Unsuk Chin studied composition with Sukhi Kang at Seoul National University and won several international prizes in her early 20s.
13 Facts About Unsuk Chin
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In 1985, Unsuk Chin won the Gaudeamus Foundation located in Amsterdam, with her piece Spektra for three celli, which was created for her graduation project.
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Unsuk Chin received an academic grant to study in Germany, and moved to Germany that same year.
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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 Gradus ad Infinitum, which was composed in 1989.
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In 1999, Unsuk Chin began an artistic collaboration with Kent Nagano, who has since premiered six of her works.
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Unsuk Chin's works have been performed by the orchestras around the world, including the Berlin Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and many others.
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Unsuk Chin's works have been conducted by Kent Nagano, Simon Rattle, Alan Gilbert, Gustavo Dudamel, Myung-Whun Chung, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Neeme Jarvi, Peter Eotvos, David Robertson and George Benjamin.
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Unsuk 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 Tonsatterfestival and at Settembre Musica in Italy.
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Unsuk Chin 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.
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Unsuk Chin has been appointed Artistic Director of the Tongyeong International Music Festival from 2022 onwards.
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Consequently, Unsuk Chin has set music to poems by writers such as Inger Christensen, Harry Mathews, Gerhard Ruhm or Unica Zurn into music, and the title of Cantatrix Sopranica is derived from a nonsense treatise by Georges Perec.
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However, in Kala, Unsuk Chin has composed works with less experimental texts by writers such as Gunnar Ekelof, Paavo Haavikko, and Arthur Rimbaud, Troerinnen is based on a play by Euripides, and Le silence des Sirenes juxtaposes texts by Homer and James Joyce.
13.
Some of Unsuk Chin's works are influenced by extramusical associations and other art genres, such as her orchestral work Rocana which alludes to Olafur Eliasson'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.