Shih-Hui Chen

Shih-Hui Chen (Chinese: 陳士惠; born 1962) is a Taiwanese composer who lives and works in the United States.

Chen in 2006

Biography

Chen Shih-hui (陳士惠) was born in Taipei, Taiwan, and came to the United States in 1982 to study for a master's degree from Northern Illinois University and a doctoral degree from Boston University. After receiving her D.M.A. in music composition, Shih-Hui Chen took a position at the Shepherd School of Music, Rice University where she is currently Professor of Music Composition and Theory. Chen also serves on Asia Society Texas Center's Performing Arts & Culture Committee and is the director of 21C: Classical, Contemporary, and Cross-Cultural Music Festival at Rice University.

Chen Shih-hui's work has been performed widely throughout the U.S. and abroad, including Taiwan, China, Germany, and Italy. In 1999, she received an American Academy in Rome Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2000, and a Goddard Lieberson Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2007. In 2010, Chen received a Fulbright Fellowship to study traditional Chinese Music, Nanguan music, and music of Taiwanese Indigenous peoples.

Work

Musical style

Chen Shih-hui composes for orchestra, chamber ensemble, voice, and solo instruments. She also composes music for theater and film.

Her music blends both her Western training and cultural heritage. A citation accompanying her 2007 Goddard Lieberson Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters states: “Among the composers of Asian descent living in the U.S.A., Shih-Hui Chen is most successful in balancing the very refined spectral traditions of the East with the polyphonic practice of Western art-music. In a seamless narrative, her beautiful music, always highly inventive and expressive, is immediately as appealing as it is demanding and memorable.”

Selected recent compositions

• Messages from a Formosan Village (2019)
• Echoes from Within: A Musical Response to Cy Twombly for sheng, contrabass and electronics (2018)
• Withhold the Umbrella for Chinese Orchestra (2018)
• Flashback Moments for piano quartet (2018)
• The Pilgrimage for Acapella Chorus (2017)
• Ascending Waves for large orchestra (2017)
• Silvergrass, Cello and Chamber Orchestra or Ensemble (2016)
• Ten Thousand Blooms, Falling Petals for Traditional Korean Orchestra or ensemble (2015)
• Fantasia on the Theme of Guanlingsan for Zheng and Chinese Chamber Orchestra or Ensemble (2014, 2015)
• A Plea to Lady Chang’e for Nanguan Pipa and String Quartet or Orchestra (2013, 2014)
• Returning Souls: Four Short Pieces on Three Formosan Amis Legends for Solo Violin or String Quartet (2011, 2013)
• Our Names, for Narrator and Chamber Ensemble (2010)
• Returnings, for Flute, Percussion and Cello (2010)
• Fantasia on the Theme of Plum Blossoms for String Quartet (2007–9)

Distinctions

• Barlow Endowment Commission (2001).
• Bunting Institute Fellowship at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study (1996).
• Fulbright Fellowship (2010) for study of traditional Chinese Music, Nanguan music, and music of the Taiwanese aboriginal people.
• Fromm Music Foundation Commission (1995).
• Goddard Lieberson Fellowship, American Academy of Arts and Letters (2007).
• Koussevitzky Music Foundation Commission (2004).
• John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship (2000).
• Rome Prize, The American Academy in Rome, Italy (1999).

External links

• Shepherd School of Music Faculty Biography [Contains performance calendar of Rice University engagements and further information about 21C].
• Composer's Website
• Composer's SoundCloud
• [Video] "Returning Souls" with Formosa Quartet
• [Video] "Echoes from Within: A Musical Response to Cy Twombly"