ANAM Set 2024 Composer: Work Title and Instrumentation to be announced.
About the composer:
Andrew Chen (he/him) is a composer of eclectic tastes and output – who, all the same, is often singularly inspired in the first instance by the layered, emotional qualities of human experience. Recent works have centered on ‘anthropomorphosis’ – particularly, the material sources, processes, and catalysts by which one embeds or perceives the embedding of entity within music.
Having grown up in Naarm on Wurundjeri country, Andrew is now based in London. He was a Royal Philharmonic Society Composer for 2021-22, and has enjoyed past collaborations with several musicians and ensembles including Wu Wei, the Gould Trio, and Ensemble Offspring.
Andrew also actively maintains performance practice as a jazz pianist and improviser; he was the recipient of the 2021 Dankworth Award for Jazz Composition, and regularly plays in a variety of solo, combo, and other ensemble settings – including performances at the Royal Albert Hall, the Barbican, and Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club, as well as onstage appearances with the National Youth Jazz Orchestra (UK), and alongside Hermeto Pascoal e Grupo.
Beyond his own creative practice, Andrew is a dedicated, passionate advocate for new music and the musicians behind it. He is a Producer and Curator at ScoreFollower, and currently sits on the Ivors Academy’s Classical Council. He was also previously an inaugural ABRSM Composer Mentee (2021-22).
Andrew studied at the Royal College of Music, London, with Alison Kay, Simon Holt, and Jonathan Cole, and enjoys occasionally returning to the RCM's Junior Department as a Deputy Teacher of Composition, Jazz Piano, and Musicianship.
For more about Andrew, visit his website at: andrewchen.ac/