Composer Unsuk Chin’s Operascope will receive its North American premiere on January 24 in Toronto in a performance by Esprit Orchestra and conductor Alex Pauk. Esprit’s concert titled 三/ THREE will also include the North American premiere of Japanese composer Misato Mochizuki’s 2019 piece Nigredo, and the Toronto premiere of Rita Ueda’s 2022 work Birds Calling…From the Canada in You, originally commissioned as part of the 2022 Azrieli Music Prize for New Canadian Music.
Toronto’s Esprit Orchestra has teamed up with some of the world’s leading ensembles to commission Operascope from the South Korean/German composer, including Bayerische Staatsorchester (DE), Orchestre de Paris (FR), Sao Paulo State Symphony (BR), and Tongyeong Festival (KR).
Operascope received its world premiere on November 6, 2023 with the Bayerisches Staatsorchester and Kent Nagano. From Toronto, Operascope will travel to São Paolo for its South American premiere with the São Paulo State Symphony Orchestra and Thierry Fischer on February 23. On April 4, it will be performed by the Gürzenich-Orchester Köln in Germany, and finally make its French debut with the Orchestre de Paris led by conductor Andrés Orozco-Estrada on April 17 and 18.
Unsuk Chin
Based in Berlin today, Unsuk Chin was born in Seoul, and taught herself to play piano from an early age. “I planned to become a concert pianist, but in the South Korea of the 1960s, as the youngest sister of a poor family, there was not enough money for formal tuition,” she writes in a statement.
She went on to study composition at Seoul National University, and later, with György Ligeti at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg.
Her work has been recognized by several international award wins, including:
- The 2004 Grawemeyer Award for her Violin Concerto No.1;
- The 2005 Arnold Schoenberg prize;
- The 2010 Prince Pierre Foundation Music Award;
- The 2017 Wihuri Sibelius Prize;
- The 2018 Kravis Prize;
- Among others.
Unsuk often incorporates poetry, electronics, and other elements into her work. She composes both large and smaller scale works for instrumentalists, orchestra, chamber ensemble, and voices, and has been particularly noted for her method of reimagining the concerto.
Esprit has performed and premiered Chin’s compositions previously, including her Spiro during the 2022-23 season. In an interview with LvT, Maestro Pauk said of her music, “Her writing is exquisite, and sure, and detailed.”
“It’s also a spiral,” he explains, “a different concept in creating spirals in music. It’s not a concerto in a traditional sense.” As he describes it, she creates “halos of sound” that are constantly changing.
After talking about the work, he added, “It’s so well written, you can do what she asks with precision, but also achieve that amorphous sound.”
Operascope
The history of opera was the inspiration for Operascope. The nine-minute work references masterworks by the titans of the opera repertoire, including Puccini, Verdi, Berg, and others.
She describes it in a statement.
“The work refers to the history of opera. It bears a certain similarity to my works Frontispiece and subito con forza, as it plays with allusions to music history (although not with quotes that are true to the score). The idea of opera as a ‘powerhouse of emotions’ played a role in the writing of this work.”
The work also pays homage to the 500th anniversary of the Bavarian State Orchestra (Bayerisches Staatsorchester), the musical arm of the Bavarian State Opera.
- More information and tickets to the concert available [HERE].
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