Chen Yi - American Masterpieces: Choral Music Wednesday, December 29, 2010
The National Endowment for the Arts' American Masterpieces: Choral Music initiative is designed to celebrate our national musical heritage by highlighting significant American choral composers and their works of the past 250 years. Stanton's Sheet Music is proud to present this series highlighting the composers and their works featured in this groundbreaking project.
(from NEA.gov)
Chen Yi (born 1953) is one of today's most cosmopolitan composers. Born in China in 1953 to a family of classical music lovers, she began studying violin and piano at the age of three. As a young woman she studied theory and composition in both hemispheres: at the Beijing Central Conservatory, and later at Columbia University in New York City.
In her works she has endeavored to blend elements of Eastern and Western music in a way that appeals to listeners from all cultures. She has produced an enormous body of work with remarkable speed and facility, resulting in countless honors and fellowships, commissions from major artists and orchestras, worldwide performances, and award-winning recordings.
In 1986 she became the first woman in China ever to receive a master's degree in composition. Dr. Chen has taught composition at the Peabody Conservatory and the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music. She served as Composer-in-Residence with the Women's Philharmonic, Chanticleer, and the Aptos Creative Arts Center in San Francisco. She received the prestigious Charles Ives Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and in 2005 was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
She has written choral music for the Kansas City Chorale, Chicago a cappella, the San Francisco Girls Chorus, and the Singapore Youth Choir, among others. “Know You How Many Petals Falling?†was premiered by the Elmer Iseler Singers at the Sixth World Symposium on Choral Music in 2002. Among her many other choral pieces that might be singled out for special mention are “To the New Millennium,†“Spring Dreams,†the Chinese Myths Cantata, Chinese Poems, and her Set of Chinese Folk Songs in three volumes.
Selected Works:
A Set of Chinese Folk Songs
Chinese Mountain Songs
Know You How Many Petals Falling?
Landscape
Spring Dreams
The West Lake
For more distinguished choral repertoire suggestions, please contact us.