Pei-Wen Chen

Born in Taipei, Taiwan, Ms. Chen graduated from the National Academy of Art with the highest honor and performed Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 in 1990. In 1992, Ms. Chen entered the Mannes College The New School for Music in New York and studied with Nina Svetlanova. In 1994, she performed Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on the Theme of Paganini with the Mannes Orchestra conducted by Maestro Michael Charry. Shortly after graduating from Mannes with a special piano award, Ms. Chen made her debut at the Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in 1995.

Since then, Ms. Chen has been regularly performing solo and chamber music works throughout the U.S.A., France, Germany, and Italy, to name but a few. In 1998, she joined the production of Fedora alongside Plácido Domingo and Mirella Freni at the Washington Opera. Ms. Chen has been working with artists such as Licia Albanese, Elly Ameling, Martha Eggerth-Kiepura, Regina Resnik, and Jon Vickers among others. From 1998 to 2002, Ms. Chen was the pianist for the Metropolitan Opera Guild productions such as “Growing Up with Opera.”

Ms. Chen performs annually at the Alexander Paley Chamber Music Festival in Richmond, VA, as well as in Moulin d’Ande in France. In December 2001, Ms. Chen made her Paris debut at Salle Olivier Messiaen in Maison de Radio France with Concerto Pathetique for two pianos by Liszt. In 2003, Ms. Chen performed Scheherazade by Rimsky-Korsakov (the composer’s own arrangement for one piano, four hands) in Seattle, WA. This performance was broadcasted live worldwide on king.org. In March 2004, Ms. Chen performed the Mozart and Mendelssohn Piano Concertos for two pianos with the Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra and pianist Alexander Paley in Vilnius, Lithuania, which was broadcast on T.V. Recordings of Ms. Chen playing Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade, the complete 4-hands cycles by Dvorák, and pieces by Johann Christian Bach, Charles Valentin Alkan, and Tchaikovsky are available on CD (edition: Alexander Paley music festival LIVE).

Ms. Chen is a member of faculty at Mannes College The New School for Music since 1999.