Keynes Chen
Violin teacher Suzuki, Private Lessons, College Preparatory, Classical, Quartet Coaching
Mr. Yin-Feng Keynes Chen has devoted most of his life to the violin. Son of the famous violinist and pedagogue Y.C. Chen, Mr. Chen began playing violin when he was four years of age. He entered the Chungking School of the Arts at age eleven, then the Shanghai Music Conservatory at age thirteen. After moved to US, Mr. Chan continued his violin study in CU Boulder and received both Bachelor and Master Degrees in Music Performance.
Mr. Chen has been teaching violin since 1994 and he has received his complete Suzuki pedagogy training under the famed Suzuki Pedagogue Dr. William Starr. Mr. Chen was the principle violin teacher for Englewood Arts’ Strings Attached program at five different Englewood public schools. He served as a board member, then the President of the Board for Boulder Youth Symphony (BYS) from 2005-2007.
Throughout Mr. Chen’s music career, he has received numerous prestigious awards which include the Denes Koromzay Chamber Music Award; the CU College of Music’s Concerto Competition, both the State and Regional Music Teachers’ National Association Music Competition, both the First-Prize Award and the Audience’ Choice Award in the 2002 Bruce Ekstrand Competition with his former quartet—Nacht Quartet, which was the Graduate String Quartet in Residence and the Performance Teaching Assistant at CU Boulder. Mr. Chen was chosen to attend the prestigious Takács Quartet seminar both in 1999 and 2001. His frequent regional performances have included solo concerts with the CU Symphony Orchestra and the CU Baroque Ensemble; a solo recital for the Colorado Music Festival in 2001; two solo performances with the Colorado Symphony Chamber Musicians’ Up Close and Musical Concert Series; a duet performance with the world renowned Grammy winner, Kitaro, at the Boulder Theater in 2003; five quartet concerts at Boulder’s Backyard Arts Series in 2005; and a duet performance for Boulder Chamber Orchestra’s Chamber Concert Series in 2006. In the summer of 2007, Mr. Chen became the first violinist of the established Illuminati Quartet to perform and teach for the String Quartet Program of Northern Colorado.
Currently, besides his solo and chamber concert performances throughout the Front Range area, Mr. Chen serves the Artistic Director for BYS, as well as the conductor for BYS’ Symphony and Chamber Orchestras. He also is the Music Director for Longmont Youth Symphony (LYS), and the conductor for Colorado Youth Symphony’s Philharmonic Orchestra. Besides conducting, he coaches and mentors BYS’ and LYS’ chamber ensemble programs; serves as the Executive Director of A Mid-Summer Day’s Dream String Camp, and often gives sectional rehearsals and master classes for Front Range area youth orchestras. Because of their passion for music education, in 2006 Mr. Chen and his wife, Regan Kane, founded a high-standard music school in the Boulder area called Flatirons Strings Academy. Since then, many of their students have won numerous competitions and awards.
