Unsuk Chin: residencies in Manchester, Frankfurt and Dresden
The 2025/26 season brings three European orchestral residencies for Unsuk Chin, with the Hallé, the hr-Sinfonieorchester in Frankfurt and the Staatskapelle in Dresden. Events in Manchester include the UK premieres of Le Silence des Sirènes and Operascope and a revised version of her epic cosmological cantata Le Chant des Enfants des Étoiles.
Unsuk Chin enjoys a series of major residencies over the coming season, including a large-scale spotlight as featured composer with the Hallé orchestra. Her works are included in six programmes in Manchester across the 2025/26 season from October to May, with a special focus of four concerts in February. The Hallé has introduced its audience to Chin’s music over the past two seasons, with a performance in May of her sheng concerto Šu providing an upbeat to the residency.
Unsuk Chin comments: “I’m delighted to be appointed Featured Composer for the Hallé’s 2025/26 season. I hugely look forward to collaborating with this exceptional orchestra, including their esteemed Principal Conductor Kahchun Wong, across a series of exciting projects throughout the year”.
The first Hallé highlight this season is the UK premiere of Chin’s Le Silence des Sirènes at Bridgewater Hall on 23 October. The texts by Homer and James Joyce are sung by soprano Faustine de Mones with Elena Schwartz at the helm of the Hallé. The 16-minute work was commissioned by Roche and premiered at the Lucerne Festival in 2014 conducted by Simon Rattle with soprano Barbara Hannigan. The Berlin Philharmonic released a recording in a special Chin collection on its own label in 2023.
Le Silence des Sirènes can be viewed as a psychological monodrama which, like many of Chin’s works, explores the point where conceptual meaning and dreamlike associations intermingle. The assembled text combines passages from the twelfth chapter of Homer’s Odyssey which describes the singing of the Sirens who beguile sailors to their ruin, and the beginning of the eleventh chapter of James Joyce’s Ulysses which the writer particularly associated with the Sirens, personified as Irish barmaids luring men to drink.
The major work within the February concerts is Unsuk Chin’s Le Chant des Enfants des Étoiles, presented in a new revised version commissioned by the Hallé, at Bridgewater Hall in Manchester under the baton of Kahchun Wong (19 February). Scored for choir, children's choir and orchestra with a prominent role for organ, ‘The Song of the Children of the Stars’ is a 40-minute poetic reflection on our physical relationship with the cosmos. The composer references astronomer Carl Sagan’s words: “We are star stuff pondering the stars, star stuff which has taken its destiny into its own hands. The cosmos is within us, we are a way for the cosmos to know itself." Le Chant des Enfants des Étoiles was commissioned for the opening of the LOTTE Concert Hall in Seoul in 2016 and sets texts by 20th-century poets including Fernando Pessoa, Giuseppe Ungaretti and Octavio Paz.
Other February events in Manchester include the Hallé Orchestra and the Hallé Youth Orchestra combining for performances of Chin’s Frontispiece (1 February), an ensemble concert at Hallé St Peter’s including the UK premiere of Puzzles and Games drawn from Chin’s first opera Alice in Wonderland (5 February), and Kahchun Wong conducting a pair of performances of her Beethoven-inspired concert opener subito con forza (12/15 February). The Chin feature in Manchester concludes with the UK premiere of Operascope, a compact orchestral score rich in allusions to the history of opera including works by Verdi, Puccini, Berg and more, conducted by Ariane Matiakh (14 May).
As the HR Symphony Orchestra’s Focus Artist this season, Unsuk Chin will be featured on three programmes in Frankfurt, across five concerts at the Alte Oper. Music Director Alain Altinoglu conducts first German performances of Chin’s recent orchestral work Alaraph ‘Ritual of the Heartbeat’ (27/28 November). The 13-minute score combines the regular rhythm of the ‘heartbeat’ pulsar stars with ritualistic and folkloric aspects of traditional Korean music. Alisa Weilerstein is soloist in Chin’s virtuosic Cello Concerto, again with Alain Altinoglu on the podium (20 February). Finally Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider conducts performances of Chin’s much-travelled subito con forza (5/6 March).
> Visit the HR Symphony Orchestra website
The Dresden Staatskapelle opens its feature on Unsuk Chin’s music this season with a portrait concert at the European Centre for the Arts in Hellerau (6 Nov). Jonathan Stockhammer conducts and presents the programme in conversation with Chin, featuring music by role models and companion composers alongside her own chamber orchestra score Graffiti. Danielle Gatti conducts three performances of subito con forza at the Semperoper in Dresden (14-16 December) and Elim Chan leads the orchestra’s season finale with three concerts including Puzzles and Games from Alice in Wonderland sung by soprano Siobhan Stagg (5-7 July).
> Visit the Dresden Staatskapelle website
A further highlight for Unsuk Chin this season is the first Austrian staging of Alice in Wonderland, directed by Elisabeth Stöppler with Stephan Zilias conducting the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, opening at the MusikTheater an der Wien on 17 November.
> Alice in Wonderland in Vienna
> Further information on Work: Le Chant des Enfants des Étoiles
Photo: Priska Ketterer