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Phyllis Chen

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Phyllis Chen
Born1978 (age 46–47)
Alma mater
Occupations
  • Composer
  • sound artist
  • pianist
EmployerState University of New York at New Paltz
AwardsGuggenheim Fellowship (2022)
Academic background
ThesisInventions on the Keyboard (2015)
Doctoral advisorAndré Watts
Musical career
GenresContemporary classical
InstrumentToy piano
Formerly ofInternational Contemporary Ensemble

Phyllis Chen (born 1978) is an American composer, sound artist, and pianist. A member of the International Contemporary Ensemble, she co-composed their 2016 album On The Nature Of Thingness and is a 2022 Guggenheim Fellow. After suffering from tendinopathy, she began doing work on the toy piano, including an album and music festival both named UnCaged Toy Piano.

Biography

[edit]

Chen, a native of Blacksburg, Virginia,[1] was born in 1978,[2] daughter of Dan and Jenny Chen.[3] She started learning piano as a young child.[4] After attending the Eastern Music Festival summer camp,[3] she graduated from Blacksburg High School in 1995,[1] one year earlier than her class.[3]

Despite receiving acceptance offers from other prestigious music schools, she ultimately chose Oberlin Conservatory of Music,[3] where she then obtained her BM.[5] She then got a MM at Northwestern University and DMA at Jacobs School of Music;[6][5] her doctoral dissertation Inventions on the Keyboard was supervised by André Watts.[6]

In 2001, she joined the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) as one of their founding members.[4] In 2011, she played the piano for several pieces she composed for ICE at the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago.[7] In 2016, she and Nathan Davis composed the ICE's album On The Nature Of Thingness.[8] She eventually became Artist Emeritus at ICE.[9]

As she once recalled, she "never found [the piano] to be entirely fulfilling [and] always thought there was something missing".[4] After both of her arms became sore from tendinopathy, she started playing the smaller toy piano, which she had discovered during her studies at Indiana.[4] She started the UnCaged Toy Piano festival in 2007 to promote the instrument,[4] and she also composed a toy piano album of the same name.[10] She was the toy pianist for the 2009 musical Coraline at the Lucille Lortel Theatre.[11] She also performed the toy piano at the 2012 Ringling International Arts Festival, where Gayle Williams of Sarasota Herald-Tribune said that Chen "has enough imagination for all of us".[12] During a review of her April 2013 performance at the Atlas Performing Arts Center, Stephen Brookes of The Washington Post called Chen "a virtuoso of the toy piano".[13] Steve Smith of The New York Times called her a "leading proponent of the toy piano as a vehicle for serious music",[14] while Xenia Pestova Bennett called her one of the pioneers of the Schoenhut 372 and its open-lid counterpart 379.[15]

She originally composed with pseudonyms before a friend approached her about talking with a composer who was actually Chen herself.[4] Her Baryshnikov Arts Center commission Lighting the Dark premiered in December 2014; Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim of The New York Times said that it "offered a slyly subversive take on issues relating to femininity, technology and power".[16] In 2015, she composed Curios for the Singapore International Festival of Arts, performed by Margaret Leng Tan; Marcus Cheng Chye Tan called it an "important work to evaluate Tan's theatrimusicality".[17] In 2022, she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in Music Composition.[18] Her piece "Sumitones" was performed at the 2024 Schubert Club International Artist Series in Ordway Center for the Performing Arts.[19]

She has also worked at State University of New York at New Paltz as assistant professor of music composition.[18]

She lives in Astoria, Queens.[5]

References

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  1. ^ a b "Norton woman honored for her aid to senior citizens". The Roanoke Times. June 10, 2000. p. NRV3 – via Newspapers.com.
  2. ^ Phyllis Chen: A Mini-Portrait (PDF). 2022. p. 2. Retrieved May 8, 2025.
  3. ^ a b c d Dickenson, Kathie (May 23, 1995). "Communicating with music". The Roanoke Times. p. NRV1, NRV10 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. ^ a b c d e f Brown, Jeffrey Arlo (February 4, 2024). "These Keyboard Musicians Are Thinking Beyond the Piano". New York Times. ProQuest 292171119.
  5. ^ a b c "2015 Davenport Resident Phyllis Chen". SUNY New Paltz. Retrieved May 8, 2025.
  6. ^ a b Chen, Phyllis (2015). Inventions on the Keyboard (PDF) (DM thesis). Jacobs School of Music.
  7. ^ Delacoma, Wynne (November 17, 2011). "Phyllis Chen and ICE team up for strange and compelling evening". Chicago Classical Review. Retrieved May 8, 2025.
  8. ^ "On The Nature Of Thingness: ICE Performs Chen And Davis". Starkland. Retrieved May 8, 2025.
  9. ^ "Staff & Artists". International Contemporary Ensemble. Retrieved May 9, 2025.
  10. ^ Haskins, Rob (2010). "UnCaged Toy Piano". American Record Guide. Vol. 73, no. 3. p. 183. ProQuest 223335046.
  11. ^ Lemon, Brendan (June 2, 2009). "Coraline, Lucille Lortel Theatre, New York". FT.com. ProQuest 229183258.
  12. ^ Williams, Gayle (October 14, 2012). "Where toys and joys are aligned". Sarasota Herald Tribune. p. BS7. ProQuest 1111843635.
  13. ^ Brookes, Stephen (April 13, 2013). "Phyllis Chen and Carla Kihlstedt put 'play' back into playing contemporary classical music". The Washington Post. ProQuest 1326568102.
  14. ^ Smith, Steve (December 14, 2013). "Invention and Whimsy, Inspired by a Toy". The New York Times. p. C1. ProQuest 1467830461.
  15. ^ Pestova, Xenia (2017). "Toy Pianos, Poor Tools: Virtuosity and Imagination in a Limited Context". Tempo. 71 (281): 27–38. doi:10.1017/S0040298217000456. ISSN 0040-2982 – via Cambridge University Press.
  16. ^ da Fonseca-Wollheim, Corrina (December 16, 2014). "Move Over, Schroeder. Make Room for Tiny Dancers". New York Times. p. C3. ProQuest 1636381455.
  17. ^ Tan, Marcus Cheng Chye (2022). "The Curios Carnival: Margaret Leng Tan's Theatrimusicality". TDR: The Drama Review. 66 (3): 52–63. doi:10.1017/S1054204322000296. ISSN 1054-2043 – via Cambridge University Press.
  18. ^ a b "Phyllis Chen". Guggenheim Fellowship. Retrieved May 8, 2025.
  19. ^ Hubbard, Rob (October 15, 2024). "Denk shows off versatility and eloquence: review: Female composers in spotlight". Star Tribune. p. E6. ProQuest 3116730621.
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