Biography
Unsuk Chin stands among the foremost South Korean composers and exerts considerable influence within today’s international new-music circles. Her writing is prized for its independence from any fixed era or locale. Born in Seoul in 1961, she received her first lessons in musical notation from her father, a Presbyterian minister. As a youngster she performed at his church services and provided keyboard support for her vocalist sister. An elementary-school instructor spotted her promise and urged her toward original work; she immersed herself in Tchaikovsky symphonies and other canonical scores, resolving by age thirteen to pursue composition as a vocation. To help sustain the household she also supplied piano music at wedding ceremonies.
Following secondary school she entered Seoul National University’s composition program in 1981. Under Sukhi Kang she encountered electronic techniques and the music of Stockhausen, Boulez, and Penderecki. Success in several new-music competitions accompanied her 1985 graduation and brought a German Academic Exchange Service scholarship, which took her to the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg for studies with György Ligeti. After finishing with Ligeti in 1988 she settled in Berlin and joined the Technical University of Berlin as a staff composer.
During those years she completed Gradus ad Infinitum, Die Troerinnen, and Acrostic Wordplay; the last of these has since been heard in more than twenty countries following its 1991 premiere. Collaboration with the Ensemble Intercontemporain began in 1994 and yielded Fantaisie Mecanique and Xi among other scores. From 1999 onward she worked repeatedly with Kent Nagano, who commissioned and introduced numerous pieces, including Violin Concerto No. 1. That concerto earned her the 2004 Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition. Nagano and Viviane Hagner later recorded the work for the 2009 release Unsuk Chin: Rocaná; Violin Concerto.
Between 2006 and 2017 she served as composer-in-residence with the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, establishing and leading its Ars Nova Series. She subsequently directed the Philharmonia Orchestra’s Music of Today series from 2011 to 2022, after which she assumed the artistic directorship of the Tongyeong International Music Festival. Demand for her music remains strong; recent recordings feature clarinetist Alicia Lee and the Esmé Quartet.
Following secondary school she entered Seoul National University’s composition program in 1981. Under Sukhi Kang she encountered electronic techniques and the music of Stockhausen, Boulez, and Penderecki. Success in several new-music competitions accompanied her 1985 graduation and brought a German Academic Exchange Service scholarship, which took her to the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg for studies with György Ligeti. After finishing with Ligeti in 1988 she settled in Berlin and joined the Technical University of Berlin as a staff composer.
During those years she completed Gradus ad Infinitum, Die Troerinnen, and Acrostic Wordplay; the last of these has since been heard in more than twenty countries following its 1991 premiere. Collaboration with the Ensemble Intercontemporain began in 1994 and yielded Fantaisie Mecanique and Xi among other scores. From 1999 onward she worked repeatedly with Kent Nagano, who commissioned and introduced numerous pieces, including Violin Concerto No. 1. That concerto earned her the 2004 Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition. Nagano and Viviane Hagner later recorded the work for the 2009 release Unsuk Chin: Rocaná; Violin Concerto.
Between 2006 and 2017 she served as composer-in-residence with the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, establishing and leading its Ars Nova Series. She subsequently directed the Philharmonia Orchestra’s Music of Today series from 2011 to 2022, after which she assumed the artistic directorship of the Tongyeong International Music Festival. Demand for her music remains strong; recent recordings feature clarinetist Alicia Lee and the Esmé Quartet.
Albums
