The first woman to win the Malko International Conductors Competition (2005), Mei-Ann Chen has established herself as a versatile, highly communicative and inspirational young artist. Currently Assistant Conductor of Robert Spano and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, she was awarded the 2007 Taki Concordia Fellowship; as a result of that award, she appeared jointly with Marin Alsop and Stefan Sanderling in highly acclaimed subscription concerts with the Baltimore Symphony, Colorado Symphony and Florida Orchestra. Past and upcoming engagements include all principal Danish orchestras, Symphonies of Alabama, Atlanta, Baltimore, Chattanooga, Chicago Sinfonietta, Florida, Fort Worth, Grand Teton Music Festival, Honolulu, Huntsville, Kalamazoo, Lexington Philharmonic, Manhattan School of Music, Memphis, National at Kennedy Center, Norrlands Opera in Sweden, Norwegian Radio (Oslo), Oregon, Princeton, Seattle, Taiwan National, Trondheim in Norway, Toronto in Canada, and Wintergreen Summer Music Festival.

Before coming to Atlanta, Mei-Ann served as Assistant Conductor of the Oregon Symphony from 2003 to 2005 and in 2002, Ms. Chen was unanimously selected as Music Director of the Portland Youth Philharmonic in Oregon, the oldest of its kind and the model for many of the youth orchestras in the United States. During her five-year tenure with the orchestra, she led its sold-out debut in Carnegie Hall, received an ASCAP award for innovative programming, established new partnerships with Oregon Symphony and Chamber Music Northwest, and developed new and unique musicianship programs for the orchestra’s members. She was honored with a Sunburst Award from Young Audiences for her contribution to music education.

Born in Taiwan, Mei-Ann Chen has lived in the United States since 1989. She holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in conducting from the University of Michigan, where she was a student of Kenneth Kiesler. Prior to that, she was the first recipient in New England Conservatory’s history to receive double master’s degrees simultaneously in violin and conducting. As a violinist, she has performed in Carnegie Hall and Tanglewood Music Festival numerous times.

Chen came to Atlanta Symphony Orchestra as a member of the American Conducting Fellows Program, a national conductor-training program developed and managed by the American Symphony Orchestra League to support the musical and leadership development of exceptionally talented conductors in the early stages of their professional careers. Aiming to improve the qualifications of American conductors to assume leadership roles as music directors of American orchestras, the program is funded by major grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.