As a prolific composer who blends Chinese and Western traditions, transcending cultural and musical boundaries, Dr. Chen Yi* is a recipient of the prestigious Charles Ives Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2001. She is the Cravens/Millsap/Missouri Distinguished Professor at the Conservatory of the University of Missouri-Kansas City. She has been elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2005, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2019.

Born in China, Ms. Chen has received bachelor and master’s degrees from the Central Conservatory in Beijing, and Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Columbia University in the City of New York. Her composition teachers included Prof. Wu Zu-qiang, Prof. Chou Wen-chung, and Prof. Mario Davidovsky. She has served as Composer-in-Residence for the Women’s Philharmonic, Chanticleer, and Aptos Creative Arts Center (93-96) supported by Meet The Composer, and on the composition faculty at Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University (96-98).

Fellowships and awards were received from Guggenheim Foundation (96), American Academy of Arts and Letters (96, 01), Fromm Foundation at Harvard University (94), Koussevitzky Music Foundation at the Library of Congress (97), and National Endowment for the Arts (94). Honors include the first prizes from the Chinese National Composition Competition (85, 12), the Lili Boulanger Award (93), the NYU Sorel Medal Award (96), the CalArts/Alpert Award (97), the UT Eddie Medora King Composition Prize (99), the ASCAP Concert Music Award (01), the Elise Stoeger Award (02) from Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Friendship Ambassador Award from Edgar Snow Fund (02), the UMKC Kauffman Award in Artistry/Scholarship and Faculty Service (06, 12, 19), and the Lifetime Achievement Award for Choral Music from the World Youth and Children Choral Artists Association (22). Honorary Doctorates are from Lawrence University (02), Baldwin-Wallace College (08), University of Portland (09), The New School University (10), and the University of Hartford (16). She has given numbers of whole evening concerts of her orchestral, chamber, and choral works around the world, and served as Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Beijing Central Conservatory of Music and Tianjin Conservatory, among many other schools and institutions in China and in the United States.

Her music is published by Theodore Presser Company, performed worldwide, and recorded on over 100 CDs, on Bis (02, 03, 04, 11), New Albion (97), CRI (99), Teldec (97, 99 w/ Grammy Award for Colors of Love, 03, 08), New World (08, 09 w/ NPR Top 10 Classical Music Album Award for Sound of the Five), Albany (04, 05, 06, 09, 11, 12, 14, 15, 19, 22), Naxos (07, 08, 09,12,15, 22), Bridge (09,14, 18), BMOP/sound (2018), and others on Delos, Angel, Nimbus, Cala, Avant, Atma, Hugo, Koch International Classics, Centaur, Eroica, Capstone, Quartz, Innova, DECCA, Navona, Etcetera, XAS, and China Record Co. since 1986.

* Chen is family name. Yi is personal name.