Always interested in exploring new forms of opera and drama, recent projects for Justine F. Chen include youth opera THREE, TWO, ONE-BANG!, a modern teenage American adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth, a song cycle/monodrama for soprano Jennifer Zetlan PHILOMEL, taken from Ovid's Metamorphoses, and her second opera JEANNE, a fractured account of the life of Joan of Arc.
Her first operatic work, computer-enhanced chamber opera, THE MAIDEN TOWER, initially presented at Juilliard, was featured in New York City Opera's VOX 2006: Showcasing American Composers, and will be performed by Chants Libres in Montréal in December 2008. JEANNE was just featured in NYCO's VOX 2008, and was described by the New York Times as "lyrical, atmospheric... striking… Throughout, Ms. Chen balances despair and humor."
As composer-in-residence for Long Leaf Opera, she was commissioned for Three, Two, One - BANG!, which premiered June 2008 in North Carolina. Ken Hoover of the Classical Voice of North Carolina reviewed it as "charming and provocative… practical and entrancing." Capitol Opera will produce Three, Two, One in 2009-2010, and will collaborate with Tapestry New Opera Works on the development of a new children's opera with Ms. Chen for 2009-2010.
Organizations who have commissioned and performed her music include New York City Opera, New York City Ballet, The Juilliard School, New York Festival of Song, New Juilliard Ensemble, Washington Ballet, Brooklyn Philharmonic, and Concertante.
For the theater, she has written the incidental music for numerous productions, including a score for Playwright's Theater of New Jersey's run of James Glossman's The Special Prisoner which juxtaposed traditional musical aesthetics of Noh theater with soundscapes of the modern world. In 2001, she scored digital artist Yewon Cho's animation Trilemma, which was screened at the Hiroshima Animation Festival, New York Expo, Student Academy Awards, and broadcast on PBS's "Reel New York". Her dance collaborations include Of Roots and Stones, which was performed in Juilliard's Spring Dance Concert. The NY Times wrote, "Chen... blended popular dance rhythms into the kind of propulsive, emotionally resonant score that choreographers tend to dream of."
Formal training in violin and composition began at Juilliard's Pre-College Division, and in dance at the School of American Ballet. In 2005, she completed her doctoral studies in composition at Juilliard, where she studied with Robert Beaser. She earned her BM and MM in violin and composition from The Juilliard School.
