Unsuk Chin

Unsuk Chin was born in 1961 in Seoul, South Korea and lives since 1988 in Berlin. She studied with Sukhi Kang and György Ligeti and has lived in Berlin since 1988. Chin has received many honours and has been commissioned by leading performing organisations. Her music has been performed in major festivals and concert series in Europe, the Far East, and North America. Unsuk Chin has also been active in writing electronic music, receiving commissions from IRCAM and other electronic music studios. In 2007, Chin’s first opera Alice in Wonderland was given its world première at the Bayerische Staatsoper as the opening of the Munich Opera Festival. Between 2006 and 2017 Chin was Composer-in-Residence with the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, overseeing its contemporary music series which she founded. She served as Artistic Director of the ‘Music of Today’ series of the Philharmonia Orchestra in London for nine seasons between 2011 and 2020. In 2022 she starts a five year tenure as Artistic Director of the Tongyeong International Festival in South Korea. In 2022, her orchestral work Mannequin was performed as part of the three-part ballet evening Passages and Marco Goecke's choreography Sweet Bones' Melody at the Bayerisches Staatsballett in Munich.