Unsuk Chin

The prize ceremony for the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize 2024, the Composer and Ensemble Prizes took place on May 18, 2024 at 7 p.m. in the Herkulessaal of the Munich Residenz

Listen now:

Ernst von Siemens Music Prize: Unsuk Chin
Composer Prizes: Bára Gísladóttir, Daniele Ghisi und Yiqing Zhu
Ensemble Prizes: Broken Frames Syndicate und Frames Percussion

Programme:

Daniele Ghisi
Three pieces from Weltliche (2020)
Joseph Houston (piano)

Bára Gísladóttir
RÓL (2023)
Jack Adler-McKean (tuba)

Yiqing Zhu
The Aether and Nether (2023)
Liyi Lu (pipa), Rafal Zolkos (flute)

Unsuk Chin
Gran Cadenza (2018)
Hae-Sun Kang, Diégo Tosi, (violin)

Laudatory speech for Unsuk Chin
by Louwrens Langevoort,
Intendant of the Kölner Philharmonie

Unsuk Chin
Double concerto (2002)
Ensemble intercontemporain
Samuel Favre (percussion)
Dimitri Vassilakis (piano)
Pierre Bleuse (conductor)

The 2024 Composer Prize Winners as well as the Ensemble Prize Winners were presented in short film portraits by Johannes List.

Annekatrin Hentschel, Host

“The process of analysing the material, the solitary work with sketches and score pages also comes to an end and the piece is finished. The musicians receive the sheet music and are allowed to rehearse. How will they react …?  Will they like the music, will they understand what it says?

Almost certainly yes. Because she herself says that her music is a reflection of her dreams. Even as a child, she “very often had very vivid dreams”, “with lots of light and colour, of outer space, the cosmos or exploding stars”, as she says herself. And she transports this colour and vision into her compositions. The dreams take me back to the beginning and the story of Alice in Wonderland. I would like to end with a quote that applies not only to Unsuk Chin’s music and our listening to it, but certainly also to our actions in the present: Alice: “Would you please tell me where to go from here?”-“That depends largely on where you want to go,” said the cat.

Congratulations, dear Unsuk Chin!”

from the laudatory speech for Unsuk Chin by Louwrens Langevoort