Prior to his arrival in the United States in 1998, Mr. Chen performed as principal violist with a number of orchestras in Taiwan including the Taipei Metropolitan Symphony, Taiwan String Orchestra, the Taipei Opera Symphony Orchestra, and the Taipei Century Orchestra, among others. As a soloist, Mr. Chen performed concerti with the National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan, the Taipei Civic Symphony Orchestra and the National Defense Symphony Orchestra. As a guest artist, Mr. Chen has performed with numerous ensembles, including the Boston Chamber Music Society, Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra, and the Gardner Museum Chamber Ensemble in Boston, where he was the principal violist from 1999-2002. An advocate chamber musician, Mr. Chen has been performing with internationally renowned artists such as Colin Carr, Elliott Carter, John Corigliano, Toshio Hosokawa, Ani and Ida Kavafian, Yo-Yo Ma, William Preucil, George Perle, Paula Robison, members of American, Arditti, Brentano, Cleveland, Emerson, Guarneri, Mendelssohn and Miami string quartets. A founding member of the Great Wall String Quartet resides in Beijing’s Great Wall International Summer Academy, Mr. Chen has regularly performed and toured extensively in Asian countries which includes China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Macau and Taiwan.

 

As the only string quartet invited by United Nation, the quartet has participated in a documentary film for the 2009 World’s Heritage Festival, in which their DVD recording is in stock of the UN’s library archive. The quartet has recently released their debut album titled “The Great Wall” in 2012. Besides his performing career, Mr. Chen is a dedicated educator for the next generation. Being a guest professor of National Taiwan University of Arts, his international teaching appearances in variable settings such as master-classes, chamber music and concerto performances were highly acclaimed. Over the years, Mr. Chen has successfully conducted more than fifty master-classes in universities and music conservatories in Europe, Asia and North America. In 2009, Mr. Chen was invited to be Macau Youth Symphony’s Oversea Honorary Advisor. Also, his achievements and generous contributions to music education have been highly recognized by Governments of Macau and Hong Kong. Mr. Chen holds a Doctoral degree from State University of New York at Stony Brook; both a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree from the New England Conservatory in Boston, where he received highest distinction in performance on both degrees. His teachers include Ben Lin, James Dunham, Martha Katz, Katherine Murdock and Nobuko Imai. Mr. Chen currently resides in San Diego where he is a member San Diego Symphony Orchestra and an artist faculty in viola/chamber music performance of San Diego State University.