Biography

Sitan Chen is currently a first-year doctoral student at MIT studying

computer science. He started playing piano at age six, began classical
training under Janice Wong, studied under Dr. William Ransom at the
Emory University School of Music in his pre-college years, and currently
studies with David Deveau at MIT. A first prize winner of the 2011 AFAF
International Concerto Competition, the 2010 AADGT “Passion of Music”
International Young Musicians Competition, the 2010 International Chopin
Celebration Concert Competition, and the 2011 American Protégé Emerson Fellowship Student Recital Series
International Liszt Competition, where he was also awarded “Best
Performance of a Work by Liszt,” he has been invited on six separate
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
occasions to perform at Carnegie Hall. In 2011, he was invited to perform Music and Theater Arts
the Grieg Piano Concerto with the Kostroma Symphony Orchestra in
Russia and to take masterclasses at Moscow Conservatory, and, as a result
of winning the Georgia Music Educators Association Piano Concerto
Competition, performed the same concerto as a soloist with the Georgia
All-State Orchestra. A former co-president of the Harvard Piano Society, Sitan Chen, piano
Chen has also performed as a soloist with the Atlanta Community
Symphony Orchestra as a winner of the Ruth Kern Young Artists Concerto
Competition. He has won multiple first prizes at the Georgia Music
Teachers Association and the Georgia Music Educators Association state
solo competitions.
5pm, 4/14/17
He has had masterclasses with artists including Marc-Andre Hamelin,
Robert Levin, Yo-Yo Ma, Boris Slutsky, Young Ah-Tak, Eduard Killian Hall, MIT
Zilberkant, and Maxim Mogilevsky. He studied with Vladimir Feltsman,
Alexander Korsantia, Robert Roux, and Susan Starr at the 2010
PianoSummer International Institute and Festival in New York, and studied
with Boaz Sharon and Clara Jung-Yang Shin at the 2011 Boston University
Tanglewood Institute. Chen is a former baritone of the Harvard Glee Club,
with whom he has sung at Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium and later at
Boston Symphony Hall under the baton of Benjamin Zander.
 Program unison that recalls a driving motif from the first movement. The energy of
its opening bars is maintained throughout the A section, eventually giving
Sonata No. 1 Carl Vine (1954-) way to an eerie chorale featuring chord clusters in the bottom and upper
I. MM 48
II. Leggiero e legato registers and an evocative tenor line that gradually swells in complexity.
The movement returns to the propulsive material of its beginning and
Etudes, Op. 25 Frederic Chopin (1810-1849)
eventually ends by returning to the opening measures of the first
I. Aeolian Harp
II. The Bees movement.
III. Horseman
IV. Paganini
V. Wrong Note While piano exercises by the likes of Muzio Clementi and Carl Czerny
VI. Thirds were common at the time, Chopin’s Etudes were the first to become a
VII. Cello
staple of the concert repertoire and sparked a reimagining of the
VIII.Sixths
IX. Butterfly possibilities of the piano. These works are marked as much by their poetic
X. Octave substance as by their technical challenges. “Aeolian Harp” is a study in
XI. Winter Wind
XII. Ocean maintaining a cantabile line over arpeggiated accompaniment, while “The
Bees” is a diaphanous exercise in right-hand agility and polyrhythms. The
Program Notes “Horseman” is a galloping vignette emphasizing rhythmic drive and, like
“Wrong Note”, harnessing different textures for the same material.
Carl Vine’s Sonata No. 1, originally composed in 1990 to accompany
“Paganini” is an exercise in left-hand jumps while “Thirds,” “Sixths, ” and
choreography for the Sydney Dance Company, has developed a reputation
“Octaves” test the player’s ability to play the eponymous intervals quickly.
as one of the late 20th century’s most substantial contributions to the
“Cello” is a study of counterpoint and a singing left-hand, while
sonata form, marked by rich waves of sound, dynamic extremes, and
“Butterfly” is one of staccato-marcato alternations. “Winter Wind”, one of
ethereal harmonies and layers of resonance. The first movement opens
this set’s most famous, begins with a simple melody in one hand that
with an air of static mystery anchored by sostenuto chords in the bass. The
explodes into a tumult of chromatic semiquaver-tuplets in the right hand
music steadily unfolds, giving way to ever more extroverted passages
and leaps in the left. Op. 25 concludes with “Ocean,” featuring rapidly
featuring stunningly pianistic writing and thrilling rhythmic drive. The
rising and falling arpeggios in both hands.
movement concludes with a haunting polyrhythmic duet between both
hands. The second movement begins with a virtuosic moto perpetuo in