Andrew Chen

Andrew Chen is a Melbourne-born, London-based composer, whose recent works have centered on anthropomorphosis and percepts of 'the human' – particularly, the material sources, processes, and catalysts by which one embeds or perceives the embedding of agents or entities within a music.

 

He is a current Royal Philharmonic Society Composer (2021-22), and has enjoyed past collaborations with a number of musicians and ensembles including Wu Wei, Explore Ensemble (UK), The Hermes Experiment (UK), Laefer Quartet (UK), Ensemble Offspring (AUS), and the National Children's Orchestras of Great Britain. Most recently, he had a set of commissions premiered by the Gould Piano Trio and Merton College Choir, at Cheltenham Music Festival 2022.

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Andrew also actively maintains an extensive and varied performance practice as a jazz pianist and free improviser;  he was the recipient of the 2021 Dankworth Award for Jazz Composition, and regularly undertakes a wide range of engagements in solo, combo, and other ensemble settings – including performances at the Royal Albert Hall, the Barbican, and Band on the Wall, and onstage appearances with the National Youth Jazz Orchestra (UK), and alongside Hermeto Pascoal e Grupo.

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Beyond his own creative practice, Andrew is a dedicated, passionate advocate for all forms of new music, and the musicians behind it. He is a Producer and Curator at ScoreFollower, the world’s most widely distributed free-to-access online platform for the dissemination of works by living composers, both as 'score videos' and through other related media, with a particular focus on widening access, and availability as an educational resource. He is also a member of The Ivors Academy's Classical Council and cross-genre Youth Council, and previously was an inaugural ABRSM Composer Mentee (2021-22).

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Andrew studied at the Royal College of Music, London, with Alison Kay, Simon Holt, and Jonathan Cole, as a
Noël Coward Composition Scholar.