Unsuk Chin Portrait Concert
Wednesday, February 16, 2011 at 8 PM
Bohemian National Hall
(321 East 73rd Street, NYC)
TALEA ENSEMBLE TO PERFORM PREMIERES BY
KOREAN COMPOSER UNSUK CHIN
First Major Concert of Chin’s Music in the United States
Works by Korean composer Unsuk Chin, one of the most celebrated artists of her generation, will be performed by the Talea Ensemble on Wednesday, February 16 at 8:00 pm., in a concert presented by Korean Cultural Service. Ms. Chin will be present during the evening for an onstage interview with Dr. Anthony Cheung, a composer and Talea’s Artistic Director. This will be the first major concert of Chin’s music in the United States, and will be performed at Bohemian National Hall.
The program will include the New York premieres of ParaMetaString (1996, for string quartet and electronics with amplification), Allegro ma non troppo (1994-1998, for solo percussion and electronics), and Fantaisie Mécanique (1994, rev. 1997, for five players). For this concert, Talea welcomes as guest pianist the renowned Taka Kigawa, who will play selections from Chin’s Piano Etudes (1999-2000).
About Rocaná (2007), The New York Times raved, “…the piece is a knockout…outbursts of wailing brasses and metallic strings that come at you like a musical flamethrower.” The Chicago Tribune added, “…Chin has crafted a field of unquiet aural dreams…At times, she employs [the orchestra] as sparingly as a neo-pointillist painter; at other times, violent chords ricochet around the brasses, turning the ensemble into a mechanistic juggernaut.”
Alan Rich called her 2001 Violin Concerto “…the first masterpiece of the new century,” and the Los Angeles Times placed her opera, Alice in Wonderland (2004-2007) on its “Best of 2007” list.
Tickets are $15/ $10 (students & seniors). To purchase tickets, contact SmartTix at 212-868-4444 or visit www.smarttix.com. For more information, call 212.759.9550 or visit www.koreanculture.org.
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Unsuk Chin was born in 1961 in Seoul, Korea. She began to teach herself piano and music theory at a very early age and subsequently studied composition at the Seoul National University with Sukhi Kang. In 1984 her composition Gestalten (Figures) was selected for the ISCM World Music Days in Canada, and in 1986 for the UNESCO “Rostrum of Composers.” In 1985 Chin won the first prize of the Gaudeamus Stichting with Spektra for three celli. That same year she moved to Europe when she received a DAAD grant to study in Germany, and until 1988 took composition lessons in Hamburg with György Ligeti, who encouraged her to look beyond the aesthetics of the current avant-garde. Since then, Unsuk Chin has lived and worked in Berlin. In 2004 Unsuk Chin won the prestigious Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition for her Violin Concerto.
Combining modern compositional language with lyricism, the unique colors of Chin’s music are generated by her affinity for non-European music, interest in electronics, and fascination for polyrhythmic virtuosity. The texts of Chin’s vocal music are often based on experimental poetry, and occasionally playful and self-referential, employing techniques such as acrostics, anagrams, and palindromes, all of which are also reflected in the compositional structure.
Playful aspects predominate in Chin’s opera Alice in Wonderland. Theatrical actions are employed in some instrumental pieces as well, including Allegro ma non troppo for percussion and tape, Cantatrix Sopranica for voices and ensemble, and Double Bind? for violin and electronics.
Unsuk Chin’s compositions have been performed at numerous festivals and concert series in Europe, the Far East, and North America. She achieved her breakthrough with Akrostichon–Wortspiel (1991–93) for solo soprano and ensemble, which has been programmed in 15 countries to date by such groups such as Ensemble Modern conducted by George Benjamin, the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group conducted by Simon Rattle, the Nieuw Ensemble of Amsterdam, the Asko Ensemble, the Ictus Ensemble, and the new music groups of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Philharmonia Orchestra.
In 2000, Chin was rewarded first prize at the Bourges International Competition for Electroacoustic Music for Xi for ensemble and electronics. Chin was composer-in-residence with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin in 2001/02, culminating in the commission of a Violin Concerto—premiered in January 2002 with soloist Viviane Hagner and conductor Kent Nagano—which has since been performed in ten countries in Europe, Asia, and North America. Other recent works include snagS & Snarls (2003–04) for soprano and orchestra, commissioned by Los Angeles Opera, Cantatrix Sopranica (2004–05) for two sopranos, countertenor, and ensemble, which was co-commissioned by the London Sinfonietta, the Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group, the St. Pölten Festival (Austria), Ensemble Intercontemporain, and Ensemble musikFabrik, as well as Rocaná for orchestra (2007), jointly commissioned by l’Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, the Bayerische Staatsoper, the Beijing Music Festival Arts Foundation, and the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra. Also in 2007, Chin’s latest electronic piece received its premiere, Double Bind? for violin and electronics, was conceived at IRCAM.
