Pianist Magazine: Getting to Know Weiyin Chen

Pianist Magazine

Meet the classical pianist who also just happens to be a Vogue-featured fashion designer. Taiwanese-American pianist Weiyin Chen is certainly one of a kind. She speaks to Pianist about her love of the Beethoven Piano Sonatas, the influence of Leon Fleisher on her life, and the link between her fashion and pianist careers.

Can you share a little about your musical pedagogy and influences?

My teacher Leon Fleisher had the profoundest influence on my musical and pianistic development. Without him, I wouldn’t be playing the piano today. Richard Goode and Claude Frank each enriched my growth in more ways than I ever imagined.

You have the unique skill and vision of being a fashion designer in addition to a concert pianist. How do these two art forms inform each other and interact?

They have magnified my imagination exponentially, they work synergistically. After my first few designs were created, I began writing my own cadenzas. Accessing the fantastical through designing served as a catalyst for what I was ready to unleash in music.

I see designing as a form of visual/musical composition. Construction, colours, textures, and shapes orchestrate into one unified expressivity, conveyed with style. How I conceive designs is very similar to how I conceptualize scores – design is experienced visually, music is “felt” viscerally. I think this extra dimension of time and rhythm that we can relate to the pulse of our heartbeat is what I find especially powerful in music, it can communicate with our inner most heartstrings that we cannot explain in words.

Read more here.

Photo Credits: Lisa Mazzucco