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Xiaoyong Chen Xiaoyong Chen Sound
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Chen Xiaoyong was born in Peking in 1955, where he first studied violin and then composition from 1980 until 1985 at the Central Conservatory. He completed studies immediately afterwards with György Ligeti in 1989 at the Academy of Music and Theatre in Hamburg.
Chen celebrated his European debut as a composer in 1987 at the Donaueschingen Music Days with the premiere performance of his FIRST STRING QUARTET by the Auryn Quartet. In 1992 the orchestral work DYEH... was premiered as a commissioned work of the Southwest German Radio in Baden-Baden. During the same year Chen was awarded the composition prize of West German Radio's Young Composers' Forum for his composition "YÜN" for soprano and 11 instrumentalists, which was launched by Peter Eötvös with the Ensemble Modern in Cologne, then subsequently presented in Leipzig and Dresden. His WARP for chamber ensemble and the FIRST STRING QUARTET were performed during the course of a tour of the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen in Amsterdam and Vienna. Since then there has been an intensive collaboration with this orchestra out of which three composition commissions have arisen: WARP (1994), EVAPORA (1996) and INVISIBLE LANDSCAPES (1998). The Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie produced the portrait CD entitled Invisible Landscapes in 1999 in cooperation with Radio Bremen; this CD was awarded the highest number of points in all five quality categories in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik. Also in 1999, he wrote the orchestral work INTERLACED LANDSCAPES, which was commissioned by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation; this work received seven performances with the Orquesta Gulbenkian under Muhai Tang on a tour through China and Portugal. The composition FUSION for ensemble was written in the year 2000 to a commission from the cellist Yo-Yo Ma for his Silk Road Project. The composition XI-FUSION III for ensemble was given its world premiere as a commission from the Asia-Africa Institute of the University of Hamburg in June 2002.
Chen Xiaoyong belongs to a small group of Chinese composers who have very recently aroused great attention on an international scale. He has worked with numerous orchestras and ensembles; these include the Southwest Radio Symphony Orchestra Baden-Baden, the KBS Symphony Orchestra Seoul, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, State Philharmonic Orchestra Hamburg, National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan, Gulbenkian Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble Modern, London Sinfonietta, Ensemble 2e2m Paris, Ensemble work in progress Berlin, Nieuw Ensemble Amsterdam, Silk Road Ensemble New York, Auryn Quartet, Arditti String Quartet, Kairos Quartet, etc.
Performances of his works have meanwhile taken place on all continents, including most major European, American and Asian festivals. Chen is now working on several commissioned works for the ensemble acht (Hamburg), Art Point/ensemble Musica Temporale (Dresden), Norrkörrping Symphony Orchestra (Sweden), RTV Slovenia Symphony Orchestra, etc.
Chen Xiaoyong received the Christoph and Stephan Kaske Prize in Munich in 1993 and the Bach Prize Stipend of the Hansestadt Hamburg in 1995. Guest professorships have constantly taken him to Taiwan, Hong Kong and China since 1997. Chen has been an instructor at the Asia-Africa Institute of the University of Hamburg since 1987 and lives as a freelance composer in Hamburg.


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