Yen-Chang “Charlie” Chen, from Taipei City, Taiwan, began his cello lessons at 5 years old and his piano lessons at 7. His love for music has been inspired by his musical father and family that appreciate music and play various instruments including cello, clarinet, piano, Erhu, Guzheng, and saxophone.
As a cello major with minor in piano, in 2017 Charlie was auditioned and admitted to the renowned music program at The Affiliated Junior High School of National Taiwan Normal University. In 2020, as a one-month-old freshman at Zhongzheng Senior High School, he won the First Place from the school-wide Concerto Competition. As a result, he will be performing his Tchaikovsky cello concerto, accompanied by his fellow student orchestra, at Zhongshan Hall, a Taipei historical building that has several auditoriums used for arts performances.
Charlie has enrolled in the music programs for school since 3rd Grade. Since then, as a young cellist, he has won numerous music competitions and performed in many public venues. In 2019, at the age of 14, Charlie delivered his own concert for the first time with a fellow student flutist. He performed Elgar’s cello concerto in E minor and several other repertoires. There were programme booklets printed and 300 people in the audience.
Charlie’s other public performing experiences include benefit performance concerts for Taipei Tzu-Chi Hospital in 2017 and 2018, concert at Kawaguchiko Music Forest Museum in Japan as a music exchange student with Gakushuin Primary School of Tokyo in 2015, and being the youngest member to play in the Taipei Century Youth Symphony Orchestra at Taipei National Concert Hall in 2014.
As for his other cello winning records, some of the awards include Taiwan Cultural Cup Music Competition (Excellence, 2015), Taipei City Music Competitions (Third Place, 2015), Seidof & Sons Music Competition (First Place, 2019), and Asian Cup International Music Competition (First Place, 2019).
In his free time, Charlie enjoys Chinese martial arts (Wing Chun), running, basketball, reading, movies as well as his cats.
