Performances + Events
Mei–Ann Chen conducts the NEC Philharmonia in December 2022. Tom Kates Photography
New England Conservatory is pleased to announce that NEC alumna and trustee Mei-Ann Chen ’95, ’98 MM is the recipient of this year’s Marylou Speaker Churchill Award, which recognizes a teacher and orchestral figure who reflects Marylou Speaker Churchill’s qualities as a human being, educator, and musician. Churchill served on the faculty of NEC’s College and Preparatory programs for 28 years and was the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s principal second violinist.
The recipient of the Marylou Speaker Churchill Award is invited to campus to present a master class, lecture, or performance. Chen will come to campus on Saturday, March 22, to receive the award. As part of her visit, she will conduct the Preparatory String Orchestra and Youth Philharmonic Orchestra in rehearsal and join a conversation moderated by Tonya Robles, NEC’s Vice President of Expanded Education.
Mei-Ann Chen ’95, ’98 MM
Photo by Simon Pauly
Taiwanese American conductor Mei-Ann Chen is renowned as one of the most versatile, compelling, and dynamic international conductors today and a dedicated advocate for music education. Music director of the MacArthur Award-winning Chicago Sinfonietta, chief conductor of Austria’s Recreation – Grosses Orchester Graz at Styriarte, and artistic advisor of the Springfield Symphony Orchestra (Massachusetts), she is also the first-ever artistic partner of Houston’s ROCO, and artistic partner of the Northwest Sinfonietta (Washington). Chen has led distinguished orchestras throughout the Americas, Europe, and Asia — over 150 to date, including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Vienna’s Tonkunstler Orchestra, Helsinki Philharmonic, The Residentie Orchestra in The Hague, London’s BBC Symphony Orchestra, Seoul Philharmonic, and National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra.
Chen’s enthusiastic pedagogical work has included mentoring ascendant conductors through the Chicago Sinfonietta’s Freeman Conducting Fellowship and Taki Alsop Fellowship. She has led ensembles at her alma mater, NEC, and at The Juilliard School, Manhattan School of Music, Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, and Indiana University, has led Carnegie Hall’s esteemed NYO2 for young musicians, and has conducted the New World Symphony and the National Youth Symphony Orchestra in Taiwan. Chen served as artistic director of the National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra Summer Festival from 2016 to 2021 and as music director of the renowned Portland Youth Philharmonic (Oregon) at the start of her career — a serendipitous appointment with regard to Churchill, who was an exemplary member of the Philharmonic’s former Portland Junior Symphony.
Born in Taiwan, Chen immigrated to the United States to study at the Walnut Hill School for the Arts in Natick, Mass., where she was a student of Churchill’s. During the following years, while studying at NEC, Chen lived with Marylou and her husband, Mark. She earned her bachelor of music degree and a double master’s degree in orchestral conducting and violin from NEC, becoming the first student in the Conservatory’s history to achieve the latter distinction.
“Marylou Speaker Churchill, whom I consider my American mother, not only taught me violin but also taught me English and many other aspects of life during the three and a half years I lived with her and Mark Churchill,” Chen has said. “Marylou taught me to overcome difficult passages with love and that’s an important lesson I have applied to life as well.”
Marylou Speaker Churchill
Known for her generosity of spirit, Marylou Speaker Churchill was a member of NEC’s College and Preparatory School faculties for 28 years. She was a member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra for 30 years, serving for 23 of those as second principal violinist.
Churchill was chair of NEC Prep’s String Department for 10 years before joining the College faculty in the 1990s. She was a devoted teacher who was deeply committed to her students’ growth, artistic excellence, and well-being. In 2006, she received the Louis and Adrienne Krasner Teaching Award for her extraordinary work with students.
The Marylou Speaker Churchill Award honors her commitment to teaching and artistic excellence by celebrating an instrument teacher or orchestral figure who reflects her qualities as an educator, musician, and human being.
Left to right: Yi-Ching Chen (Mei-Ann’s father), Mei-Ann Chen, Marylou Speaker Churchill, Mark Churchill, Mei-Ling Chen (Mei-Ann’s older sister), and Hsiu-Luan Tiao (Mei-Ann’s mother) in 1991, when Mei-Ann was about to begin her first year as an undergraduate student at New England Conservatory.
