Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #unsukchin, aggregated by home.social.
Staatskapelle Dresden: Saisonfinale mit Star-Dirigentin Elim Chan
Staatskapelle Dresden: Saisonfinale mit Star-Dirigentin Elim Chan
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#Dresden #Deutschland #Deutsch #DE #Schlagzeilen #Headlines #Nachrichten #News #Europe #Europa #EU #DresdenNews #ElimChan #Germany #PaulDukas #PuzzlesandGames #RomeoundJulia #SächsischeStaatskapelle #SächsischeStaatskapelleDresden #Sachsen #semperoper #SemperoperDresden #SergejProkofjew #UnsukChin #Zauberlehrling
https://www.europesays.com/de/1137203/
https://www.europesays.com/de/1137203/ Staatskapelle Dresden: Saisonfinale mit Star-Dirigentin Elim Chan #DE #Deutschland #Dresden #DresdenNews #ElimChan #Germany #PaulDukas #PuzzlesAndGames #RomeoUndJulia #SächsischeStaatskapelle #SächsischeStaatskapelleDresden #Sachsen #semperoper #SemperoperDresden #SergejProkofjew #UnsukChin #Zauberlehrling
https://www.europesays.com/cz/72602/ Až 98 procent nápadů vyhodí. Přesto se stala světovou skladatelkou #Entertainment #FestivalPražskéJaro #HudebníFestivaly #KlasickáHudba #SoučasnáKlasickáHudba #UnsukChin #Zábava
https://www.europesays.com/cz/71419/ Skladatelka Unsuk Chin: Česká muzika je snad jediná na světě, která je tolik ovlivněna jazykem #Entertainment #PražskéJaro #Skladatelé #UnsukChin #Zábava
Happy 100th birthday, György Kurtág! Muziekgebouw honours Hungarian grandmaster of incisive aphorisms.
https://theaderks.wordpress.com/2026/02/09/happy-100th-birthday-gyorgy-kurtag/ #DieStechardin, #GyörgyKurtág, #GyörgyLigeti, #HubaDeGraaff, #MaykeNas, #UnsukChin
Happy 100th birthday, György Kurtág!
On 19 February, György Kurtág hopes to celebrate his 100th birthday. That very day the Muziekgebouw aan het IJ will organise the concert Happy 100 György!, featuring music by Kurtág himself and kindred spirits, as well as three new pieces by Dutch composers. The day after, Die Stechardin, his second opera, will premiere in Budapest.
György Kurtág, the Hungarian grandmaster of incisive aphorisms (Budapest, 1926), is no stranger in the Netherlands. As early as the 1970s, pianist Geoffrey Madge and the Residentie Orkest championed his existentialist music. Yet he rose to true fame in the 1990s, when Reinbert de Leeuw started advocating his music, dedicating many memorable concerts to the amiable composer, with whom he forged a close bond.
In 2016, the Muziekgebouw honoured Kurtág on the occasion of his 90th birthday. During a festive portrait concert, De Leeuw conducted the Asko|Schönberg through works by Webern (a great inspiration for Kurtág), György Ligeti, his namesake and compatriot, and works by Kurtág himself. In the birthday concert on 19 February 2026 again a work by Ligeti will be played: his groundbreaking Poème Symphonique, whose music consists of the ticking of 100 metronomes wound to different tempos.
Kurtág and Reinbert de Leeuw
In 2016, Kurtág and his inseparable wife Márta were too frail to travel from Budapest to Amsterdam for the concert. However, they did appear in a preview of the documentary The Three Kurtágs, made by their niece Judit. This was unique: György and Márta Kurtág often performed as a piano duo, but they never became public figures like Ligeti; they lived a secluded life.
Sitting comfortably together on their sofa, the two discuss the progress of the CD recordings of a large part of Kurtág’s work, which Reinbert de Leeuw has been working on since 2013. They charmingly bounce off each other in a lively conversation, in which a sentence started by one is naturally finished by the other – as if they were literally speaking with one voice. Their love for each other and for De Leeuw is palpable.
