Born in Taiwan, Shih-Hui Chen has lived in the United States since 1982 and received her doctorate from Boston University. In addition to garnering a Koussevitzky Music Foundation Commission, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and an American Academy in Rome Prize, her compositions have been performed widely throughout the U.S. and abroad, including China, Japan, England, Germany, and Italy.
Chen currently serves on Asia Society Texas Center’s Performing Arts & Culture Committee. She is a Professor at the Shepherd School of Music, Rice University. Recent projects include: Withholding the Umbrella for the Chinese Orchestra; Ten Thousand Blooms, Falling Petals for the Pacific Rim Music Festival; and Messages From a Paiwan Village, a 75-minute storytelling musical drama. Her recent recording Returning Souls was hailed by Wire Magazine for its “deep musical intelligence.”
Creative works by Kurt Stallmann focus on breaking boundaries between environmental sound and music, and connecting the divide between improvisation and composition. Recent projects include Change Course a collaborative improvisatory work with saxophonist Steve Duke, Moon Crossings for fifteen performers, video, and surround sound, and Among Rivers, the fifth collaboration with filmmaker Alfred Guzzetti, a multi-media performance with live movement, 28 loudspeakers and 7 video projects commissioned and premiered at the Moody Center at the Rice University.
His work has been recognized through grants and commissions by Chamber Music America, Meet The Composer/New Music USA, Fromm Music Foundation, Fulbright Scholar Program, the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Stallmann serves as Professor of Music and Director of the Rice Electroacoustic Music Labs, Shepherd School of Music, Rice University.
Sheng virtuoso Wu Wei has performed internationally with groups such as the Berlin and Los Angeles Philharmonics, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble Intercontemporain, and the EnsembleModern. He has given over 400 world premieres, including works by John Cage, Unsuk Chin, and Liza Lim.
Mr. Wu studied at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music and at the Hanns Eisler Academy Berlin. He is a winner of the German music competition Musica Vitale, and was also the recipient of the German Global Root prize, German Record Critics’ Award, and the Edinburgh International Festival’s Herald Angels prize (2011). He was also named best soloist at the Chinese Music Awards (2017). Mr. Wu has recorded for Deutsche Grammophon, Sony, Harmonia Mundi, and Wergo. In 2015 his recording Unsuk Chin:3 Concertos(Deutsche Grammophon) garnered the International Classical Music Award and BBC Music Magazine Award.
Bassist Shawn Conley was born and raised in Hawaii. He studied at Rice University with Paul Ellison and in Paris, France with Francois Rabbath. He currently splits his time between Brooklyn, New York and Houston, Texas with his wife Megan, and their son Osian.
His recent projects include the Grammy Award-winning CD Sing Me Home with the Silk Road Ensemble and Yo-Yo Ma; multiple performances of the opera Layla and Majnun with the Mark Morris Dance Group and Silk Road; and US and European tours with French jazz singer Cyrille Aimée. Shawn is also a member of the Brooklyn-based chamber orchestra The Knights, and can be heard on their new record “Azul,” featuring Yo-Yo Ma.