It’s a statement that an upper-midwestern orchestra and this community of Historically Black Colleges can welcome each other, learn from each other, and feel at home together.

The Springfield Symphony Orchestra (SSO) has announced that internationally-acclaimed conductor Mei-Ann Chen–who was guest conductor for the SSO’s 2023-24 opening night performance–is joining the SSO in the newly-created position of Artistic Advisor, effective for the 2024-25 season.

In her new position with the SSO, Maestra Chen will serve as the orchestra’s artistic face, curating programs, selecting guest soloists and facilitating other artistic needs. Chen will also conduct a minimum of two symphonic concerts per season. At the same time, the SSO will continue to engage guest conductors in performances of the Symphony.

"The Chicago Sinfonietta upheld one of its integral annual customs despite Sunday’s frigid temperatures, presenting its Martin Luther King Jr. Tribute Concert at Wentz Concert Hall in Naperville. In keeping with tradition, the matinee program centered on works by black American composers, this year featuring works by Scott Joplin, Xavier Foley, and Margaret Bonds.oncerto for contrabass, heard here in its Chicagoland debut.

"Sinfonietta music director Mei-Ann Chen offered her ebullient advocacy both in extolling the works’ virtue and through her dedicated, enthusiastic conducting—none more so than in Xavier Foley’s “Victory” Concerto for contrabass, heard here in its Chicagoland debut. "-Chicago Classical Review

"Chen has since established a celebrated conducting career and is in demand internationally across Europe, Asia, and the Americas. But her primary post is with the Chicago Sinfonietta; she has served as the orchestra’s music director since 2011, and her contract was recently extended through ​​the end of the 2028-2029 season."

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Chen has held the position since 2011 and has been renewed through to the end of the 2028/29 season

The Board of the Chicago Sinfonietta has voted unanimously to renew the contract of its Music Director Mei-Ann Chen through to the end of the 2028/29 season — adding another four years to her tenure. The 36-year-old first joined the orchestra in 2011 and has made championing diversity, equity, and inclusion a focus of her time there.

The Board of the Chicago Sinfonietta has unanimously elected to extend Chen's contract through the 2028-29 season.

The Board of the Chicago Sinfonietta has unanimously elected to extend Music Director Mei-Ann Chen's contract through the 2028-29 season, for another four years. Maestra Chen has served the Chicago area as Music Director of the 36-year-old award-winning cultural leader and powerful champion of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging since 2011. During her tenure as the orchestra's second Music Director, she has continually redefined orchestra programming and strongly positioned the organization at the forefront of bold, innovative initiatives that have helped to build bridges with all sectors of the community and industry attention to the organization.

Episode 40: Orchestrating Connection

"Taiwanese American conductor Mei-Ann Chen joins The Active Share podcast with as much energy and enthusiasm as she brings to the orchestra. As the music director for the Chicago Sinfonietta and chief conductor of recreation of the Grosses Orchester Graz at Styriarte in Austria, Mei-Ann has broken barriers as the first female Asian conductor in this role. Tune in as she shares her journey, her unique approach to conducting, and the power of music in connecting humanity."

The Spoleto Festival USA Orchestra series will present an impressive lineup of world-renowned conductors and early-career musicians at the Charleston Gaillard Center in the coming week for what is bound to be a highlight of the summer once again.

John Kennedy, Spoleto’s resident conductor and director of orchestral activities, kicks off the symphonic series June 5 with Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring” and the U.S. premiere of Philip Glass’s latest Symphony No. 14 , followed by the Spoleto debut on June 7 of Chicago Sinfonietta music director Mei-Ann Chen. The third concert on June 9 celebrates the long-awaited homecoming of two Charleston natives, conductor Jonathon Heyward and pianist Micah McLaurin.

“Be prepared for a lot of joy and energy in the music,” Kennedy said. “We’re so proud of our orchestra. It always is this amazing creature that comes alive for only one month a year.”

