Biography

(b. 1982)

Chin’s recent music often draws inspiration from the narratives of film and literature, phonetic structures in text, and the use of idiosyncratic transcription methods that enable imaginative exploration of pre-existent musical sources.

His music has been performed in South, Central and North America, in Israel, Asia and in Europe. He has been commissioned to compose works for Ensemble Recherche, International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), members of the Anubis Quartet, the MAVerick Ensemble, the Latino Music Festival of Chicago and Ensemble Dal Niente, among others. His music has also been performed by artists including Fonema Consort, Nina Dante and Dalia Chin, Ostravská Banda, Chicago Composers Orchestra, Donatienne Michel-Dansaq, Pierre-Stéphane Meugé, Marino Formenti, Claire Chase, Eric Lamb, Gan Lev and Marcuss Weiss. 

Chin earned a DMA in composition and technology from Northwestern University under the guidance of Hans Thomalla, Jay Alan Yim, and Aaron Cassidy. His dissertation focused on the work of Mexican composer Julio Estrada, his graphication method, and parallels found with the dream mechanisms in Freud’s Dream Theory. Previous instructors include Alejandro Cardona in his native Costa Rica, and Orlando García in Miami.

Currently Chin is instructor of Theory at Montclair State University, NJ, and co-founder and artistic director of the Fonema Consort. In 2017 he released his first portrait album under the New Focus Recordings Label titled “Three Burials.” Ongoing projects include a piece for harpsichord and MIDI keyboards for Daniel Walden exploring the merging of early music and new technology, a piece for electric guitar and electronics for Jesse Langen based on recordings of Pat Metheny and Ornette Coleman, and an ensemble piece for Ensemble Aventure of Freiburg inspired by Mesias Maigushca’s outlook on popular opposition to oil drilling in his piece …por el Yasuní…