VC Artist Violinist Stella Chen Releases Debut Album, "Stella x Schubert"

VC Artist violinist Stella Chen has garnered worldwide attention since her first-prize win at the 2019 Queen Elizabeth International Violin Competition, followed by the 2020 Avery Fisher Career Grant and 2020 Lincoln Center Emerging Artist Award.

Today, her debut album, "Stella x Schubert" was released on Platoon and can be heard, here. Playing on the 1700 ex-Petri Stradivarius violin, Stella performs with pianist Henry Kramer in an all-Schubert program.

The album features Schubert's Rondo in B minor, D.985, Fantasie in C Major, D.934, Sei mir gegrüsst, D.741, and Ständchen, D.920.

"During the pandemic, one of the Violin Channel's series that came to life was the VC Heroes interviews," Stella told The Violin Channel. "I had great fun with mine featuring Itzhak Perlman, and really enjoyed the one by my bestie Matt Lipman and his mentor Heidi Castleman. One line from the latter really resonated with me: 'One of the dangers we are facing in the modern world for classical music [is that] everything has become exceedingly high energy, which tends to drown out the more reflective parts of our human nature.'

"I find that Schubert’s music is my safe space, my own little haven," she continued. "When my mind is racing, life is overwhelming, anxieties and mundanities of everyday life become too loud, I turn to Schubert’s music and it transports me to another world. I hope that listeners will find a quiet moment to simply enjoy this music, which is some of the most sublime that exists.

When asked how the process of recording went, she said it was "incredibly draining yet so rewarding, both emotionally and physically."

"Henry and I feel extraordinarily lucky to have worked with Adam Abeshouse, just one of the most lovely people and brilliant producers who knew exactly what we were looking for, even when we didn’t know," she concluded.

On Tuesday, March 14, 2023, Chen will make her San Francisco recital debut in a special program of Schubert presented at the Herbst Theatre by Chamber Music San Francisco.