The Korean composer Unsuk Chin ends each day by reading a book or watching a film about the origin of the universe. For her, this puts things into perspective and led her to one of her most ambitious works: “Le Chant des Enfants des Étoiles.” The composition is based on the unifying idea that “almost everything in the universe was created billions of years ago in cosmic explosions – including the Earth and our bodies, which, as scientifically proven, consist of the remnants of stars.” In preparation, Chin collected around 150 literary sources on the cosmos and ultimately selected 13 texts ranging from metaphysical Baroque poetry to modern verse. The concert opens with Gustav Holst’s musical settings of celestial bodies in our solar system.