Kansas City based accordionist Juha Silfverberg recently performed with the Kansas City Symphony in the music of Unsuk Chin’s new Opera  ‘Alice in Wonderland’.   Under the direction of Aram Demirjian, the concert was held at the new State of the Art Helzberg Hall at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts.  The concert was the final in this years popular series “Classics Uncorked”, with the focus of this particular concert celebrating great women of classical music.

Unsuk Chin was born in Seoul, Korea. She studied composition with Sukhi Kang at Seoul National University and won several international prizes in her early 20s. She studied with György Ligeti at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg from 1985 to 1988. In 1988 Unsuk Chin moved to Berlin, where she worked as a freelance composer at the electronic music studio of the Technical University of Berlin, realizing seven works.

Unsuk Chin’s works have been performed by conductors such as Kent Nagano, Simon Rattle, Alan Gilbert, Gustavo Dudamel, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Neeme Järvi, Peter Eötvös, David Robertson and George Benjamin as well as by leading orchestras and ensembles. Commissioners include the Kronos Quartet, Radio France, the BBC, the London Sinfonietta, South Bank Centre, Los Angeles Opera, IRCAM and the Bavarian State Opera. Chin’s music has been highlighted at major music festivals such as Festival Musica in Strasbourg or Settembre Musica in Italy.  Since 2006 she holds the position of Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra’s composer-in-residence and artistic director of its Contemporary Music Series.

Born into a musical family in Helsinki, Finland, accordionist Juha Silfverberg began his accordion studies at the age of seven with Lasse Pihlajamaa, a pioneer in the accordion field. Playing the Finnish C System button accordion, he was both Finnish National Accordion Champion and Scandinavian Accordion Champion, earning the right to represent Finland when the Coupe Mondiale World Accordion Championships were held in Helsinki. Later, he moved to the United States to study accordion performance at the University of Missouri – Kansas City. 

A sought after accordionist, Juha is regularly found entertaining professionally in the Kansas City area, where he freelances in a wide variety of ensembles. He has toured Finland, Estonia, New Zealand, Japan and throughout the USA with diverse musical groups ranging from Zydeco to Klezmer, from Classical to Pop.

3 CD’s online at: Juha Silfverberg