Chen Yi photo by Jim Hair

Austin, Texas - Chen Yi, a composer noted for her skillful drawing together of the music of East and West and holder of an endowed chair at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, is the first recipient of the $25,000 Eddie Medora King Award for Musical Composition at The University of Texas at Austin. The new award is the third-largest such prize in the country, after the University of Louisville's Grawemeyer Award and the CalArts/Alpert Award in the Arts.

Dr. Chen will participate in the School of Music's 1999-2000 Visiting Composers Series, which provides opportunities for UT students to work with accomplished, professional composers who lecture about their music, work with students in rehearsal, and hear their compositions performed by the University's major ensembles. She will be in residence at the School of Music October 23 - 27.

"It's a great honor for me to become the first recipient of the Eddie Medora King Award," said Chen. "I am very grateful to Dr. King, who has made available a program that will make a deep impact and meaningful contribution to our society. It encourages me to work harder to promote new music, to improve the understanding between peoples with different cultural backgrounds."

"The University of Texas can take pride in honoring her as the first awardee. Her shining example will set the standard for all who follow," said ASCAP Vice President and Director of Concert Music Frances Richard, who served on the advisory panel for the King Award. She characterized Chen as "a brilliant composer, an enthusiastic and intuitive teacher, a vibrant and vital women and a courageous, principled advocate for the highest standards of artistic and humanistic achievement."

In addition to Richard, the advisory panel included Linda Hoeschler, Executive Director of the American Composers Forum; well-known composer Alvin Singleton, and Dr. Ronald A. Crutcher, who coordinated the Award and was until this month Director of the UT School of Music. (Dr. Crutcher recently assumed the position of Executive Vice President and Provost of Miami University in Ohio.) UT School of Music Composition faculty includes Donald Grantham, Russell Pinkston, Kevin Putz, and Dan Welcher.

Chen Yi

Dr. Chen's compositions, which include orchestral works, choral and instrumental music, instrumental solos, and works for Chinese instrumental orchestra and ensembles, have been performed worldwide. Her music has been praised for its "fascinating cultural interweavings" that draw on the Chinese tradition and contemporary musical technique.

She has had major commissions from the Koussevitzky, Fromm, Ford, Rockefeller Foundations; Chamber Music America, the Creative Work Fund, San Francisco Art Commission, Carnegie Hall, New Heritage Music Foundation, the American Guild of Organists. She received Meet the Composer grants for the Women's, Brooklyn, and Los Angeles Philharmonics. Other commissions include New Music Consort, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Chanticleer, San Francisco Citywinds and San Francisco Girls Chorus, Music From China, Yehudi Menuhin, Yo-Yo Ma, James Galway, Evelyn Glennie and Singapore Symphony, the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, the Kronos Quartet, the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra, and many others.

Dr. Chen, the Lorena Searcey Cravens/Millsap/Missouri Distinguished Professor in Composition at the Conservatory of the University of Missouri Kansas City, was born in Guangzhou, China, and studied violin and piano from the age of three. Her initial training was at the Beijing Central Conservatory (B.A. and M.A.) and later at Columbia University (D.M.A.), where she studied with Mario Davidovsky and Chou Wen-chung. She has served on the composition faculty of Peabody Conservatory at Johns Hopkins University and was Composer-in-Residence of the Women's Philharmonic and Chanticleer in San Francisco.

Chen Yi's compositions have been recorded on the New Albion, CRI, Teldec, Nimbus, Cala, Avant Atma, and China Record Corporation labels.

Webliography:

Chen Yi
www.presser.com/chen.html

University of Texas at Austin
www.utexas.edu/

Read Chen Yi's personal description of American music in Hymn & Fuguing Tune: www.newmusicbox.org/hymn/index.html#chen

Listen to excerpts of Chen Yi's music: www.newmusicbox.org/third-person/aug99/immigrants4.html#chen www.newmusicbox.org/first-person/jun99/interview8.html#ge