Evelyn Chen
piano
The New York Times hailed Evelyn Chen as “a pianist to watch,” praising her “brilliant technique, warm, clear tone, and exacting musical intelligence.” Ms. Chen’s recent engagements have included performances on five continents at venues including David Geffen Hall and Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall, Symphony Hall in Boston, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, Wolf Trap near Washington DC, the Mozarteum in Salzburg, the National Concert Hall in Taipei, the Cultural Center of Hong Kong, the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, and the Tchaikovsky Hall in Moscow, among others.
A Steinway Artist, Ms. Chen has performed with numerous orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Pops, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the National Symphony Orchestra, the San Diego Symphony, the Philharmonia Orchestra in London, the New Zealand Symphony, the National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan, and the State Symphony Orchestra of Mexico, and has collaborated with renowned conductors including Riccardo Muti, Leonard Slatkin, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, Zdenek Macal, Joseph Silverstein, and JoAnn Falletta.
Ms. Chen’s recordings have received international critical acclaim. Her recording of Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2 and Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini with Leonard Slatkin and the Philharmonia Orchestra for Sony/BMG was among the top ten best-selling classical recordings in the UK. Ms. Chen’s recording of Miklós Rózsa’s Piano Concerto with James Sedares and the New Zealand Symphony for Koch International Classics also received rave reviews, including the Gramophone Awards issue which proclaimed her a “dazzlingly secure, marvelously sympathetic exponent” of the concerto.
Ms. Chen has been featured on the CBS Evening News, and her performances have been broadcast across the United States, as well as throughout Taiwan and Great Britain (Classic FM). She has collaborated in chamber music with violinists Cho-Liang Lin and Frank Huang, cellists Brinton Averil Smith and Leslie Parnas, violist James Dunham, and pianist Charles Wadsworth, and members of the New York Philharmonic, the Dallas and Houston Symphonies, and the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University. While touring Asia as soloist with the Harvard Orchestra, Ms. Chen performed before prominent dignitaries including the Princess of Thailand and the Prime Minister of Malaysia.
A winner of several international competitions, Ms. Chen is the recipient of Juilliard’s Petschek Award, which awarded her a fully sponsored New York debut recital at Alice Tully Hall. She is also the First Prize Winner of the Mieczyslaw Munz International Competition and the Grand Prize Winner of the Piano Guild International Recording Competition. As the youngest competitor at the age of fourteen, Ms. Chen captured First Prize in the Bach International Competition in Washington DC.
Ms. Chen received a Bachelor of Arts in composition, Magna Cum Laude with Highest Honors, from Harvard University, a Master of Music from the New England Conservatory, and Doctor of Musical Arts from the Juilliard School. Her teachers include pianists Russell Sherman, Earle Voorhies, and Jerome Lowenthal, and composer Leon Kirchner. She is currently Associate Professor of Piano at Teachers College, Columbia University in New York City, and a co-founder of the Moody Mansion Music in Galveston, Texas. She resides in Houston with her husband, cellist Brinton Averil Smith and daughter, Calista.