Since 2006 Chin has been composer-in-residence with the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, where she also serves as Artistic Director of the Contemporary Music Series. In 2007, Chin was the featured composer at the festivals in Manchester, Umea, Turin/Milan, and Strasbourg. Her opera Alice in Wonderland received its world premiere in June 2007 at the Bavarian State Opera, opening the Munich Opera Festival. The production, directed by Achim Freyer and conducted by Kent Nagano, was named “World Premiere of the Year” in the annual survey of opera critics published in the yearbook of Die Opernwelt.
http://www.boosey.com/composer/Unsuk+Chin
Founded in 2006, Talea Ensemble recently celebrated the 85th birthday of Pierre Boulez with an all-Boulez concert at New York’s Miller Theatre—with the composer in attendance—about which The New York Times wrote, “The Talea musicians moved through Mr. Boulez’s music with astonishing fluidity and warmth." The Talea Ensemble has premiered important new works by Tristan Murail, Jason Eckardt, Pierluigi Billone, Stefano Gervasoni, Marco Stroppa, and Fausto Romitelli.
Recently featured at the 18-day Spectrum XXI Festival tour in Paris and London, the ensemble has been seen on stages across North America, South America, Europe and Asia. Talea has twice appeared at the Nevada Encounters of New Music, La Ciudad de las Ideas (Mexico) and the International Contemporary Music Festival of Lima, Peru.
Talea’s 2011 concert season will include an evening of music by Austrian composer Olga Neuwirth, and a return to the 2011 Bang on a Can Marathon. Additional upcoming projects include commissions by John Zorn, Georges Aperghis, Pierluigi Billone, and James Dillon.
The Ensemble was just chosen as an “Emerging Voice of 2011,” one of seven New York City arts institutions honored by the Alliance for the Arts (www.nyc-arts.org).
www.taleaensemble.org
Critically acclaimed pianist Taka Kigawa has earned outstanding international recognition as a recitalist, soloist, and chamber music artist since winning First Prize in the prestigious 1990 Japan Music Foundation Piano Competition in Tokyo, and the Diploma Prize at the 1990 Concurs Internacional Maria Canals De Barcelona in Spain. The New York Times writes, “Mr. Kigawa’s feat deserves the highest praise, especially since it was combined with such alacrity and sensitivity to the musical material...brilliantly done…a careful and serious-minded musician, quietly poetic and considerate,” and from The New Yorker, “Unbelievably challenging program. Kigawa is a young artist of stature.”
He has performed extensively as a recitalist and soloist in New York, Washington DC, Boston, Cleveland, Paris, Milan and Barcelona, and frequently tours in his native Japan, appearing in Tokyo, Osaka, Nagano and Kyoto, both as a recitalist and a soloist. He has been a featured artist on many television and radio networks throughout the U.S., Europe and Asia, and has collaborated closely with such renowned musicians as Pierre Boulez, Myung-Whun Chung and Jonathan Nott.
Mr. Kigawa grew up in Nagano, Japan, where he began piano studies at the age of three, winning his first competition at the age of seven. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Shinsyu University, and his Master of Arts degree from Tokyo Gakugei (Liberal Arts) University, graduating with honors in Piano Performance. During both his undergraduate and graduate years, he also studied composition and conducting, receiving high honors in both disciplines. He furthered his studies in the United States at The Juilliard School in New York, where he studied with Josef Raieff, was recipient of the distinguished Alexander Siloti Award, and earned his Master of Music degree. Mr. Kigawa currently lives in New York.
www.takakigawa.com
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Program
Talea Ensemble
Taka Kigawa, piano
Unsuk Chin: ParaMetaString (1996)
Unsuk Chin: Allegro ma non troppo (1994-1998)
*Intermission and discussion with Ms. Chin and Anthony Cheung*
Unsuk Chin: Piano Etudes (1999-2000)
Unsuk Chin: Fantaisie Mécanique (1994, rev. 1997)