They regret not being able to be physically present during the recordings, but because Reinbert plays these back over the phone after each session and also visits them regularly in person, they are still able to comment on them. The notoriously critical Kurtág, who sometimes calls out ‘Nein, nicht so!’ when Reinbert merely raises his arms to begin a piece, is now full of praise. ‘It’s as if they recorded the music in their mother tongue,’ he says with shining eyes.
Musical mother tongue
The three-disc CD box containing all of Kurtág’s conducted choral and ensemble works was released a year later. In the accompanying booklet Kurtág gratefully refers to it as “a royal gift”. That is no exaggeration, because on this release from the German label ECM, Reinbert de Leeuw once again surpassed himself. With his relentless determination to get to the heart of the matter, he leads Asko|Schönberg, Groot Omroepkoor, Cappella Amsterdam and a selection of soloists to intense performances, that allow Kurtág’s soul-piercing sounds to penetrate to the very core.
This unique historical document is still available for purchase for less than forty euros – a bargain. Kurtág’s suggestion that the musicians and singers perform his music as if it were their own mother tongue is no idle chatter. Language is extremely important to the sensitive Hungarian composer – in more ways than one.
He often refers to Béla Bartók as “my musical mother tongue”. But he has created his own unique grammar from poignant, aphoristic bursts of sound that spring from a deep inner necessity. He is a great lover of poetry and literature: of the eleven pieces on the compilation, seven are vocal. Kurtág even learned Russian so that he could read Dostoevsky; three cycles on the CD box set are in this language.
The best known of these is Messages from the Late Miss R.V. Trussova, with which he made his breakthrough in Western Europe in the 1980s. In 21 miniatures, a soprano sings of bitter experiences of love. The longest song lasts 3 minutes, the shortest 22 seconds. In that short span of time, Kurtág sketches an entire novel. Unfortunately none of the three vocal cycles will be performed in the concert Happy 100 György! on 19 February. Het Muziek, successor to Asko|Schönberg, will however perform Akrostichon – Wortspiel for soprano and ensemble by Unsuk Chin.
Kurtág’s first opera causes a sensation
In 2016 the 90-year-old Kurtág was still working on his first and so far only opera, Fin de Partie (Endgame), based on Samuel Beckett’s play of the same name. He had seen it in Paris in 1957 on Ligeti’s recommendation and called it “one of the most powerful experiences of my life”. The opera was commissioned by Teatro alla Scala Milan in 2010, and he had been working on it ever since. Together with Mártá, he significantly condensed the story; only sixty percent of the original text remained. On the other hand, they added Beckett’s poem Roundelay as a prologue.
This prologue premiered during a festival in honour of his 90th birthday at the Liszt Academy in Budapest, where he himself once studied. The world premiere of the complete opera took place in November 2018 at the Teatro alla Scala, directed by Pierre Audi, who died last year, with Markus Stenz conducting. Kurtág and his wife Mártá were again unable to attend; she died a year later.
This first work by the then 92-year-old composer caused a real sensation. The absurd libretto, which barely has any plot and revolves around four people waiting for an indeterminate ending, was immediately hailed as a classic by the international press. In March 2019, the opera was also performed at the Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam, with the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and again Markus Stenz. Theaterkrant called it “a true musical masterpiece”, while de Volkskrant saw how “supreme aimlessness can lead to supreme beauty”. Unfortunately, I had to miss the performance due to illness.
Fin de Partie (c) Ruth WaltzEver-expanding piano series Jatékok (Games)
For Kurtág’s 95th birthday in 2021, the Muziekgebouw organised an ambitious three-day festival, which was unfortunately cancelled due to the Covid pandemic. Instead, pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard played excerpts from Jatékok (Games) via a live stream. In this ever-expanding series of miniatures for one and/or two pianos – which he himself calls “pedagogical performance pieces” – Kurtág explores a musical idea or portrays a friend.
