South Korean composer Unsuk Chin, Frontiers of Knowledge Award

Madrid. The South Korean composer Unsuk Chin was recognized with the prestigious award from the Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria Foundation (BBVA) Frontiers of Knowledge in the Music and Opera section, highlighting in her career a “own voice with broad global impact” in contemporary music, thanks to her “instrumental virtuosity” and her “overflowing imagination.”

In this edition, up to 46 nominations were received, including a total of 42 candidates, and the proposal for the chosen one was presented by Seoul National University professors Uzong Choe and Sebastian Claren.

An international jury participated in this year’s selection of the prestigious recognition, chaired by the Mexican composer and professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) Gabriela Ortiz Torres, who was assisted by Víctor García de Gomar, artistic director of the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona.

The final choice was made after several deliberations, explaining in the verdict that Chin’s “singular technique” “creates landscapes in constant transformation, where color and texture play a primary role, developing an unmistakable aesthetic within the field of current music.”

They also explain that Chin’s musical approach has been inspired by “philosophical and scientific concepts” and “draws on surrealist literature and the visual arts.”

Among his catalogue, the jury highlights his concertos for solo instruments and his operas, in which he “expands the use of the voice with extended techniques, fragmented writing and sudden contrasts between lyricism and spoken text,” creating “highly expressive and plastic” vocal music that makes possible “a kaleidoscopic construction of atmospheres.”

Chin’s work, the minutes conclude, “is defined by its sonorous refinement and its masterful ability to transform sound into a game of illusions and metamorphosis, which make her one of the great innovators in the field of contemporary music,” whose scores “appear on the music stands of the most prominent performers and orchestras in the world.”

After announcing the verdict, the Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz explained that the award-winning artist “is a great orchestrator, with a wide catalog that ranges from chamber music to orchestral works, including opera. She cares a lot about the technical workmanship of her music; that is, her music is impeccably written, she has great craftsmanship and a unique sonic imagination.”

Santiago Serrate, conductor, professor of concertation and conducting techniques at the Reina Sofía Higher School of Music and member of the jury, added that “one of the keys to his success has been achieving the support of some of the best conductors in the world”, especially Simon Rattle, throughout his entire time at the head of the Berlin Philharmonic, whose record label dedicated an album to their almost 20 years of collaboration (2005-2022), and Kent Nagano.

Autodidact

Unsuk Chin’s musical career began when she was very young, thanks to her father’s piano; At only two and a half years old, he was fascinated by the vibration of sound when playing the keys. “Shortly after, I began to learn on my own. My father knew how to read sheet music, and he taught me a little, but I taught myself until I started university. As a child, my dream was to become a pianist – playing is still one of my passions today – but my family, like most families in South Korea in the 60s, was quite poor and did not have the means to pay for piano lessons,” explained the winner after learning about the award.

He recalled that when he was 12, his high school music teacher, who was a composer, suggested that he opt for composition. Despite having to combine her secondary studies with a job to contribute money to her family, Chin managed, after being rejected twice, to enter Seoul National University: “I was very lucky; on the third time they accepted me because there were not enough candidates.” But they were very difficult years, he recalled: “we were under a military dictatorship and we had very serious political problems. However, I discovered a lot of music when I was studying there.”

Then he traveled to Germany, thanks to a scholarship, which was a culture shock and having to experience first-hand the division of the two blocks. “Now the country is much more open, as is its population, but at that time there was a lot of political pressure. As a young and foreign composer, it was very difficult for me to have my works performed here, while in Paris or London, even in America, they were already accepting them.”

After finishing her studies with Gyorgy Ligeti, she moved to Berlin, her city of residence since then, where she worked as a freelance composer in an electronic music studio at the Technical University of Berlin.

At that stage he read the correspondence between the Austrian physicist Wolfgang Pauli, Nobel Prize winner in 1945, and the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung, which marked him: “They had a very special connection. I find Pauli a fascinating character; he was a genius as a scientist, but at the same time a crazy artist, with disturbing dreams, many problems with women and with alcohol and other drugs.

“He lived like a kind of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: by day he was a professor, by night a reveler in Hamburg. His story and relationship with Jung inspired me to write my last opera, Die dunkle Seite des Mondes (The Dark Side of the Moon), which I wrote in German. It was a long and hard process that I completed alone.

“I did my first opera 20 years ago –Alice in Wonderland 2007). When I studied with Ligeti, he used to tell us about that work, which apparently had a simple, fairy-tale plot, but which in reality had deep connections with many fields such as mathematics. At first, I doubted whether I should transform that work into an opera, because there were rumors that Ligeti had begun to do so. But after getting some more information I learned that at that time, between 2002 and 2003, he had abandoned the idea, since he was very old and ill.”

The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge awards, endowed with more than 460 thousand dollars (about 8.2 million Mexican pesos) in each of its eight categories, recognize and encourage impact contributions in the basic sciences, biomedicine, environmental sciences and climate change, information and communication technologies, social sciences, economics, humanities and music.