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chenyi@aol.com

http://www.presser.com/Composers/info.cfm?Name=CHENYI

Composer CHEN Yi’s Biography (As of June 20, 2009) A native of Guangzhou, China, Chen Yi* was born into a family of doctors with a strong interest in music. She began violin and piano studies with Zheng Ri-hua and Lee Soo Sin at the age of three. When the Cultural revolution overtook China in the 1960's, she tried hard to continue her music studies, practicing violin at home (with the mute attached). She was sent for forced labor into the countryside for two years and took her instrument along. A positive aspect of this experience was the knowledge she gained of the wider life and music of her motherland and its people. When she was 17, she returned to her home city and served as concertmaster and composer with the Beijing Opera Troupe. She began, at this time, her research of Chinese traditional music and Western classical music theory under the supervision of Zheng Zhong. When the school system was restored in 1977, Chen enrolled in the Beijing Central Conservatory, where she studied composition under Professor Wu Zu-qiang and British guest composer Alexander Goehr. She continued her violin studies with Professor Lin Yao-ji and began an eight-year systematic study of Chinese traditional music. In 1983, Ms. Chen composed the first Chinese viola concerto (Xian Shi) and, in 1986, the Chinese Musicians Association, the Central Conservatory of Music, Radio Beijing, CCTV and the Central Philharmonic of China jointly gave, in Beijing, an entire program devoted to Chen's orchestral works, when she became the first woman in China to receive the degree of Master of Arts in composition. In 1986, Chen Yi went to the United States for further musical studies. Her chamber music has been featured in the film Sound and Silence produced by ISCM in 1989. In 1993, she received her Doctor of Musical Arts, with distinction, from Columbia University, where she studied under Chou Wen-chung and Mario Davidovsky. In the same year, Dr. Chen was appointed, through the Meet the Composer New Residencies program, to a three year term as Composer-in-Residence for the Women's Philharmonic, Chanticleer and the Aptos Creative Arts Program, all in San Francisco. In June of 1996, Chen had three sold-out gala concerts at the Center for the Arts Theater, Yerba Buena Gardens, SF, with her orchestral works Ge Xu and Symphony No.2, choral works Set Of Chinese Folk Songs and Tang Poems, and the multi-media Chinese Myths Cantata, presented by the WP, Chanticleer and Lili Cai Dance Company, and received critical acclaims. She then joined the composition faculty of Peabody Conservatory, Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore (1996-1998). She is the Cravens/Millsap/Missouri Distinguished Professor in Composition at the UMKC Conservatory starting in 1998. As the recipient of the prestigious Ives Living Award (2001-2004) from the American Academy of Arts and Letter, Dr. Chen has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation (1996) and the National Endowment for the Arts (1994), as well as the Lieberson Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1996). Other honors include first prize in the Chinese National Composition Competition (1985), the Lili Boulanger Award from the National Women Composers Resource Center (1993), New York University’s Sorel Medal (1996), the CalArts/Alpert Award (1997), a Grammy Award (1999), the University of Texas Eddie Medora King Composition Prize (1999), the Adventurous Programming and Concert Music awards from ASCAP (1999 and 2001, respectively), the ASCAP Concert Music Award (2001), the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Elise Stoeger Award (2002), the Edgar Snow Memorial Fund’s Friendship Ambassador Award (2002), honorary doctorates from Lawrence University in WI (2002), Baldwin-Wallace College in OH (2008), and University of Portland in OR (2009), and the Kauffman Award in Artistry/Scholarship from the UMKC Conservatory (2006). Dr. Chen has received major commissions from the Koussevitzky, Fromm, Ford, Rockefeller, and Roche foundations, the National Endowment for the Arts, Chamber Music America, Meet The Composer, the Creative Work Fund, the San Francisco Arts Commission, the Mary Cary Trust, NYSCA, Carnegie Hall, New Heritage Music Foundation, Friends of Dresden Music Foundation, the American Guild of Organists, the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition, the Eastman School, Ithaca College, Bradley University, Miami University, Chorus America, and the 6th World Symposium on Choral Music. Commissioning ensembles and soloists include the Lucerne Music Festival for the Cleveland Orchestra, Mira Wang along with the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the BBC Proms Festival for Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Seattle Symphony, Yo-Yo Ma and the Pacific Symphony, Raschèr Saxophone Quartet and the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, Yehudi Menuhin, Emanuel Ax, Michala Petri, Evelyn Glennie and the Singapore Symphony, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, The Women’s Philharmonic, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, the Metropolitan Wind