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Composer and pianist Zixuan Chen strives to create music that challenges the traditional perception of time. His work often involves extreme time manipulation, simultaneously stretching materials to their absolute limits and compressing them into symbols that flash through in a fraction of a second.
He was recently selected to participate in the Lucerne Festival Academy Composer Seminar. He won first prize in the DeLillo Composition Competition at the Peabody Conservatory for his piano solo Bullet Time; other honors include first place in the Frost School of
Music with Ensemble Ibis Composition Competition for student composers, first place in the International Composer Competition "New Music Generation", and the Ballora-Wang Young Composer Award. His music has been performed by performers and ensembles including Brad Balliett, Carolina Santiago (Ensemble Linea), Chamber Project Saint Louis, TAK Ensemble, and the Mivos Quartet.
As a pianist, Zixuan is committed to promoting contemporary music and has premiered many works by his colleagues. He premiered Chenghao Li's piano concerto Carnal Inquiry with the Festival Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Gabriela Gómez Estévez at Cornell University. He is equally comfortable with classical repertoire, winning first place in the MTAC San Diego Concerto Competition, the Costa Rico Piano Festival International Competition, and the Odin International Piano Competition. He has performed the third movement of Rachmaninoff’s second piano concerto with Brandon Muresan conducting the Mira Costa College Orchestra.
Zixuan is currently pursuing his Bachelor of Music at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, studying composition with Felipe Lara and piano performance with Steven Spooner. His mentors include Eric Wubbels, Alyssa Weinberg, Oscar Bettison, John Rot, Chetan Tierra, and Yihsien Chen. He has had lessons with Katherine Balch, Clemens Gadenstätter, Georg Friedrich Haas, Sky Macklay, and Matthew Ricketts.
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