CHEN YI

b. 1953, Guangzhou

Composer

In 1977, Chen Yi was admitted to the Central Conservatory of Music, studying composition with Wu Zuqiang. In 1980 she became one of a handful of students selected from Beijing and Shanghai to study at the British composer Alexander Goehr’s composition workshop in Beijing, which had a lasting impact on her music. In 1986 she became the first woman ever in China to receive a master’s degree in composition, and went to the United States to study at Columbia University with Chou Wen-chung and Mario Davidovsky, receiving her doctorate in 1993. From 1993 to 1996, Chen served as Composer-in-Residence for the Women’s Philharmonic, the vocal ensemble Chanticleer, and the Aptos Creative Arts Centre.

She was on the composition faculty of Peabody Conservatory, Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, from 1996 to 1998 before she became the Cravens/Millsap/Missouri Distinguished Professor at the Conservatory of the University of Missouri-Kansas City in 1998.

Chen is recognized as one of the leading composers in the United States. Her composition is a profound integration of Chinese and Western music. Although her music always unmistakably reveals her joyful and energetic personality, it is also subtle and exquisitely eloquent. Chen is the recipient of the Charles Ives Living Award, a large grant paid over three years (2001 to 2004) from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She has received numerous grants and commissions from prestigious organizations and major orchestras, and her music has been recorded on major labels.