A recent recipient of Elliott Carter Memorial Composer Fellowship of Tanglewood Music Center, Taiwanese composer and pianist Yi-Yiing Chen is currently a doctoral student at New England Conservatory funded by NEC Francis Judd Cooke Scholarship. She is currently a member of ASCAP and has orchestral and chamber works performed both in the USA and her native Taiwan. She was programmed at the Tanglewood Music Festival, the Woman Composer Festival at Hartford, and the Primrose International Viola Competition & Festival. She now studies with Prof. John Heiss and Prof. Michael Gandolfi. Among her former tutors include Prof. Gordon Chin and Prof. Mao-Hsuan Chen of National Taiwan Normal University, Prof. Richard Danielpour of Manhattan School of Music and under influences of Nils Vigeland, Reiko Füting, Mark Stambaugh and Kris Falk. She has worked with, notably, conductor David Gilbert, violist Dimitri Murrath, and oboist James Austin Smith, among others. She has received in the past including LungShan Temple Scholarship, NTNU Presidential Scholarship, and MSM Scholarship. This year (2015) her piece won again the NEC Honors Ensemble composition competition, and will be programmed in the NEC contemporary ensemble concert and be performed in Boston’s Jordan Hall. She was also commissioned to write a new work for the Tanglewood Music Center 75th anniversary.
Yi-Yiing also plays flute and Chinese instruments such as bamboo flute and Dulcimer. Besides writing music, she presented a solo piano recital in Taiwan. She is an active pianist and served as the piano accompanist of the NEC Concert Choir and the NEC Preparatory School. She was also invited to perform at the 2014 New England Chinese Professionals Lunar New Year Gala and performed her own composition for viola and piano with Dimitri Murrath at the 2014 Primrose International Viola Competition & Festival.
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