Chen Yi-Wei

Chen Yi-wei

Principal Sheng of the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra, Chen joined the HKCO in 2011 and has been serving in current position since 2016. A native of Taichung, Taiwan, Chen was a multiple winner of sheng solo in music competitions in Taiwan. He later graduated, respectively, from the NTUA with a sheng major and the College of Human Ecology of the Shih Chien University in Taipei with a piano major. His teachers included many virtuosi in Chinese and Western music - Kuo Hsiu-Jung, Chang Ching-Lung, Zhu Daming and Tsai Pei-Chen.

In November 2015, Chen curated the first sheng ensemble concert for the HKCO, ‘Sheng Clusters’, in which he performed and premiered several of his new compositions and arrangements. In the HKCO concert ‘Music Styles of Virtuosi North and South’ held in April 2016, Chen gave the Hong Kong premiere of the Chinese orchestral arrangement of the sheng concerto, Solar Planet. He reprised the role of curator for the sheng ensemble concert, ‘Resonating Reeds – Shengs and Pipes from Around the World’ in October that year, and released several of his arrangements and original works on that occasion. In June 2017, he was a member of the sheng ensemble playing Rainbow at the concert, ‘The Lustrous Pearl - In Celebration of the 20th Anniversary of the Establishment of the HKSAR’. In March and September 2018, he performed the sheng concerto, Ambush on All Sides, with the HKCO at the concert ‘Liu Bang, Xiang Yu and the Terra Cotta Warrirors’, a programme of the 46th Hong Kong Arts Festival, as well as at the Singapore Tour. He was invited to perform the organ and sheng concerto, Reeds, at the Opening Ceremony of the WeiWuYing National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts (Oct 2018), the ‘MADE in Taiwan’ concert organised by Kwang Hwa Information and Culture Center (Nov 2018), at KKL Luzern, Switzerland, Bozar Brussels, Belgium, Müpa Budapest, Hungary and Kulturpalast Dresden, Germany (Jan – Feb 2020) and Esplanade - Theatres on the Bay, Singapore (Feb 2023).

In 2022, Chen was commissioned by the NCO to compose the zhongruan concerto Tai Chi as the compulsory work for Final in the NCO Music Competition 2023 ‘Rising Star of Zhongruan’.