Yanqi Chen

Yanqi Chen is a composer, multimedia artist, and sound engineer whose work explores the intersection of instrumental performance, electroacoustic sound, and mixed media works. Drawing inspiration from visual art, social issues, nature, and personal experience, her practice extends from instrumental composition into experimental projects encompassing installations, virtual reality, and cross-disciplinary designs integrating light, motion, dance, real-time visuals, and sound spatialization.

Her work has been featured at festivals and conferences including Académie internationale de création musicale avec nouveaux media, Creative Dialogue, NSEME, SEAMUS, and SICPP, among others. From September 2024 to May 2025, she was an artist-in-residence at the Barnard Movement Lab, where she conducted research on motion tracking, light design, VR, and spatialized sound, culminating in her first large-scale interactive installation.

Yanqi holds a Master of Music in Composition and Computer Music from the Peabody Institute of Music, where she studied with Felipe Lara, McGregor Boyle, and Geoff Wright. She also earned a Certificate of Professional Studies in Theory and Composition from the New England Conservatory, studying with John Mallia, Bert Van Herck, and John Heiss, and a Bachelor of Music from Skidmore College. She is currently a doctoral fellow in Composition at Columbia University, working with Georg Friedrich Haas, George Lewis, Marcos Balter, Zosha Di Castri, Brad Garton, and Seth Cluett. She has also participated in masterclasses and seminars with Chaya Czernowin, Patricia Alessandrini, Pamela Z, and Mark-Anthony Turnage, among others.