陳士惠 In a citation accompanying Shih-Hui Chen's 2007 Goddard Lieberson Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, it states, "among the composers of Asian descent living in the USA, Shih-Hui Chen is most successful in balancing the very refined spectral traditions of the East with the polyphonic practice of Western art-music.  In a seamless narrative, her beautiful music, always highly inventive and expressive, is immediately as appealing as it is demanding and memorable."  The release of 66 Times on Albany Records, a CD entirely devoted to Chen's works, was greeted with the following response from the American Music Center's New Music Box reviewer, "It was tough choosing only one of these works to attempt to wax poetic about here, but I finally opted for the solo pipa, reveling in how it completely blurs the line between traditional Chinese music and contemporary American composition."

Born in Taiwan, Shih-Hui Chen has lived in the United States since 1982.  Since completing her doctorate degree from Boston University, Chen has received significant recognition for her work including a Koussevitzky Music Foundation Commission, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and an American Academy in Rome Prize.  Her compositions have been performed widely throughout the United States and abroad including Korea, Japan, England, Germany, and Italy.  Chen's compositions have brought her into contact with many orchestras including the Philadelphia Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Cleveland Chamber Symphony, and Utah Symphony.  Her chamber music has been presented by the Arditti Quartet at Tanglewood Music Center, Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, Seattle Chamber Players, Ensemble Instrumental Appassionata in Quebec, Canada, and the Freon Ensemble in Rome, Italy.  Chen's work has also been the subject of analysis by scholars such as German ethnomusicologist Barbara Mittler, a specialist in contemporary Chinese music, who analyzed Chen's work for the Asian Music Journal CHIME and also wrote an entry about her in the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.

Shih-Hui Chen currently serves on the faculty at the Shepherd School of Music, Rice University where she teaches music composition and analysis.  Recent performances include Mei Hua for String Quartet by the Formosa Quartet in their tour throughout the UK, Lincoln Center and the Library of Congress; Fu II by eighth blackbird with Yang Wei and Cliff Colnot on the Contempo Series at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago; Returnings by Dinosaur Annex in Boston (review); and ... becoming...  a mini-flute concerto by Carol Wincenc at the Juilliard School (review).  For the 2010-2011 season, her commissions included a new work for Network for New Music in Philadelphia with support from Chamber Music America and the Pew Center for the Arts & Heritage, and a new violin work for Cho-Liang Lin with the support from the Houston Arts Alliance.  Da Camera of Houston was recently awarded a NEA recording grant to make a recording Chen’s work. She is currently living in Taiwan as a Fulbright Scholar to research Taiwanese Aboriginal and Nanguan music at Taiwan National University and to research Taiwanese cultural history at Academia Sinica.