Faculty

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.From 1998 to 2002, Ms. Chen was the pianist for the Metropolitan Opera Guild productions such as “Growing Up with Opera.”As a collaborative artist, Ms. Chen has worked with artists including Licia Abanese, Elly Ameling, Regina Resnik, Jon Vickers, Evelyn Lear, Diane Soviero, Deborah Voigt, Ruth Falcon, Mignon Dunn, Sherril Milnes, and Olga Peretyako, among others.  In 1998, she joined the production of Fedora for Washington Opera.  In addition, Ms. Chen served as a pianist for the Metropolitan Opera Guild as well as Amato Opera,New York Lyric Opera Theatre ,Regina Opera in NYC for many seasons.  She has been a member of the music faculty for IVAI in both Virginia and NYC, CVAI in Canada, as well as a faculty member for VOICExperience in Florida, CoOperative at Rider University and Savannah Voice Festival .

Highlights of Ms. Chen’s past engagements include concerts in Washington, D.C. as well as in Virginia and Maine, piano duo concerts in France, and Bach Concerti in Lithuania.  Additionally, she has served as coach and conductor for operas including Der Schauspieldirektor by Mozart, The Telephone by Menotti, Incoronazione di Poppea by Monteverdi, and Alcina and Ariodante by Handel in concert version with New York Lyric Opera ;Czerny piano Concerto for one piano, four hands in Modolva and  complete Rachmaninoff music for two pianos in France. In the spring of 2017, Ms. Chen was the official pianist of the Classical Singers Magazine Competition in Shanghai.In 2020,Ms Chen served as a jury member for many international online voice competitions in Russia,China and US.

         Since 2021,Ms.Chen has joined New Camerata Opera in New York City for their  productions both in operas and concerts.In spring,2022,Ms Chen played a  series of concerts in the project of complete Brahms chamber music for piano duets,including Brahms liebeslieder waltzs and Neue liebeslieder walzes with the soloists from the Lithuanian State Opera in Vilnius.In April 2022,Ms Chen  premiered “Hommage a Rachmaninoff für 2 Klaviere“ with husband Alexander Paley by reknown German composer Thomas Böttger in France.In August 2022,Ms Chen joined the Savannah Voice Festival in the production of Menotti’s Medium.

         Ms Chen has recorded complete Saint-Saens symphonies in the version for piano duo in season 2022-23 which will be soon released.In addition,she has  served as a rehearsal pianist for productions like Ravel’s “L’Heure Espangnole” ,Lili Boulanger’s”Faust et Helene” ,Mozart’s “Don Giovanni “ during the season.

          Ms Chen is a member of faculty at Mannes college of Music and Cali School at Montclair University.