Yao Chen's music always strikes the audience with its innovative ways of bridging the Eastern and Western music traditions together and its poetic telling of the composer's innermost thoughts.  While devoting himself mainly in writing contemporary art music, Yao also often experiments with other genres such as film and theatre music.

His music has been performed by the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Orchestre National de Lorraine, Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, Pacifica String Quartet, Diotima Quatuor, eighth blackbird, Camerata Woodwind Quintet, Qilin Duet, New Fromm Players, TianYing Chinese Ensemble, Beijing New Music Ensemble, etc.  In the past few years, Yao has collaborated with many international stellar musicians including conductors Cliff Colnot and Rei Hotoda, Chinese pipa players Yang Wei and Lan WeiWei, Chinese bamboo flutist Zhang Weiliang, double bassist DaXun Zhang, sopranos Tony Arnold and Allison Angelo, pianist Nareh Arghamanyan, bayan players Luo Han and Stanislav Venglevski. He has also received commissions and awards from Radio France, Barnett Family Foundation Flute Competition, Art Institute of Chicago & Silk Road Chicago Project, TMSK Liu Tianhua Composition competition, and ECU New Music Orchestra Composition Competition, etc.

Yao has shared his music with audiences at many music festivals throughout the world, including the Radio France Festival Presences, Tanglewood Music Festival, Aspen Music Festival, Centre Acanthes Festival, Moscow International Accordion Competition, the First International Tianjin Accordion Festival, U.S. Midwest Graduate Music Consortium, Chicago Contempo Concerts, June In Buffalo Contemporary Festival, SoundField Music Festival, soundSCAPE Music Festival, ECU New Music Festival and W.I.U. New Music Festival.   Recently, Yao has been invited to attend the 90th Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan, where his latest piece "Tangents" will be premiered.            

Yao embarked on his lifelong musical journey from P.R.China.   He received rigorous training in composition & theory at the prestigous Xinghai Conservatory of Music in Guangzhou and Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, where he worked with distinguished professors such as Cao Guangping, Yan Dong, Su Xia, Yao Henglu and Gao Weijie.  After coming to the United States in 2001, he further pursues studies in composition at the University of Chicago under the guidance of world-renowned composers Shulamit Ran and Marta Ptaszynska. While completing his Ph.D. degree, he has lectured in the Collegiate Division of the University of Chicago since 2004.  Starting from August 2009, Yao will start teaching at the Music School of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

(Yao is his surname, and Chen is his first name)