Shih-Hui Chen


Shih-Hui Chen is a Taiwanese composer who lives and works in the United States.
WWW shihhuichen.com

Biography

Chen Shih-hui 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 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
  • Echoes from Within: A Musical Response to Cy Twombly for sheng, contrabass and electronics
  • Withhold the Umbrella for Chinese Orchestra
  • Flashback Moments for piano quartet
  • The Pilgrimage for Acapella Chorus
  • Ascending Waves for large orchestra
  • Silvergrass, Cello and Chamber Orchestra or Ensemble
  • Ten Thousand Blooms, Falling Petals for Traditional Korean Orchestra or ensemble
  • Fantasia on the Theme of Guanlingsan for Zheng and Chinese Chamber Orchestra or Ensemble
  • A Plea to Lady Chang’e for Nanguan Pipa and String Quartet or Orchestra
  • Returning Souls: Four Short Pieces on Three Formosan Amis Legends for Solo Violin or String Quartet
  • Our Names, for Narrator and Chamber Ensemble
  • Returnings, for Flute, Percussion and Cello
  • Fantasia on the Theme of Plum Blossoms for String Quartet

Distinctions