"But the best was yet to come. Beethoven's Fourth Symphony is somewhat neglected in comparison to its neighbours, the Eroica Symphony (No. 3) and the famous Fifth Symphony. Nevertheless, in the hands of a conductor like Mei-Ann Chen, this symphony sounds glorious. Chen is a highly communicative conductor. ... The audience was spellbound throughout. ... Overall, this was the happiest concert of the  season."

我們想讓你知道的是: 2021年，台灣指揮家陳美安，正式獲聘為奧地利施第利亞格拉茲創藝樂團為期五年的首席指揮，也是首位獲得奧地利交響樂團聘約的女性亞裔指揮，在樂壇締造自己的新里程碑，成為台灣音樂學子心目中的嚮往之光。而這名指揮家，經過何種歷練才能夠有今日的成績？

「為了夢想，你可以付出多少努力？」

"We've been hearing about numerous identified and unidentified flying objects in recent weeks... But until now, not a word about the meteor that struck the Knight Theater in the heart of Uptown Charlotte. Her name is Mei-Ann Chen.... Chen's impact on - and appeal to - the Symphony's musicians and subscribers was nothing short of electric."

December 31, 2022, and January 1, 2023, Taiwanese American conductor Mei-Ann Chen will step in to replace conductor Marin Alsop (who is under doctor's orders not to travel as she recovers from the flu) in the Minnesota Orchestra's New Year's Eve concerts. She will lead the orchestra in a dynamic program of gorgeous melodies and rich colors beginning with Bernstein's lively Overture to Candide, followed by the Minnesota premiere of Jessie Montgomery's Rounds for Piano and Orchestra, written for and performed by pianist Awadagin Pratt. Rimsky-Korsakov's adventurous Scheherazade closes the concert. These performances mark Maestra Chen's debut with Minnesota Orchestra.

"...the music, while of varying qualities, had such an extravagance of inspiration, such pitch perfect artistry (led by the great Mei Ann Chen), and such imagination, that one wanted to yell out, “Stop! Let’s hear this again! Let’s catch our breath.”

Music director Mei-Ann Chen and the Sinfonietta landed one of their most sensitive supporting performances in recent memory in Sierra’s concerto.

...

But there were further heights still to come, like Chen and Sinfonietta’s crisp, striding account of Ottorino Respighi’s “Pines of Rome.” Chen, who tends to fire on all cylinders early on and stay there in extroverted rep, reined in the majestic final movement so the orchestra didn’t fully crest until the piece’s end. The payoff was sublime, as were inner-movement solos by principal clarinetist Leslie Grimm and English hornist June Matayoshi.

"Youthful enthusiasm apart, much of the concert’s success and appeal was due to Chen’s magnetic presence on the podium as much as the programming. The three works—Jessie Montgomery’s Soul Force, George Gershwin’s Concerto in F, and Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances—provided ample opportunity for entire sections to shine and soloists to strut their stuff. It was not only a laudable educational project, but highly enjoyable and a lot of fun."

"The label [Cedille] has had a commitment not only to boosting local artists and musicians but artists and musicians of color. One Cedille regular has been the Chicago Sinfonietta, which is the most diverse orchestra in the United States."

"Most of this year’s planned tributes to Beethoven’s 250th birthday have been canceled due to the pandemic, so one welcomed the Sinfonietta’s contribution, which proved characteristically unorthodox. Rather than offer something wholly familiar, Chen led the Sinfonietta strings in Jeffrey L. Briggs' arrangement of two movements from Beethoven’s Piano Sonata Op. 13, “Pathetique.” This may have seemed like a bit of a stunt, in that this music is so inherently pianistic. But there were new pleasures to be drawn from this arrangement. In the adagio cantabile second movement (mistakenly identified onscreen as the third movement), Chen conjured considerable tenderness and introspection. And in the last movement, the conductor took a slower tempo than pianists usually do, giving the music a degree of grandeur it rarely receives.

The concert opened with Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man” and included Valerie Coleman’s arrangement of the South African National Anthem. Both works proved the value of elegantly stated populism and underscored the Sinfonietta’s message of optimism in the face of global adversity."