Ixi Chen

Clarinet

Born in Taiwan and raised in California, Ixi Chen enjoys an active career as an orchestral player, chamber musician, artistic director, and educator. Following her studies at the Manhattan School of Music and the University of Southern California, Ixi accepted the post of Second Clarinet of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in 2001 and made the Queen City her new home. In 2004, she joined the clarinet faculty of the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, and in 2006, she founded the chamber ensemble concert:nova whose fusion of traditional and contemporary elements seeks to cultivate a new audience for art music.

 Ixi’s commitment to diverse experiences has taken her around the globe. She has participated in numerous music festivals, including those at Aspen, Tanglewood, Evian, Schleswig-Holstein, Rheingau, Jerusalem, Thessoloniki, and Saint Petersburg. In 1996, she moved to Germany, where she played Principal Clarinet and Assistant Principal/E-flat Clarinet with the Philharmonic of the Nations and later attended the Hochschule fur Musik in Karlsruhe. In 1998, she settled in Los Angeles, where she pursued graduate work at USC and served as the Principal Clarinet of the American Symphony. In 2007, Ixi participated in the Munich ARD Festival, and she subsequently toured Europe with the Festival’s chamber musicians.

 Ixi’s orchestral concerts have been featured on several media broadcasts: ZDF (German television), NordDeutsche Rundfunk (NDR; North German Radio), SudDeutsche Rundfunk (SDR; South German Radio), KUSC Los Angeles, KQED San Francisco, and WGUC Cincinnati. She has also collaborated on recording projects with the Cincinnati Symphony on the Telarc label and the Philharmonic of the Nations on Handel Classic Audio. In addition, she has been a frequent performer in the Linton Chamber Music series in Cincinnati, the Manhattan Chamber Music Group in New York, and the Philharmonic Winds in Germany. While in Los Angeles, Ixi founded and developed ensemble infinity, a precursor to her group concert:nova, and for the Old Town Conservatory of Music and the Performing Arts, she authored Adventures in Music, a 36-week script that formed the core of the school’s music outreach program.

 Ixi’s teachers include Rosario Mazzeo; Gary Gray at UCLA; David Krakauer at MSM; Wolfgang Meyer at the Hochschule fur Musik; and Yehuda Gilad at USC. She is proud to be a Buffet Crampon artist.