Beatrice Chen is an award-winning violist who hails from Chicago. Chen has won first prize in competitions including the Johansen International Competition for Young String Players and Albert M. Greenfield Competition. In 2019, she was named a finalist and Silver Medalist in Classical Music from the National YoungArts Foundation. She was a member of the Grant Park Orchestra in 2022 and is currently pursuing her Bachelor’s degree in Viola Performance at the Curtis Institute of Music, studying with Ed Gazouleas.
Chen was featured on the 2020 HearNOW Gala of the Philadelphia Orchestra. During the 2022/23 season, she will make her debut with Philadelphia Orchestra on a family concert conducted by Lina González-Granados in Paganini’s Sonata per la Gran Viola. As a solo violist, Chen has also performed on NPR’s From the Top, WFMT, and on the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert Series.
As a member of the Chen String Quartet (Robert and Laura Chen, violins; Beatrice Chen, viola; and Noah Chen, cello), she was featured in more than 100 virtual concerts since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
As a baroque violinist, Chen has performed with the Curtis Collegium and Choral Arts Philadelphia and is pursuing a Certificate in Historical Performance, studying with Cynthia Roberts, Leon Schelhase, and Matthew Glandorf.
Chen has participated in Music@Menlo and the Aspen Music Festival and School, studying with Victoria Chiang. She has served as principal violist of the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras and the Curtis Symphony Orchestra. She currently plays on a 2015 viola by Keisuke Hori.
