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With a playful approach to performing that includes improvisation and surprising repertoire, pianist Sean Chen is always looking for new threads to pull.
Growing up, Chen was drawn to the piano as an extension of the tactile appeal of Lego. Music was a passion as was math, computers and video games.
“Being a musician, you have to interpret things and there’s a lot of subjectivity,” says Chen, “and, at least in academic math, there is a right answer. It's a process; there's a procedure; you learn how to do it, so I really enjoyed that aspect of it.”
Accepted to both Harvard and MIT, Chen ultimately attended Julliard, and later Yale, to focus on music studies.
In 2013 his star began to rise, winning the American Piano Awards and placing third at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.
This success led to album recordings and performances with major orchestras around the world.
In 2016, Chen moved to Kansas City when his wife Betty Chen joined the first violin section of the Kansas City Symphony. The next year, he started as artist-in-residence at the UMKC Conservatory, and in 2024 started teaching full-time as the Jack Strandberg/Missouri Endowed Chair Associate Professor of Piano.
As a teacher, Chen enjoys working with the next generation of pianists to overcome musical challenges and find their own voice.
“I want my students to be able to problem solve,” Chen explains. “I hope that I can make them feel empowered, not to be dejected when something is difficult.”
As a performer, improvisation is a tool Sean embraces to underscore the human element of music making and keep audiences on their toes.
“You have to feel kind of shameless and just go for it, and if it fails, it fails. If it works well, it works well,” jokes Chen.
Chen brings his classical expertise and improvisation skills to Classical KC with “Sounds Like with Sean Chen,” where he encourages listeners to hear music with a fresh perspective, play a fun game of aural association, and submit their own ideas.
During weekly bite-sized segments, he cleverly weaves together melodic ideas, making a myriad of classical music connections from the Baroque to pop music, choral compositions and electric vehicle sounds, or unearthing musical easter-eggs and hidden messages from composers like Johann Sebastian Bach, Robert Schumann and Dimitri Shostakovich.
“It's like hanging out at the piano with somebody who's got a lot of time to be at the piano and listen to a lot of music,” explains Sean, “and I'm just really excited to be able to share that with audience members.”
You can see the broadcast schedule for “Sounds Like with Sean Chen,” listen to episodes and submit your own mashup idea at classicalkc.org/soundslike.
“Sounds Like with Sean Chen” is made possible with support from the UMKC Friends of the Conservatory.