He frequently played these with Mártá, and they recorded a number of them on CD. In 2021, Aimard presented several brand-new miniatures, because even at the age of 95, Kurtág was still composing every day. During the concert Happy 100 György! on 19 February, Het Muziek will play a selection from Jatékok in an arrangement by Olivier Cuendet. This organist and composer previously made an orchestral version of Zwiegespräch for string quartet and electronics, which Kurtág composed together with his son of the same name.
The icing on the cake is the rarely performed Lebenslauf for two pianos tuned a quarter-tone apart and two basset horns. Kurtág’s works are placed in context with Ligeti’s Poème symphonique mentioned above and works by Unsuk Chin and Thomas Adès. There are also three world premieres, inspired by the number one hundred. Mayke Nas wrote 100 seconds, Huba de Graaff composed 100 notes, and Jasper de Bock made 100 years (I, II, III, IV).
Kurtág finishes second opera at the age of 99
Kurtág completed his first opera when he was 92 years old, but he did not rest on his laurels afterwards. Commissioned by the Budapest Music Centre, he composed a new opera, Die Stechardin, which will premiere on 20 February 2026 during a birthday festival in Budapest.
The libretto is based on letters and writings by the German scientist Georg Christoph Lindberg, who had a relationship with his student Maria Dorothea Stechard, twenty years his junior. Although she died at the age of seventeen and he later remarried, she always remained his great love. ‘She reconciled me with all of humanity,’ Lindberg wrote to a friend.
The libretto poses recognisable questions about life. Is there an afterlife? Does our soul live on after our death? Is there love that transcends the grave? The action is set in another world – heaven, an alternative reality? – where Maria waits for her beloved to rejoin her.
Kurtág completed this three-part monologue for soprano and orchestra in June 2025 and orchestrated it together with Zsolt Serei. Maria Husmann, who has been working with Kurtág for decades, sings the title role, accompanied by the Concerto Budapest Orchestra under András Keller.
Farewell
It is not surprising that Kurtág was drawn to this theme: in 2019, he lost Mártá, who had been his partner for 72 years and remained his inspiration throughout his life. While his opera Fin de partie can be viewed as an artistic testament, Die Stechardin may be considered a farewell, celebrating the beauty of life and love. It expresses reconciliation with death and Kurtág’s hope for a speedy reunion with his beloved.
May he be able to attend the world premiere on 20 February 2026 in Budapest, and then join Márta, wherever she may be.
On 19 February, I will moderate the introduction to the birthday concert Happy 100 György in the Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ. Starting at 7.15 p.m., admission free. I will speak with Fedor Teunisse, artistic director of Het Muziek, and the composers De Bock, De Graaff and Nas.
#DieStechardin #GyörgyKurtág #GyörgyLigeti #HubaDeGraaff #MaykeNas #UnsukChin
Cada día es el día del libro 📘🖋️📕 https://letrasprestadas-clubpickwick.blogspot.com/2021/04/cada-dia-es-el-dia-del-libro_17.html Te propongo celebrar el #DiadelLibro y recordar su importancia con reflexiones de #Borges, #IreneVallejo y música de #UnsukChin sobre este elemento fundamental de nuestro pensamiento y nuestras vidas.
Cada día es el día del libro 📚📘 https://letrasprestadas-clubpickwick.blogspot.com/2021/04/cada-dia-es-el-dia-del-libro_17.html Te propongo celebrar el #DiadelLibro y recordar su importancia con reflexiones de #Borges, #IreneVallejo y música de #UnsukChin sobre este elemento fundamental de nuestro pensamiento y nuestras vidas.
Cada día es el día del libro 📚📕 https://letrasprestadas-clubpickwick.blogspot.com/2021/04/cada-dia-es-el-dia-del-libro_17.html Te propongo celebrar el #DiadelLibro y recordar su importancia con reflexiones de #Borges, #IreneVallejo y música de #UnsukChin sobre este elemento fundamental de nuestro pensamiento y nuestras vidas.
