Works performed by Earplay:

At the Kansas City Chinese New Year Concert
Happy Rain on a Spring Night
Song in Winter
Tunes from My Home
YangKo

A prolific composer who blends Chinese and Western traditions, transcending cultural and musical boundaries, Chen Yi received the prestigious Charles Ives Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2001 and was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2005. She is the Cravens/Millsap/Missouri Distinguished Professor at the Conservatory of Music and Dance at the University of Missouri / Kansas City and received the UMKC Kauffman Award in Faculty Service in 2012.

Born in China, Chen Yi has received bachelor and masters degrees in music composition from the Central Conservatory in Beijing and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Columbia University. Her composition teachers have included Wu Zu-qiang, Chou Wen-chung, Mario Davidovsky, and Alexander Goehr. She has served as Composer-in-Residence for the Women’s Philharmonic, the vocal ensemble Chanticleer, and Aptos Creative Arts Center, and as a member of the composition faculty at Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University.

She has received fellowships and commissioning awards in the US from Guggenheim Foundation, American Academy of Arts and Letters, Fromm Foundation, Koussevitzky Music Foundation, and National Endowment for the Arts. Honors include a first prize from the Chinese National Composition Competition, the Lili Boulanger Award, the NYU Sorel Medal Award, the CalArts/Alpert Award, the UT Eddie Medora King Composition Prize, the ASCAP Concert Music Award, the Elise Stoeger Award from Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and the Friendship Ambassador Award from Edgar Snow Fund. She has received honorary Doctorates from Lawrence University, Baldwin-Wallace College, University of Portland, and The New School University. She has been appointed by the China Ministry of Education to the prestigious Cheung Kong Scholar Visiting Professor at the Beijing Central Conservatory of Music, and Thousand talents Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Tianjin Conservatory of Music.

Her music is published by Theodore Presser Company, performed worldwide, and recorded on Bis, New Albion, CRI, Teldec (Grammy Award for Colors of Love), Nimbus, Cala, Avant, Atma, Hugo, Angel, Albany, Koch International Classics, Delos, Centaur, Eroica, Capstone, Quartz, China Record Co., New World (NPR Top 10 Classical Music Album Award for Sound of the Five), and Naxos, among many others.