Unsuk Chin

Unsuk Chin ( ; born July 14, 1961) is a South Korean composer of contemporary classical music, who is based in Berlin, Germany. Chin was a self-taught pianist from a young age and studied composition at Seoul National University as well as with György Ligeti at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg.

The recipient of numerous awards, she won the 2004 Grawemeyer Award for her Violin Concerto No. 1, the 2010 Music Composition Prize of the Prince Pierre Foundation for the ensemble piece Gougalōn and the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize in 2024. In 2019, writers of The Guardian ranked her Cello Concerto (2009) the 11th greatest work of art music since 2000, with Andrew Clements describing it as "perhaps the most original and entertainingly disconcerting of all of [her concertos], cast in four brilliant movements that never quite conform to type".

Biography Unsuk Chin was born in Seoul, South 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 piece Spektra for three celli, which was composed for her graduation project. She also received an academic grant to study in Germany, where she moved that same year.

In 1988, Chin worked as a freelance composer at the electronic music studio of Technische Universität Berlin, releasing seven works. Her first electronic piece was Gradus ad Infinitum, which was composed in 1989. Her first large orchestral piece, Die Troerinnen (1986, rev.1990), 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, Chin has been published exclusively by Boosey & Hawkes. It 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 and Simon Rattle in 2005.

In 2007, she was awarded the Kyung-Ahm Prize.

Chin's works have been performed by 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. Her works have been conducted by Kent Nagano, Simon Rattle, Alan Gilbert, Gustavo Dudamel, Myung-whun Chung, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Neeme Järvi, Péter Eötvös, David Robertson and George Benjamin. Since 2022 she has also been artistic director of the Weiwuying International Music Festival in Kaohsiung, Taiwan.

Style 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.

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 was influenced by the art of pantomime and by Samuel Beckett.

Selected works +Tape/electronics Year Title 1989–1990 Gradus ad Infinitum for 8 pianos for tape 1998 Allegro ma non troppo for percussion and electronics 2010 Music Composition Prize of the Prince Pierre Foundation for Gougalōn 2017 Wihuri Sibelius Prize 2018 Marie-Josée Kravis Prize for New Music 2019 Bach Prize of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg 2021 Léonie Sonning Music Prize 2024 Ernst von Siemens Music Prize 2025 BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award Music and Opera 2026 Grand Prize of the 14th Daewon Music Awards Six Piano Etudes. Clare Hammond. In: "Etude". CD. BIS, 2014 ParaMetaString. Esmé Quartet. In: "To Be Loved". CD. Alpha, 2020