Spreckels Organ Pavilion,
San Diego, CA
"
~James Chute/ Signonsandiego.com
First United Methodist,
San Diego POE recital
Although Chen appears regularly at national music conventions and major concert series across the continent, her local appearances have a special resonance because she grew up in San Diego, studying both piano and organ with a strong pedigree of local piano and organ teachers who helped launch her studies at Juilliard and Yale.
But few would venture out to a stuffy church sanctuary on a hot night for mere sentimental attachment. Chen’s audience came for musical rewards, and they began from the opening measures of J. S. Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, a piece every organist is required to play. Chen redeemed this warhorse at the opening of her program not by playing it faster than the last person to come down the pike, or by adding quirky personal touches that defaced the music. Rather, she took just enough time to allow the flashy rhetoric of Bach’s own phrases to bloom and bounce off each other. She refreshed a shop-worn piece from the inside rather than pumping it up from the outside. Now there is an important lesson for the many young students whom the Guild of Organists brought to the event.
Other large works on the program came from the French Romantic school, the bread-and-butter repertory of those New York organists whose ranks she has joined. Most impressive was her broadly conceived and metrically grounded Finale from Louis Vierne’s “Sixth Organ Symphony.” A challenging toccata with a wicked pedal part, Chen sailed through the challenges unfazed, finding the appropriate fiery organ stops in the large First Methodist instrument to indulge its panache.
She had equal success with the Fugue in Maurice Duruflé’s “Prelude and Fugue on ALAIN,” the lesser composer’s homage to the brilliant young French composer Jehan Alain, whose life was cut short in the opening months of World War II. I did think, however, that Chen’s approach to the Duruflé Prelude was too deliberate and fussy for a large room with so little acoustical sustaining power.
Chen offered a pair of Claude Debussy piano works in organ transcription and made a winning case with her colorful and even dramatic adaptation of “The Girl with the Flaxen Hair,” another piece that most keyboard players know, but not with the insight that Chen brought to the score. Her “Arabesque No. 2” was just a little too filled with busy registration changes to convince me it was born to be played on the organ.
Petr Eben’s popular concert piece “Moto Ostinato,” a crisp neo-classical toccata also suited her style. She disciplined Eben’s bravura flourishes with unflappable metrical rigor.
Her own arrangement of themes from the video game “Super Mario Brothers” belongs to that special category of humorous music that goes back to Leopold Mozart’s amusing “Toy Symphony.” And her inclusion of “Tyrant Lizard King,” a piece composed for her by a Yale classmate who is fixated on dinosaurs, showed her ability to wed humor with virtuosity."
~Kenneth Herman/ Sandiego.com
November 24, 2008
Disney Hall Solo Recital
"Chen is a wonderful, self-assured player with a fine technique and a rare musicality. She is also a composer. Her arrangements of six Chinese folksongs, "Taiwan Tableaux," is happy music, an irresistible riot of bright hues with just enough charm and good cheer to keep it kitsch-free. She plays French music (Dupre and Vierne) with lovely lyrical grandeur. But it was in her ability to make forbidding German organ music utterly engaging that Chen really stands out. On Sunday, Hindemith's gray Organ Sonata No. 1 became not gray but kaleidoscopically colored and character-filled. A Chorale-fantasy by Max Reger was a fabulous rush of mad passion but never at the expense of eye-popping contrapuntal clarity. All organists, of course, are power-trippers. And though all smiles, Chen bulks up and raises the volume and rattles the seats with the mightiest of them. But not all organists have her delicacy as well, her ability to paint a line with a poetic brush stroke before -- or after -- she lets rip.
~Mark Swed/ Los Angeles Times
"Unrestrained laughter isn't the norm for an organ recital but that's what broke out last night at the conclusion of Chelsea Chen's concert at Walt Disney Concert Hall. One might expect that any 24-year-old playing a recital at Disney Hall would be like the proverbial kid in a candy store but I've heard organists much older than Chen who could take a lesson from the San Diego native about enjoying the moment. It wasn't all fun and games, of course; no recital would be when it begins with music by Marcel Dupré and Louis Vierne and ends with pieces by J.S. Bach and Max Reger. However, Chen brought a highly personal touch to her program and played it with satisfying amounts of panache, style and technique. As the precursor to a fortnight of Gustavo Dudamel, whose musical style exudes exuberant joy, Chen was the perfect warm-up act.
