About the Performer
Sitan Chen is a final-year doctoral student at MIT studying computer science. He started playing piano at age six, began classical training under Janice Wong, studied under Dr. William Ransom at the Emory University School of Music in his pre-college years, and currently studies with David Deveau at MIT. A first prize winner of the 2011 AFAF International Concerto Competition, the 2010 AADGT “Passion of Music” International Young Musicians Competition, the 2010 International Chopin Celebration Concert Competition, and the 2011 American Protégé International Liszt Competition, where he was also awarded “Best Performance of a Work by Liszt,” he has been invited on six separate occasions to perform at Carnegie Hall. Last year, he was a featured performer at the MIT Campaign for a Better World tour in Miami as well as at the home of Daisy Soros under the auspices of the Paul and Daisy Soros Foundation. In 2011, he was invited to perform the Grieg Piano Concerto with the Kostroma Symphony Orchestra in Russia and to take masterclasses at Moscow Conservatory, and, as a result of winning the Georgia Music Educators Association Piano Concerto Competition, performed the same concerto as a soloist with the Georgia All-State Orchestra. A former co-president of the Harvard Piano Society, Chen has also performed as a soloist with the Atlanta Community Symphony Orchestra as a winner of the Ruth Kern Young Artists Concerto Competition. He has won multiple first prizes at the Georgia Music Teachers Association and the Georgia Music Educators Association state solo competitions.
He has had masterclasses with artists including Marc-Andre Hamelin, Robert Levin, Yo-Yo Ma, Boris Slutsky, Sergey Schepkin, Young Ah-Tak, Eduard Zilberkant, and Maxim Mogilevsky. He studied with Vladimir Feltsman, Alexander Korsantia, Robert Roux, and Susan Starr at the 2010 PianoSummer International Institute and Festival in New York, and studied with Boaz Sharon and Clara Jung-Yang Shin at the 2011 Boston University Tanglewood Institute. Chen is a former baritone of the Harvard Glee Club, with whom he has sung at Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium and later at Boston Symphony Hall under the baton of Benjamin Zander.
About the Emerson Program
Funded by the late Mr. Cherry L. Emerson, Jr. (SM, 1941) the Emerson Program offers merit-based financial assistance for private lessons to MIT students of outstanding achievement on their instrument or voice in classical, jazz or world music via competitive auditions. Each academic year, the Emerson program for private study offers half scholarships and full scholarships to approximately 50 qualified students out of about 100 who apply and audition for scholarships and fellowships. Auditions are held at the start of the fall semester. Private teacher selections, made in consultation with the music faculty, may include instructors from MIT or from the greater Boston musical community.
Program
English Suite No. 6, BWV 811 in D minor Johann Sebastian Bach
(1685-1750)
I. Prelude
II. Allemande
III. Courante
IV. Sarabande
V. Double
VI. Gavotte I
VII. Gavotte II (Musette)
VIII. Gigue
Nocturne in F-sharp major, Op. 15 No. 2 Frédéric Chopin
(1810-1849)
Sonata No. 3 in B minor, Op. 58
I. Allegro maestoso
II. Scherzo: Molto vivace
III. Largo
IV. Finale: Presto non tanto