Cada día es el día del libro 📘🖋️ https://letrasprestadas-clubpickwick.blogspot.com/2021/04/cada-dia-es-el-dia-del-libro_17.html Te propongo celebrar el #DiadelLibro y recordar su importancia con reflexiones de #Borges, #IreneVallejo y música de #UnsukChin sobre este elemento fundamental de nuestro pensamiento y nuestras vidas.
Cada día es el día del libro 📘📝 https://letrasprestadas-clubpickwick.blogspot.com/2021/04/cada-dia-es-el-dia-del-libro_17.html Te propongo celebrar el #DiadelLibro y recordar su importancia con reflexiones de #Borges, #IreneVallejo y música de #UnsukChin sobre este elemento fundamental de nuestro pensamiento y nuestras vidas.
@classicalmusic
@contemporarymusic
@womencomposers
#UnsukChin (진은숙 #ChinEunsuk) b. 1961
#ViolinConcerto No. 2, „Scherben der Stille“ (2021)
#LondonSymphonyOrchestra
#SimonRattle
#classicalmusic #contemporarymusic
#womencomposers #musik #music #musique #musica #Chin
@classicalmusic @contemporarymusic
@womencomposers
#UnsukChin (진은숙 #ChinEunsuk) b. 1961
Piano Concerto (1997)
#HelsinkiPhilharmonicOrchestra
#AntonyHermus
#classicalmusic #contemporarymusic
#womencomposers #musik #music #musique #musica #Chin
@classicalmusic @contemporarymusic
@womencomposers
#UnsukChin (진은숙 #ChinEunsuk) b. 1961
Gougalōn - Scenes from a Street Theater. (2009-2011)
#Ensembleintercontemporain
#DuncanWard
#classicalmusic #contemporarymusic
#womencomposers #musik #music #musique #musica #Chin
@classicalmusic @contemporarymusic
@womencomposers
#UnsukChin (진은숙 #ChinEunsuk) b. 1961
Akrostichon-Wortspiel (1991/1993)
#HelsinkiPhilharmonicOrchestra
#PaoloBortolameolli
#classicalmusic #contemporarymusic
#womencomposers #musik #music #musique #musica #Chin
@classicalmusic @contemporarymusic @womencomposers
#UnsukChin (진은숙 #ChinEunsuk) b. 1961
#ClarinetConcerto (2014)
I - Mirage - Fanfare - Ornament
II - Hymnos
III - Improvisation on a Groove
#NewYorkPhilharmonic
#AlanGilbert
#contemporarymusic
#womencomposers #musik #music #musique #musica #Chin
My friend Juliana Zara is making her Carnegie Hall debut with the US premiere of “Puzzles and Games” from Unsuk Chin’s “Alice in Wonderland”!