Her technical prowess was on display immediately. She effectively probed the brooding mysteries of The World Awaiting the Savior (the first movement of Dupré's Passion Symphony) and sailed effortlessly through exquisite runs and trills in Vierne's Naides. Chen introduced then Taiwan Tableaux, originally a three-movement work that she wrote in 2003 for the Spreckles outdoor organ in San Diego and expanded to six movements last year as her Fulbright project. As she explained to the audience, the work, dedicated to her father, is built on Taiwanese folk tunes from the 1930s and 1940s, but those tunes are clearly filtered through an American's ear; to this listener, there was plenty of Copland sprinkled throughout. Nonetheless, each tune had its own distinctive flavor and the entire set sounded like Chen was having a ball playing it. To conclude the first half, Chen offered a powerful, affecting performance with a dancing pedal cadenza of Sinfonietta, written by Norwegian composer and pianist Ola Gjelio when he was Chen's classmate at Juilliard (Chen played the U.S. premiere in 2005).
Prior to playing [Bach and Reger], she explained that both are based on Psalms (the Bach on No. 137 and the Reger on No. 146) and read Psalm 146 to help underscore what Reger had written. She played them both without pause, offering interesting registrations on the Bach and building the Reger to a thunderous conclusion that brought forth a thunderous ovation from the crowd of about 1,200. For encores, Chen began by whipping through Mulet's Carillon Sortie. Then, in honor of her brother — a brand new father (I'm an aunt, she said in wonderment) — she finished with music from the video game Mario Brothers, which occasioned great laughter from the audience and delivered a large number of sounds that Manuel Rosales probably never envisioned when he designed the organ's tonal palette."
~Robert D. Thomas/
Pasadena Star
Grace Church, Utica, NY
I am happy to report that the dynamic playing heard in the days of my youth can still be found. This afternoon, I attended what is unquestionably the most electrifying and satisfying recital I have heard in years. Chelsea Chen, a 24 year old student in the Artist Diploma program at Yale University under Thomas Murray, performed at Grace Church, Utica, NY, as part of the church’s recital series and the AGO’s Organ Spectacular program. Ms. Chen, who holds multiple degrees from the Juilliard School, and was Fulbright scholar, performed on a three manual Holtkamp dating from 1983.
From the first notes of the opening piece, we sensed we were in the presence of a musician of extraordinary skill. Ms. Chen’s performance of Norwegian composer Ola Gjeilo’s “Sinfonietta” even caught the attention of my early teen students, who were still talking about it after the concert was over. Performing entirely from memory, Ms. Chen was immediately commanding, but at the same time fluent in a way that made her playing both exciting and effortless. It didn’t take her a few pages to get warmed up -- she was engaged instantly! And we in the audience were too.
The remainder of the first half of the program included Bach’s "Prelude and Fugue in A Minor," Ms. Chen’s “Taiwan Tableaux,” and John Weaver’s “Built on a Rock,” a piece commissioned for an organist’s 90th birthday and premiered by Chelsea Chen. No matter what the origin of the music, Ms. Chen was at ease, moving effortlessly from one style to another. The second half of the recital included Marcel Dupre’s “The World Awaiting the Savior,” “Naiades” by Louis Vierne, and Max Reger’s “Chorale-Fantasy on ‘Halleluja! Gott zu loben, bleibe meine Seelenfreude!,” which brought the audience to its feet. Imagine it: Reger in his typically dense and drawn out style electrifying an audience made up mostly of non-musicians! Ms. Chen’s encore was dedicated to the youngsters in the audience, of whom there were a good many: her own transcription of music from the videogame “Super Mario,” which further endeared her to an already very appreciative audience.
So what was it that made this recital so special? I posed that question to one of my fourteen year old students. His response was revealing: “She’s not a fake. She’s the real thing and it comes through in her playing.” One senior citizen who has always been in the forefront of superb music-making herself said it this way: “The music just flows from her. It’s wonderful!”
Between pieces, Ms. Chen spoke to the audience. She was as gifted in her speaking ability as she in her musical skills, and her gracious and friendly warmth never left her for a moment. Chelsea Chen is the kind of performer who draws one in by her genuineness as a person, and then sweeps the audience away with playing that surpasses her personal magnetism. Even the children in the audience caught her spirit. I didn't see a bored face in the place...and no one left at intermission! Using the language most often used by judges of athletic competitions: Chelsea Chen's recital was a perfect ten!
