Sean Chen
Host - Sounds Like with Sean ChenA “thoughtful musician well beyond his years” (The Republic), pianist Sean Chen shares his “alluring, colorfully shaded renditions” (New York Times) and “genuinely sensitive” (LA Times) playing with audiences around the world in solo and chamber recitals, concerto performances, and masterclasses, after having won the 2013 American Piano Awards, placing third at the 2013 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, and being named a 2015 Annenberg Fellow. Mr. Chen is the Jack Strandberg/Missouri Endowed Chair Associate Professor of Piano at the UMKC Conservatory.
Mr. Chen resides in the suburbs of Kansas City with his wife, Betty, a violinist in the Kansas City Symphony, and their daughters Ella and Maeve. When not at the piano, Mr. Chen enjoys tinkering with computers, and exploring math, science, and programming. Mr. Chen is a Steinway Artist and is managed by Jonathan Wentworth Associates, Ltd.
More at seanchenpiano.com.
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Is "Chopsticks" the most famous piece of classical music ever written? “The Celebrated Chop Waltz,” as it was originally titled, was composed by a 16 year old girl. It was her only published work, but boy what an impact. -
Franz Schubert and Ludwig van Beethoven created poetry at the piano, but what does it have to do with Pterodactyls? -
From rippling water to beams of light, composers like Maurice Ravel and Claude Debussy figured out how to translate the visual into something you can hear. -
There’s no controlling the weather, but composers attempt to harness its power to create musical drama. -
Of the "Scene by the Brook" movement from his Symphony No. 6, Beethoven said that " the yellow buntings overhead, the quails, the nightingales, and the cuckoos composed with me." -
Whether you're swimming for your life in the open ocean, or evoking the promise of a new world, sometimes all you need is two notes -
The similarities between Erich Wolfgang Korngold's score to "Kings Row," the 1942 film starring Ronald Reagan, and John Williams' "Luke's theme" from Star Wars are hard to miss. -
For the music he composed to accompany our droid friends C-3PO and R2-D2 as they wander the Dune Sea on the planet Tatooine, John Williams was clearly inspired by the bleakness of Igor Stravinsky's “Sacrifice” movement from the Rite of Spring. -
Billy Joel has called classical music "the girl next door," but he ended up being seduced by a rock-n-roll temptress. -
The "Lament Bass” is a descending bassline that has evoked deep sadness and mourning for pretty much all of music history.
