Yi Chen Chen, Yi

Chen Yi began studying piano with 李素心 at the age of three and violin with 鄭日華, and later served as concertmaster of the orchestra of the Guangzhou Peking Opera Troupe, while studying music theory with 鄭重 and violin with 林躍基. In 1983 and 1986 Chen Yi received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in composition from the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, studying with Professor Wu Zuqiang, and also attended a short course given by Professor Alexander Goehr. In 1986 the Chinese Musicians’ Association, the Central Conservatory of Music, China National Radio, China Central Television and the Central Philharmonic jointly presented a concert of Chen Yi’s orchestral works in Beijing, and China Record Corporation released an album of the orchestral works, Duo Ye. That same year Chen Yi went on a scholarship to Columbia University in New York to study composition with Professors Chou Wen-Chung and Mario Davidovsky, receiving a doctorate in 1993 with an award for outstanding dissertation. Chen Yi served as composer-advisor to the American Composers Orchestra and the New York New Music Ensemble and, with support from Meet The Composer, was appointed composer-in-residence for three years by the Women’s Philharmonic and by Chanticleer, America’s only full-time professional vocal ensemble.

In 1989 the International Society for Contemporary Music produced a program devoted to Chen Yi’s chamber music as part of its film series “Sound and Silence”, broadcast across European television networks. Chen Yi’s music is published by Theodore Presser Company. In 1996 Chen Yi received both a Guggenheim Fellowship in composition and the Lieberson Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and was appointed full-time Professor of Composition at the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University, while also serving as a board member of Meet The Composer and as an advisor to the International Alliance for Women in Music. In 1998 Chen Yi became a tenured professor at the Conservatory of the University of Missouri, the first Chinese composer in recent years to receive this distinction in the international music world.