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The American bass-baritone singer abnd performing artist, Sydney Chen, studied at Tufts University (1989-1990); and obtained his Bachelor of Arts degree in English Language and Literature from Harvard University (1990-1993). He also attended courses in German Language and Literature (1997) and Chinese German Language and Literature (1999) at Middlebury Language Schools. He currently studies for Certificate of Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language/ESL Language Instructor at University of California UC Berkeley Extension (2021-2022).
Sydney Chen has been active as Self Employed Professional Vocalist and Performing Artist in San Francisco Bay Area since 1998. He has performed at Garden of Memory, an annual new-music extravaganza in Oakland, with sets of music for unaccompanied solo voice and arrangements for voice and DIY music boxes presented by New Music Bay Area (2008, 2019).
As a member of composer/choreographer Meredith Monk’s Vocal Ensemble (2012-2018), Sydney Chen has performed in On Behalf of Nature, Monk’s recent music theater work, which toured internationally, including at Edinburgh International Festival (2013) and Brooklyn Academy of Music (2014) and was recorded for ECM Records (2016). With the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra he traveled to Carnegie Hall to premiere Monk’s chamber work Realm Variations as part of the 2012 American Mavericks Festival. He participated in Meredith Monk 50th Anniversary and Meredith Monk and Friend concerts at Carnegie Hall (2015). He is also a co-founder of and singer in The M6 (since 2008), a New York-based vocal sextet dedicated to continuing Monk’s legacy, which has been heard on NPR and featured in The New York Times.
In recent seasons Sydney Chen has premiered Ryan Brown’s theatricalized “medical oratorio” Mortal Lessons (2015-2020); collaborated with the Friction Quartet on a program of new works for vocal quartet and string quartet; toured to Denmark with San Francisco Lyric Opera’s production of the little match girl passion by David Lang (2013); and performed Luciano Berio’s Sinfonia for eight voices and orchestra at UC Davis Mondavi Center for the Music and Words Festival (2015). He has been featured in the Other Minds Festival in Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein’s Capital Capitals with pianist Sarah Cahill, and in the premiere of Brian Baumbusch’s The Pressure, with a large ensemble of custom metallophones (2018, 2019). His most recent projects include The Furies, a new “laptopera” by Anne Hege for vocalists and laptop orchestra with Stanford Laptop Orchestra (2020). He toured with ODC/Dance as a guest performer and musician liaison in KT Nelson’s immersive work Path of Miracles, choreographed to a score by Joby Talbot (2018-2020).
In his hometown of San Francisco, Sydney Chen regularly performs (since 2000) with the new-music chorus Volti, 16-voice professional contemporary-music vocal ensemble, the only group to have received the Chorus America/ASCAP Adventurous Programming Award seven times. He is also the group’s Artistic Advisor (since 2007), and has served as Executive Director (2005-2006). The ensemble has released four critically acclaimed albums on Innova Recordings, which he co-produced. He is a member (since 2017) of the nine-man vocal chamber ensemble Clerestory, which sings music ranging from Gregorian chant to the American songbook. He appears frequently as a guest soloist with Bay Area ensembles such as Marin Baroque (Director: Daniel Canosa), San Francisco Choral Society (1997-2005), and De Anza Chamber Orchestra.
While living in New York he worked for Nonesuch Records (1994-1997), where he managed the production of retrospective box sets for composers Steve Reich and John Adams, and worked as the Production Assistant for several iconic Reich recordings including Music for 18 Musicians and City Life. From November 1997 to February 2018, he worked for the Kronos Quartet, most recently as the famed ensemble’s Artistic Administrator, overseeing the production of dozens of recordings, managing countless commissions, and developing multi-faceted educational residencies at Carnegie Hall and in university presenter settings.
Sidney Chen’s writings about contemporary music have been published by NewMusicBox, for which he was the magazine’s San Francisco Bay Area Regional Editor (2012-2014), and by SFist (2005-2007). For about a decade (2004-2013), he wrote an influential blog called The Standing Room, one of the very first blogs about classical music; for several years it appeared regularly on lists of top classical music blogs, and was covered in traditional media from Gramophone to NPR. He was also Guest Lecturer at University of San Francisco (May 2019: MUS 101 Music Appreciation, Instructor: Alexandra Amati; MUS 180 Music and Social History, Instructor: Byron Au Yong); September-December 2020: MUS 155 Music Composition, Instructor: Ken Ueno). |
