regard her music as belonging to any specific culture. Chin names Béla Bartók, Igor Stravinsky, Claude Debussy, Anton Webern, Iannis Xenakis, and György Ligeti, among others, as 20th-century composers of special importance for her. Chin regards her working experience with electronic music and her preoccupation with Balinese Gamelan as influential for her work. In her orchestral work Miroirs des temps, Chin has also used compositional concepts of Medieval composers, such as Machaut and Ciconia, by employing and evolving techniques such as musical palindromes and crab canons.
The texts of Chin's vocal music are often based on experimental poetry, and occasionally they are self-referential, employing techniques such as acrostics, anagrams and palindromes, all of which are also reflected in the compositional structure.
Consequently, Chin has set music to poems by writers such as Inger Christensen, Harry Mathews, Gerhard Rühm or Unica Zürn into music, and the title of Cantatrix Sopranica is derived from a nonsense treatise by Georges Perec. However, in Kalá, Chin has also composed works with less experimental texts by writers such as Gunnar Ekelöf, Paavo Haavikko, and Arthur Rimbaud, Troerinnen is based on a play by Euripides, and Le silence des Sirènes juxtaposes texts by Homer and James Joyce.
Playful aspects are dominant also in Chin's opera Alice in Wonderland, which is based on Lewis Carroll's classic. The opera's libretto was written by David Henry Hwang and the composer. The Munich production, which has been released on DVD by Unitel, was directed by Achim Freyer, and it was selected 'Premiere of the Year' by an international critics' poll, which was conducted in 2007 by the German opera magazine Opernwelt.
Some of Chin's works are influenced by extramusical associations and other art genres, such as her orchestral work Rocaná which alludes to Olafur Elíasson's installations, or her ensemble works Graffiti and cosmigimmicks, the latter of which is being influenced by the art of pantomime and by Samuel Beckett.

Selected works

YEARTITLE
1996–97Piano Concerto
2001Violin Concerto
2002Double Concerto for piano, percussion and ensemble
2009–13Cello Concerto
2009Šu for sheng and orchestra
2013–14Clarinet Concerto

YEARTITLE
1995Piano Etude No.2
1995Piano Etude No. 3
1995Piano Etude No. 4
1999Piano Etude No.1
2000Piano Etude No.6
2003Piano Etude No.5

YEARTITLE
1986–1990Troerinnen, for 3 sopranos, women's choir und orchestra, after Euripides
1991–93Akrostichon-Wortspiel, for soprano and ensemble
1999–2000Miroirs des temps, for 4 singers and orchestra
2000–01Kalá, for soprano, bass, mixed choir and orchestra
2004snagS&Snarls for soprano and orchestra
2004–2011Scenes from Alice in Wonderland for soprano, mezzo-soprano and orchestra
2005Cantatrix Sopranica for two sopranos, countertenor and ensemble
2014Le silence des Sirènes for soprano and orchestra
2016Le Chant des Enfants des Étoiles for mixed choir, children's choir, organ and orchestra

Portrait CDs and DVDs