Composer
Unsuk Chin has a special relationship with Canada; long before she began wowing them at IRCAM and began to take Europe by storm,
Chin's music had been heard in Canada as part of the ISCM Music Days festival, as early as 1984.
Kent Nagano, a conductor with whom
Chin often works, was named to the post of music director to the
Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal in 2006, prompting her return to Canada and ultimately to this Analekta recording, Unsuk Chin: Rocaná/Violin Concerto. Both
Nagano and violin soloist
Viviane Hagner were on hand when the premiere of
Chin's Violin Concerto was given in Berlin in 2002, and here they repeat their roles with the
Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal; it is paired with
Chin's orchestral work Rocaná, premiered in Montréal in March 2008.