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Ying-Chen Kao (b.1981) has received various commissions and performances by renowned musicians and ensembles including the Peabody Children’s Chorus, Peabody Preparatory Dance Department, Michael Kannen, Donald Sutherland, Gary Thomas, Svetoslav Stoyanov, REDSHIFT ensemble, Benjamin Beirs, Tracy Anne Smith, Après Duo, AM/PM Saxophone Quartet and the Summer Trombone Workshop 2008 in Taipei, Taiwan. She collaborated with the Peabody Preparatory Dance Department on a ballet and video piece entitled, Collidescope. The ballet was premiered in the event NEW WORK 2007, during the 150 year celebration of the Peabody Institute. The project was overseen by renowned American theatre artist and choreographer Martha Clarke. In 2008, Ying-Chen’s solo guitar piece was released on the album, “TRACY ANNE SMITH: Lilac.Star.Bird.” Ying-Chen not only focuses on composition but is also a graphic designer. In August of 2006 her graphic work, “Constellation of Voice” appeared on the cover of Carnegie Hall’s October playbill.

Ying-Chen has been awarded several grants and scholarships such as the Randolph S. Rothschild Award, the Austin Weeks Scholarship, Maxwell R. Lepper Endowment Scholarship, Lawrence Friedman Music Scholarship, Otto Ortman Award and the Peabody Conservatory Graduate Assistantship Full Tuition Award. She also received an Encore Grant from the American Composers Forum, and a Peabody Development Grant for her collaborative concert tour Living Music. She received First Prize in the Prix D'Ete Composition Competition in 2009 and was the winner of the Peabody Camerarta Composer Contest in 2005. Her Toccata (for viola and piano) was premiered in the Emerging Young Composer Contest at the Festival Miami 2002. It was described as a “challenging and rich work” in the Coral Gables Gazette.

Ying-Chen started playing the piano at the age of 5, and began composing at the age of 15. She attended Kuang Jen High School, an elite music school in Taiwan for musically gifted students. She holds her Bachelor’s degree in Theory Composition from the University of Miami, where she performed extensively as an instrumental and vocal accompanist and studied piano with J.B Floyd. Ying-Chen is currently a doctoral candidate at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University where she received her Masters Degree. Ying-Chen has studied composition with Christopher Theofanidis, John Van der Slice, Robert Gower, Paul Wilson and Lu Wen-Tze and currently studies with Michael Hersch. Ying-Chen has participated in master classes with Chen Yi, Melissa Hui, Libby Larsen, Nathan Currier and Christopher Rouse.