Unsuk Chin

[Piet De Ridder]

Always an adventure. Listening to (which often becomes: swimming in) the music of Unsuk Chin, that is.

If you’re not familiar with the name: Chin is a South-Korean composer, now living in Berlin, about whom you can read all the uninteresting details here. Known for highly imaginative, often playful and always colourful orchestral work (which brought her huge international acclaim and many awards), Chin’s musical interests go much wider than that and she has also written and recorded several electronic pieces. Whatever she comes up with, it’s always sparkling with magical timbres, hypnotic textures, fascinating surprises, daring juxtapositions, invariably anchored in an amazing understanding of the orchestra or whatever instrumental or vocal configuration she decides to write for.

Here are a few examples:










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[mr anxiety]

I've always enjoyed her work. A very unique voice!

Thanks for the links!

Mr A

[Markus K]

This are interesting links.
A little sidenote. I first heard her name during a conversation with a very good young pianist who has been teaching at my school about contemporary concert music and if it makes sense to practice this sometimes almost impossible to play pieces. She got the opportunity to play a world premiere of an Unsuk Chin piano Etude at a festival in Würzburg/ Germany. I think she had to practice half a year or more extensively on it and the audience is comparatively very small. Gets you reputation in the classical expert world of course and that is the reason why you do it. But for the performer it's sometimes more of a torture.
Anyway I didn't take the time to dive into Chin's music but your links certainly sound interesting. Thanks for it.