Shih-Hui Chen

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

Composer Shih-Hui Chen

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.[1] After receiving her DMA in Music Composition, Shih-Hui Chen took a position at the Shepherd School of Music, Rice University[2] 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.[3]

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

References
  1. Mittler, Barbara. Chen Shihui. Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online (subscription required) (Online version of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd edition. ISBN 978-0-19-517067-2).
  2. Mittler, Barbara (1997). Dangerous tunes: the politics of Chinese music in Hong Kong, Taiwan and the People's Republic of China since 1949.
  3. Film review: Special: Issues 55-56. 2005.
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