Composition Commission to Donghoon Shin

Karajan Academy of the Berlin Philharmonic, Germany

To celebrate its 50th anniversary, the Karajan Academy of the Berlin Philharmonic is once again awarding the Claudio Abbado Composition Prize. Selected as prizewinner here was Donghoon Shin whose commission composition, a concerto for cello and orchestra sponsored by the EvS Music Foundation, will be premiered at the Karajan Academy's anniversary concert at Philharmonie Berlin as a highlight in the Academy's concert season.

Donghoon Shin's new work explores the possible contrasts between differing sound levels of an orchestra. Part dialogue, part hide-and-seek, he works with harmonies and counterpoint, expanding the genre boundary from a concerto for cello to a concerto for orchestra with multilayered interactions between solo instrument and orchestra.

He seeks inspiration and poetic compliment in the poems of Georg Trakl, in whose content and expressions of emotion he sees precisely this complexity reflected, and whose vivid colors serve him as a further source of inspiration.

May 7, 2022
Philharmonie Berlin 

Further Information:
berliner-philharmoniker.de/akademie