I could write about Chelsea Chen’s technical command, about her ability to bring to life a particular instrument which has often mystified other guest artists, or about her wise program selection for a diverse audience, but all of that is peripheral to the simple reality of a thoroughly satisfying afternoon. Chelsea Chen has “it,” whatever “it” may be. I urge you to hear her if you have the chance, and encourage you to include her in your own recital series. You will not be disappointed!"
~Steve Best / Utica, NY
(on Yang-Ming Mountain)
~ Xiu-Wen Chen / Director of Taiwan Theological Seminary’s Music Department
(Jan. 22, 2007)
Both Bach and Reger surely would have approved of the formidable talent of our soloist Chelsea Chen. The [organ's] future is in the hands as players such as Chelsea Chen who not only perform exceptionally well but also compose for the organ and encourage other friends of their generation to write for it too."
~ Michael Barone /
Pipedreams Host
Click here for the broadcast.
"A brilliant recital by Chelsea Chen, a twenty-two year old student of Paul Jacobs who has just earned her Master’s degree at the Juilliard School. Her distinctive flair and bravado, mastery of repertoire, and command of the instrument dazzled the audience and showed the organ to great effect."
~ Kathleen Adams / C.B. Fisk Organ Company
"We were treated to a polished performance on Monday afternoon at St. Chrystostom's Episcopal Church. Ms. Chen played with remarkable maturity for her 22 yaers. Her youthful energy and enthusiasm were contagious. Her memorized performance was fresh and inspiring. The Messiaen Transports de joie was spontaneous and free, yet accurate and musical. Chen's interpretation of the Bach Prelude and Fugue in A Minor, BWV 543, effectively used some swell box shadings and manual changes. The Prelude had great energy and drive. The phrasing and articulation were consistent and convincing. The Fugue was well paced and built to an exciting finish. The Brahms chorale was a welcome change of texture...Her performance of the Brahms Prelude and Fugue in G Minor had strength and brilliance.With passion and fire, its structure and form were clearly stated. The commisioned work was Teddy Niedermaier's Sonata (2005). The piece contains playful and rhapsodic passages, as well as dissonant harmonies and lyrical polyphony. One was reminded of Persichetti's music. The Franck Choral in E Major was a strong conclusion to the afternoon program...the richness of the ensemble paid homage to the great organs of France, and this reading certainly captured the beauty and excitement of this treasured work."
~ Madolyn Fallis / The American Organist October 2006 Issue
Lehigh Valley AGO Chapter Recital
~ Bob Riday / Lehigh Valley Chapter AGO
Click here for the complete review.
~ Carol Dean / Utah Valley Chapter AGO
"At [organbuilders] conventions I generally listen intently to the instrument, appreciate the efforts of the organist, and pay relatively little attention to the performances. But I was powerless to ignore the playing of Chelsea Chen. It's easy to qualify, to say "she's great...for one so young!" Playing like that is captivating, regardless of age. It wasn't just that I enjoyed her selections or agreed with her choice of stops. She does not play the organ. She makes the organ her instrument for making music. Her every move is musical. Every piston she pushes, every manual change, every tiny nudge of the shades is a fluid part of her music. I watched her left hand playing the almost inaudible accompaniment in the Bach "Badinerie." Every note perfectly attacked and released. Not fussy, just perfect. If Chelsea Chen is a harbinger of the generation on the horizon, there's going to be a lot of organbuilding to do."
~ Journal of American Organbuilding,
Vol. 20, Nos. 1 & 2
"Twenty-one year old Chelsea Chen performed a full length memorized organ concert on Monday, October 3, 2005 at the Heinz Memorial Chapel for the annual convention of the American Institute of Organbuilders. Most of the builders did not know Chelsea until she cut loose with a dazzling performance that elicited a standing ovation, a rarity for organ builder audiences. Two numbers were standouts, Reger's Chorale Fantasy on "Hallelujah! Gott zu Loben" and the three part "Taiwanese Suite" composed by Chen. Much of her program could be termed technically difficult but Chen demonstrated a keyboard facility in which the term astounding would be an understatement."
~ AGO Region VI October 2005 Newsletter
(Los Angeles)
~ Steven Egler and Casey Cantwell contributing / The American Organist October 2004 Issue