Ke-Chia Chen

Musical Studies

Ke-Chia Chen’s compositions have been performed by leading orchestras, chamber ensembles, and soloists throughout the United States, Europe, South America, and Asia. Her music has been programmed by a variety of esteemed venues and organizations, including Carnegie Hall, WHYY radio in Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Indianapolis Symphony, the Taiwan Philharmonic, and the Delaware Symphony Orchestra’s Miles of Manuscript new music series.

Dr. Chen has collaborated with the Philadelphia Orchestra on several projects, including commissions for Pope Francis’s visit to Philadelphia in 2015 and the orchestra’s performance at the 69th session of the United Nations General Assembly in 2014.

Her orchestral work Broken Crystal was the winner of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra’s Marilyn K. Glick Young Composers Competition and was selected as a finalist for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s Elaine Lebenbom Memorial Award for Female Composers. In 2016 her work The Silent Flame received first prize in the International Horn Society Composition Contest.

Dr. Chen has served as an artist in residence at the Ucross Foundation in Wyoming; composer in residence for Ensemble 212, the Colorado College Summer Music Festival, and Music at Angel Fire; and as a composition fellow at the Aspen Music Festival and School and the Pacific and Bowdoin International music festivals. She holds degrees from the Curtis Institute of Music and the Manhattan School of Music, as well as a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. She joined the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music in 2010.