SEJONG SOLOISTS – 30th ANNIVERSARY CONCERT
🗓️ May 22
🕢 7:30 pm
📍 Carnegie Hall
Conductor: Earl Lee
Violin: Frank Huang, David Chan, Andrew Wan, Daniel Cho
Soprano: Juliana Zara
🗞️ https://operawire.com/juliana-zara-to-make-carnegie-hall-debut-with-sejong-soloists
🎟️ https://www.carnegiehall.org/calendar/2024/05/22/sejong-here--now-festival-0730pm
#opera #classicalMusic #operaSinger #CarnegieHall #SejongSoloists #UnsukChin #JulianaZara #NewYork #NYC
@classicalmusic
@contemporarymusic @womencomposers
#UnsukChin (진은숙 #ChinEunsuk) b. 1961
'Cantatrix Sopranica' (2004-05)
#AnuKomsi #Soprano
#PiiaKomsi #Soprano
#DavidCordier #Countertenor
#EnsembleMusikFabrik
#StefanAsbury
#contemporarymusic
#womencomposers #musik #music #musique #musica #Chin
#TalDiaComoHoy celebramos el #DiadelLibro https://buff.ly/3tsclQ6 Te propongo celebrarlo y recordar su importancia con unas reflexiones de varios autores sobre este elemento fundamental en nuestro pensamiento y nuestras vidas. Con #Borges #IreneVallejo #UnsukChin
Cada día es el #DiadelLibro https://buff.ly/3tsclQ6 Te propongo celebrar este día y recordar su importancia con unas reflexiones de varios autores sobre este elemento fundamental en nuestro pensamiento y nuestras vidas. Con #Borges #IreneVallejo #UnsukChin
@classicalmusic
@contemporarymusic @womencomposers
#UnsukChin (진은숙 #ChinEunsuk) b. 1961
Double Concerto, for Piano, Percussion and Ensemble
#EnsembleIntercontemporain
#StefanAsbury
#contemporarymusic
#womencomposers #musik #music #musique #musica #Chin
Cada día es el #DiadelLibro https://buff.ly/3tsclQ6 Te propongo celebrar el Día del Libro y recordar su importancia con unas reflexiones de varios autores sobre este elemento fundamental en nuestro pensamiento y nuestras vidas. Con #Borges #IreneVallejo #UnsukChin
Cada día es el #DiadelLibro https://buff.ly/3tsclQ6 Te propongo celebrar el Día del Libro y recordar su importancia con unas reflexiones de varios autores sobre este elemento fundamental en nuestro pensamiento y nuestras vidas. Con #Borges #IreneVallejo #UnsukChin
@classicalmusic
@contemporarymusic
@womencomposers
#UnsukChin (진은숙 #ChinEunsuk) b. 1961
'Spira' ∙ Concerto for Orchestra
#classicalmusic #contemporarymusic
#womencomposers #musik #music #musique #musica #Chin
@classicalmusic
@contemporarymusic
@womencomposers
#UnsukChin (진은숙 #ChinEunsuk) b. 1961
Violin Concerto (2001)
#OrchestreSymphoniqueDeMontreal
#KentNagano
#classicalmusic #contemporarymusic
#womencomposers #musik #music #musique #musica #Chin
@classicalmusic
@contemporarymusic
@womencomposers
#UnsukChin (진은숙 #ChinEunsuk) b. 1961
'Alice in Wonderland' (2007) Opera
Sc I Dream I
Sc II The Pool of Tears
Sc III In the House of the White Rabbit
Interl I Advice from a Caterpillar
Sc IV Pig and Pepper
Sc V A Mad Tea Party
Sc VI The Croquet Ground
Interl II
Sc VII The Trial or Who Stole the Tarts?
Finale Dream II
#BavarianStateOpera
#contemporarymusic #womencomposers #musik #music #musique #musica #Chin
Between diapers & dishes – the (in)visibility of the female composer
Walkyrien (c) Emil Doepler, via Wikipedia Media
Amsterdam, 8 March 2018. No chance to miss today is women’s day. The media are brimming with articles about the unequal pay for women and their still limited representation in prestigious positions. – In politics, the business world, universities and the arts.
The most conservative is perhaps the classical music world, where the female composer still has to fend for her right to exist. Even in 2018 she still has to cram her creative work in between domestic tasks, it seems. – Will a male composer ever be asked how he combines his work ‘with the children’? Despite tiny steps in the right direction, his female colleague still balances between diapers & dishes.
Perotinus & Leoninus
My own history began in a village in Limburg. I was not allowed to join the local brass band – simply because I was a girl. Later I started my own pop group. Though I wrote all the songs, invariably in interviews my male band members were asked all the questions. During my entire studies in musicology only two ladies were mentioned. Hildegard von Bingen was treated extensively, but after that it remained silent. In my my final year one song by Clara Schumann was analyzed.
