Yifei Chen
Adjunct Instructor - Collaborative Piano
SAF 306
Yifei Chen serves as a vocal coach and piano teacher in China and USA, she attended auditions of East China of Normal University from 2014 to 2018 as a vocal coach and currently teaches piano lessons to students in USA. Within the lessons, Yifei teaches students to recognize the connection between art and life, to realize that music of all periods has its roots in human experiences. With the strong belief that music is the most common human language in the world, Yifei is trying to teach or guide her students to express their feelings or emotions, for which they cannot find words to describe. Yifei responses quickly when she is accompanying for vocalists and leads vocal artists to understand the connection between the text and the music, so that vocalists can sing in a more expressive way. As a collaborative pianist in China, Yifei performed in Italian Cultural Communication season in Shanghai and served as an accompanist for Johann Strauss opera, Die Fledermaus, in East China of Normal University Opera Center which has been performed in Shanghai Majestic Theater. Most importantly, Yifei enjoys the coaching time in which she can share her music opinions and communicate with people to have different ideas about music.
As a native Chinese person, formative training began under the musical guidance of Yin Huang. Yifei completed her B.M. in music education from East China of Normal University where she studied piano with Chuheng Wu and voice with Jin Cao. As an undergraduate student, Yifei received honors including National Scholarship, Yeshengtao Scholarship and Outstanding Graduate. During her internship at Shanghai New Middle School as a music teacher, Yifei won the title of “Outstanding Teacher”. Later she received the Graduate certification in Piano Performance from University of Central Arkansas, in the studio of Neil Rutman. Recently she has been honored with the Artistic Excellent Scholarship and received her M.M. in Piano Performance and Pedagogy major in Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University, where she studied with Ellen Mack and Ann Schein.