FACULTY

---

Celine Chen is pursuing her Bachelors of Music at the University of Southern California, where she studies piano with Bernadene Blaha and flute with Catherine Karoly. As a 2022 Grand Prize winner of the Young Musicians Inspiring Change International Competition, Celine was one of six instrumentalists invited to play a benefit concert at Carnegie Hall. In the past, she has also been awarded prizes from the MTNA National Competitions, The Music Center’s Spotlight, the Celia Mendez Young Pianist’s Beethoven Competition, and the Kaufman Music Center International Youth Piano Competition. Other honors include the Colburn School Herbert Zipper Scholar Award, the William Grant Still Arts Center Scholarship, and the National YoungArts Merit Award. Also an avid chamber musician, Celine and her piano trio have won prizes in the Pasadena Conservatory of Music Chamber Music Competition as well as the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. In the summer of 2018, they represented Junior Chamber Music as Debut Artists and toured various cities in Europe, including Prague, Vienna, and Budapest.

Outside of performing, Celine shares her love for music through her work in the Back to Bach Project as a Director of Global Operations. With around 70 global regions, the Back to Bach Project aims to provide a music and arts education to inspire the next generation. At USC, Celine works as a research assistant at the Brain and Creativity Institute, where she is currently working on several projects that explore the relationship between music and the brain. She hopes her work will have future applications to musicians and non-musicians alike.