Biography

*15 Sep 1958 Pusan / Korea

Kunsu Shim was born as the son of re-migrants from Japan on September 15,1958 in Pusan, South Korea. The ocean provided the adolescent Shim with the experience of spatial openness and expanse. This notion can be seen later as the basis of his production. He twice won first prize in a competition for young composers in Pusan, at age eighteen and nineteen respectively. From 1979 to 1983 he studied composition with Inyong La (amongst others) at the Yonsei University in Seoul. In 1982 he won the DongA Newspaper prize, followed by the JungAng Newspaper prize in 1983.

In 1985 He arrived in Germany, where he studied composition with Helmut Lachenmann in Stuttgart (1987-88). Around this time he met Gerhard Stäbler, whom he lives and collaborates with today. In 1989 Shim moved to Essen, to continue his education until 1992 with Nicolaus A.Huber at the Folkwang Hochschule. Huber's "simple, but strong" language attracted Shim. It was then, that his style moved in a new direction – last, but not least through an increased interest in New Music from the U.S. (notably John Cage and Morton Feldman), the visual arts and literature. He found his own characteristic language with the composition "orchester in stereo mit fünf sinustönen". In 1992 he was awarded a prize at the Forum junger Komponisten/WDR. From 1992 onward, he was co-organizer of the "Aktive Musik" series in Essen. Concert tours led him around the globe, and he has been "artist in residence" numerous times (such as at "Derjassi" California, 1993; "Schreyahn" Germany, 1996-97). From 1994 to 1999 he belonged to the composer's group "wandelweiser", with whom he shared basic aesthetic positions such as silence and simplicity. He has been a lecturer at the Folkwang-Hochschule's Duisburg branch since 1993. In 2000 he founded "EarPort", along with Gerhard Stäbler, at the Duisburg Innenhafen as a center for the presentation of and discourse about New Music and for interconnecting the arts. Today he resides permanently in, and became a citizen of Germany. 2003 Kunsu Shim received the well-known Genko Uchida Fellowship – scholarship, which enables him a three month visit to Japan.


[this translation is based on: text by Alfred Wehnershof, for Hanns-Werner Heister and Walter-Wolfgang Sparrer (ed.): Komponisten der Gegenwart. Munich, edition text+kritik Translation: Dan Albertson, Torsten Möller, Michael Rook