Alex CHEN
M.MUS Colaborative piano
Bsc Zoology
MY mission statement
I aspire to create spaces for joy, community, reflection, and growth at the intersections of music, nature, and civic practice.
I seek to create and engage with projects that empower collaborative partners in the process of creation within an equitable space. Ideally, I strive to empower and represent disenfranchised communities in the processes and production of creative projects. Moreover, I aspire to produce work that is emotionally-engaging, human, and elucidates something important, curious, or exciting about life. With my background in zoology, I wish to also explore avenues to integrate this sense of humanness within a larger framework of nature and life at large.
About me
During the rollicking Canadian premier of Walter Braunfels’ opera The Birds, Alex Chen’s two worlds collided. As he darted about like a bird adorned with feathers and sand the sumptuous music, his passions for both classical music and zoology came together.
Today, Alex works as a collaborative pianist, baritone, and vocal coach. Yet his path to a life in music has been circuitous. He began his academic and early professional life with an Honours BSc in Zoology at the University of Guelph. He focussed on physiology and anatomy labs, conducting research projects, and training birds of prey for educational programs. He fell in love with the charm and majesty of the avian world – creating puzzles for American crows, flying American kestrels, and trading glances with a great horned owl as she sat on his gloved hand. Alex was in constant awe of his feathery co-workers.
He also maintained a love of music and yearning to perform. Alex grew up in Waterloo and began piano lessons at 9 and voice at 12, inspired by a wonderfully musical older sister. While doing his BSc, he completed a music minor. Before long, music-making became something he had to pursue professionally.
He had a choice to make following his BSc: veterinary college, zoology research, or an Master’s in music. Alex opted for the Collaborative Piano program at Western University. Alex worked with John Hess and developed a passion for the art song repertoire, unable to resist the allure of a juicy melody, a rich story, or the magic of a misty musical passage.
Post-MMus, Alex moved West to study with Baroque soprano Nancy Argenta. Since then, Alex has become a key member of the Victoria musical community, frequently performing as an art song collaborator, solo singer, and opera chorus member while also drawing on skills as an opera répétiteur, choral accompanist, and chamber musician. Thanks to training with sound ecologist and composer Hildegard Westerkamp, Alex rekindled his relationship with zoology through music, composition, and field-recording, recharting his interests in his latest projects.
With an artistic practice that encompasses Baroque colorature and the infinite range of colours in Debussy piano passages, Alex adores sharing his eclectic spectrum of skills. He co-founded the Gay4Nature Collective, spearheading ecological and queer interpretations of classical music. Partnerships with BC Culture Days and Ocean Wise have further developed his outlets for sharing the special crossover between human music and the natural world.
Alex recently created the Gay4Nature short film Green (2024 release), supported by the Canada Council for Arts. Through BC Culture Days, he created The Citizen Soundscape which crowdsourced outdoor recordings to draw attention to the balance of anthropogenic sounds in the soundscape. As his latest release with Ocean Wise, The Adventures of Kelp Creature articulates Alex’s passion and care for nature through educational musical narrative.
