[Exclusive] Composer Chin Unsuk likely to continue as Tongyeong International Music Festival artistic director

TONGYEONG, South Gyeongsang Province -- Renowned composer Unsuk Chin’s leadership at the Tongyeong International Music Festival is set to continue, as she and the foundation are in discussions about extending an extension her role initial five-year term as the festival's artistic director, according to people familiar with the matter.

Now in her fourth year at the helm, Chin presides over this year’s festival, which opened Friday in the southern coastal city of Tongyeong under the theme “Journey Inwards.” The festival opened Friday with a captivating performance by pianist Lim Yunchan, the festival’s artist-in-residence, and the festival orchestra led by French conductor Fabien Gabel.

The planned extension comes as the festival is enjoying broader popularity and setting its sights beyond Korea.

“The mid- to long-term goal is to expand our audience to other parts of Asia, including Japan, Hong Kong, and Taiwan,” Kim So-hyun, the foundation’s Director of Artistic Administration, said during a press conference on Friday.

The Tongyeong International Music Festival launched in 2002 as a tribute to the internationally acclaimed composer Yun I-sang (1917–1995), who, born in the city, had an active career in Germany. The festival’s early journey was challenged by limited funding, a lack of infrastructure and its remote location -- more than a four-hour drive from Seoul. Opened in 2014, the Tongyeong Concert Hall and its renowned acoustics played a key role in propelling the festival’s growth.

Given that preparations for the festival must begin years in advance, the foundation was expected to start searching for a new artistic director. However, with Chin expressing her interest in continuing in the role, the contract extension is expected to be finalized soon, according to sources.

In 2022, then-CEO Lee Yong-min noted that Chin had signed an “unusually long five-year contract.”

At the time, Chin had taken nearly a year to decide whether to accept the role, telling The Korea Herald in a 2022 interview that she had not expected to return to work in Korea after stepping down as composer-in-residence with the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra in 2018, a position she held for 11 years.

TIMF’s previous artistic directors include German conductor Alexander Liebreich, who became the festival’s inaugural artistic director while serving as principal conductor of the Munich Chamber Orchestra, and German cultural manager Florian Riem, who held the role from 2014 to 2020 while also serving as CEO of the foundation.

Born in Gimpo in 1961, Chin is one of the most prominent composers of contemporary classical music. She studied composition under Kang Suk-hi at Seoul National University and later with Gyorgy Ligeti in Hamburg, Germany. Her innovative works have earned international acclaim and numerous honors, including the 2004 Grawemeyer Award for her Violin Concerto No. 1, the 2005 Arnold Schönberg Prize and the 2024 Ernst von Siemens Music Prize, widely regarded as the “Nobel Prize of Music.”

In addition, "The Unsuk Chin Edition," a comprehensive recording of her works performed by the Berlin Philharmonic, recently won the 2025 International Classical Music Award in the contemporary music category.

Her compositions, including the operas "Alice in Wonderland" and "Frontispiece," have been performed worldwide, cementing her reputation as a leading figure in modern classical music. Her upcoming opera — based on the intellectual exchange between physicist Wolfgang Pauli and psychoanalyst Carl Jung — is scheduled to premiere this May in Hamburg.