During concerts I heard music from Perotinus & Leoninus, Bach and Handel, Mozart and Beethoven, Stravinsky and Bartók. Only in the world of new music I was sparsely treated to works by Galina Ustvolskaya and Sofia Gubaidulina, or Kaija Saariaho and Unsuk Chin. When I started working at Radio 4, I made thematic programs on countless subjects. But the moment I dedicated a series to female composers, I was deprecatingly dubbed ‘Her of the Women’.
Smyth ‘influenced’ by unborn Britten
Undaunted I tried to get work by female composers performed, but I stumbled on a wall of unwillingness and bias. The most poignant was my experience with the opera The Wreckers by Ethel Smyth. Everyone I played a recording to was enthusiastic about the beautiful and powerful music. – Invariably followed by the comment that Smyth had been ‘strongly influenced’ by Peter Grimes of Benjamin Britten.
A hilarious argument: Britten wasn’t even born when Smyth composed her opera in 1906. Indeed, Peter Grimes did not appear until 1945, a year after her death. When I pointed this out, my interlocutors fell silent, baffled. But the penny did not drop and the opera remained unperformed. While a rediscovered second-class composition of a man is not seldom hailed ‘discovery of the century’.
Netherlands’ Men’s Days and Bosmans Prize
During the yearly Netherlands’ Music Days hardly any women’s compositions were performed, so I dubbed them the Netherlands’ Men’s Days; in 2010 the event died a silent death. Even the composition competition named after Henriëtte Bosmans was never won by a woman. After I had criticized this in a column, at least some female jurors were recruited. But it wasn’t until 2008, when an audience prize was established, that this finally went to a female composer. After 2011 also this competition ceased to exist.
When the Festival of Early Music Utrecht put Felix Mendelssohn in the context of his time, not one note from his sister Fanny was played. She was not only Felix’s source of inspiration and sounding board, but also a composer who was highly appreciated in her own time. Most probably she developed the ‘Song without Words’, which is invariably attributed to her brother. After yet another column of mine the all-male concept was somewhat released. Since then, sporadically music by Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, Barbara Strozzi, Hildegard of Bingen or Isabella Leonarda was programmed.
Modern music world forms an exception
A positive exception is formed by the circuit of modern music, such as the Thursday Evening Concerts of Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ. The same goes for the Red Sofa series of De Doelen, the Oranjewoudfestival and Dag in de branding. In Gaudeamus Muziekweek, women’s work sounds regularly, although the competition itself is still dominated by men.
The coming edition of Classical Encounters in The Hague only has male works in store for us, even thought the programmer is a woman. Muziekgebouw Eindhoven features two ladies in its new season; the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra one; the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra none. In the upcoming Opera Forward Festival, only two female composers will be represented.
Bright spots
It is sad that even in the 21st century we have to fight for the music of women composers. Nevertheless, there have been some bright spots recently, thanks in part to the social media. Databases with female composers from all ages can be updated online and this information is shared quickly and easily. The #MeToo discussion also contributes to a greater awareness of the subordination of women.
In terms of policy, some steps have been made as well. Mayke Nas succeeded Willem Jeths as Composer Laureate in 2016. A year later, Kate Moore was the first woman ever to win the prestigious Matthijs Vermeulen Prize. The BBC initiated the project Celebrating Women Composers and the new February Festival gave voice to Fanny Mendelsohn and Clara Schumann. From season 2018-19 onwards, the Concertgebouw and NTRZaterdagMatinee will pay structural attention to composing ladies. Its counterpart AVROTROSVrijdagconcert also regularly features music by women composers.
Small successes that ‘Her of the Women’ will continue to fight for in the future.
Tonight Silbersee will perform music by Seung-Won Oh in Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ, I will speak to her during the introduction at 7.15 pm.
Please support independent music jounalism. Any amount is welcome. Thanks!
#ClaraSchumann #EthelSmyth #FannyMendelssohn #GalinaUstvolskaya #HenriëtteBosmans #HildegardVonBingen #KaijaSaariaho #MeToo #PeterGrimes #SofiaGubaidulina #TheWreckers #UnsukChin #WomenSDay