Symphony, Philadelphia Classical Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Chamber Music Society of Minnesota, New Music Consort, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Chanticleer, KITKA, San Francisco Citywinds, the San Francisco Girls Chorus, Music From China, the Ying Quartet, the Elements Quartet, the Shanghai Quartet, the Maryland Classic Youth Orchestra, the HK Chinese Orchestra, Boston Musica Viva, Network For New Music, Opus 21, Chicago a cappella, KC Chorale, Peninsula Women’s Chorus, and many others. Dr. Chen’s music is performed worldwide and published by Theodore Presser Company. Her works have been recorded on New Albion, CRI, New World, Teldec (with a Grammy), Nimbus, Cala, Avant, Atma, Hugo, Angel, Bis, Albany, Cavalli, Centaur, Quartz, Naxos, Koch International Classics, Delos, Hugo, China Record Corporation, among others. In her compositions, Chen Yi tries to distill from Chinese and Western traditional music the essential character and spirit and to develop materials abstractly in accordance with new concepts. Duo Ye No. 2, Ge Xu (Antiphony), Piano Concerto, Momentum, Fiddle Suite, Eleanor's Gift, Dunhuang Fantasy, Percussion Concerto, Ba Yin, Chinese Folk Dance Suite and Second Symphony (for orchestra) thoughtfully combine the Western orchestral idiom with traditional Eastern pentatonic tonalities. Her octet, Sparkle, is a refreshing expression of glittering passion with magical textures, and the sextet, Near Distance, is a meditation on ancient culture and modern civilization, very skillfully drawing together the music of East and West. Transcending cultural and musical boundaries, serving as an ambassador for the arts, creating "real music" for society and future generations, which reaches a wide range of audiences and inspires people of different cultural backgrounds, is her main goal. Up coming commissioned works include two works for wind ensemble (one for the NWECG and the other for MAC Band Director's Association), a work for UMKC Conservatory, a work for San Francisco Girls Chorus and Cypress String Quartet, and two works for chorus (one for Anglo-Chinese Junior College Choir in Singapore and the other for American Choral Directors Association in the States). Premieres from 2007 to 2008 include Three Bagatelles from China West (2007, for flute and piano), Looking at the Sea (2007, for women’s chorus), China West Suite (2007, for 2 pianos), a song cycle, From the Path of Beauty, for Chanticleer and the Shanghai Quartet (2008), a recorder concerto The Ancient Chinese Beauty for Michala Petri (2008), a wind ensemble work Suite From China West for the Metropolitan Wind Symphony (2008), Tunes from My Home for Newstead Trio (2008), an orchestral work Olympic Fire for the Royal Philharmonic at the BBC Proms (2008), Woodwind Quintet No. 3 for Antara Winds, Concerto for Reeds for oboe and sheng with the China National Symphony (2008), and Prospect Overture for the new China National Center for the Performing Arts (2009 New Year). Premiere works in 2009 include Septet for erhu, pipa, percussion and sax quartet for Music From China and Prism Quartet, Prelude and Fugue for the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Overture for Omaha Area Youth Symphony, a marimba solo work Jing Marimba for Nancy Zeltsman’s ZMF, a violin and piano duet From Old Peking Folklore for the Music Teachers’ Association of CA, and Symphonie Humen 1839 (co-composed with Zhou Long) for Guangzhou Symphony. Recent years have seen the world premieres of numerous works, including the cello concerto Ballad, Dance and Fantasy by Yo-Yo Ma and the Pacific Symphony; Symphony No. 3 by Seattle Symphony; Tu, for symphonic wind ensemble (adapted from the original version for full orchestra); Celebration (for orchestra); her second violin concerto Spring in Dresden for Mira Wang; Si Ji (Four Seasons), a finalist for the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in Music, product of the prestigious second Roche Commission and the subject of a book published by Roche and Lucerne Music Festival; The Han Figurines (sextet); Tibetan Tunes (piano trio); Ji-Dong-Nuo for solo piano, commissioned by Carnegie Hall for Emanuel Ax; a pipa and percussion duet Ancient Dances written for Wu Man; and The Ancient Beauty for Chinese instruments and string orchestra, written for Music From China and New Philadelphia Classical Symphony. Chen Yi is in high demand as a lecturer at composition workshops and at concerts of her music throughout the world. She was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2005, and appointed by the China Ministry of Education to the prestigious three-year Changjiang Scholar Visiting Professorship at the Beijing Central Conservatory of Music in 2006. She presently serves on the advisory boards of Meet The Composer, Chamber Music America, the Fromm Music Foundation at Harvard University, the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, American Composers Orchestra, the League of Composers/ISCM, and the International Alliance of Women in Music, among other music organizations. *CHEN is her family name, Yi is her personal name. CHEN Yi can be referred to as Dr. Chen, Ms. Chen, or Chen Yi. For more information, please visit: http://www.presser.com/Composers/info.cfm?Name=CHENYI