English Full Biography
Jo-Yu Chen – Pianist & Composer
Jo-Yu Chen is a Taiwanese-American pianist and composer, and a Steinway Artist. She is the first Taiwanese jazz artist signed to a major international record label. Her music moves among contemporary composition, chamber music, improvisation, and jazz. Over time, she has developed a personal musical language that resists definition by any single genre.
Chen trained in classical music from an early age, studying piano and oboe before continuing her education at The Juilliard School in New York. After Juilliard, she entered The New School and immersed herself in New York’s jazz and improvisational scene, studying with musicians including Jason Moran, Sam Yahel, and Kevin Hays.
For Chen, this was never a simple move from classical music to jazz. Both traditions became equally important to the way she hears and creates. Today, she draws on composition, improvisation, chamber music, and her own piano language as elements of the same creative practice.
Chen gained international recognition with Stranger, released on OKeh Records / Sony Music in 2014 and featuring guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel. With Savage Beauty (Sony Music, 2019), featuring saxophonist Mark Turner, she sought a freer, more instinctive form of expression, inspired by the uninhibited energy of childhood and a beauty that allows for imperfection. The album marked a personal as well as musical breakthrough, as she challenged expectations she had internalized about how a serious jazz musician should sound and present herself. In both the music and its visual identity, she gave herself greater freedom to express the full range of her imagination and aesthetic sensibility.
In the years that followed, Chen returned to her classical roots with a different sense of artistic freedom. Walking Through Fear, released as a single in 2023, introduced her original writing for String Quartet + Piano. With the 2024 EP Schubert & Mozart: ’Round Midnight, she began reimagining classical repertoire through the piano trio, bringing her own musical perspective to works she had known since her early training.
Her 2025 album, Rendezvous: Jazz Meets Beethoven, Tchaikovsky & More, deepened that exploration through works by Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, Mussorgsky, and Ravel. Drawing on an intimate knowledge of the repertoire and the creative freedom of improvisation, Chen reshaped familiar music into interpretations unmistakably her own. All About Jazz praised the album’s vitality and spirited interpretations, describing Chen as “at the top of her game.”
Her 2026 album Modern Love takes her work in a new direction. Written for String Quartet + Piano, it was not conceived as a traditional piano quintet. Chen imagined the quartet and piano as distinct voices in conversation. The string parts are fully composed, with intricate counterpoint, while the piano remains unwritten and open to improvisation.
Within that composed structure, the piano has the freedom to answer, interrupt, or carry the music somewhere unexpected. At times, the quartet speaks as one; at others, it separates into individual lines.
Modern Love reflects a musical language that Chen has developed naturally over time. Her classical training, experience in jazz, chamber writing, and improvisation have become inseparable in the way she hears and creates. These influences coexist in a sound distinctly her own, without any single musical language defining the whole. For Chen, the album is a work of contemporary music and her most personal musical statement to date.
Beyond composing and recording, Chen has explored connections between music, visual art, architecture, spatial design and technology. Presented at the National Taichung Theater, her Savage Beauty interactive exhibition extended the album into an experience combining music, new media, augmented reality, and spatial design.
Chen’s work has received international coverage from publications including DownBeat, JAZZIZ, All About Jazz, Jazz Japan, Jazz Critique, Rolling Stone France, Jazzman, Jazzthing, JAZZTHETIK, and Musica Jazz.
Today, she describes herself simply as a pianist and composer.
中文 Biography
陳若玗｜鋼琴家・作曲家
陳若玗是一位台裔美籍鋼琴家與作曲家、Steinway Artist，也是首位與國際主流唱片廠牌簽約的台灣爵士音樂家。她的音樂游移於古典、爵士、室內樂與即興之間，在當代創作中逐漸發展出不受單一樂種定義的個人音樂語言。
她自幼接受完整的古典音樂訓練，學習鋼琴與雙簧管，之後進入紐約茱莉亞音樂學院（The Juilliard School）。離開茱莉亞後，她進入 The New School，深入紐約爵士與即興音樂世界，並曾跟隨 Jason Moran、Sam Yahel、Kevin Hays 等音樂家學習。
對陳若玗而言，這段歷程並非從古典音樂「轉向」爵士，而是不斷拓展自己聆聽與創作的可能。兩種音樂傳統逐漸成為她同等重要的養分，也讓她在細膩與不羈、精確與自由之間，找到自己的表達。
她的作品既有細緻的聲部與層次，也容許即興改變音樂的走向。抒情之中可以帶著尖銳，浪漫也可以深沉而不安。這種帶有黑色浪漫的美感，逐漸成為她鮮明的創作個性。如今，作曲、即興、室內樂寫作與鋼琴語言，已是她創作中自然共存的不同元素。
2014 年，陳若玗推出由 OKeh Records / Sony Music 發行的《Stranger》，邀請吉他手 Kurt Rosenwinkel 合作，獲得國際樂壇的關注。2019 年 Sony Music 發行的《Savage Beauty》則邀請薩克斯風手 Mark Turner 合作。受到孩子自在玩耍時的生命力啟發，她試著找回更自由、更憑直覺的表達，也探索一種不必完美、帶有野性的美。
《Savage Beauty》的突破不只在音樂上，也在於她開始鬆開自己長期內化的期待：一位「認真的爵士音樂家」，應該如何演奏，又應該以什麼樣貌出現？從音樂到視覺，她不再為了符合既定形象而藏起自己，而是讓想像力與美感更完整地成為作品的一部分。
之後，陳若玗帶著更自由的創作態度，重新回望自己的古典音樂背景。
2023 年發行的單曲〈Walking Through Fear〉，開啟了她為弦樂四重奏與鋼琴創作的探索。2024 年的 EP《Schubert & Mozart: ’Round Midnight》，則透過現代和聲、即興與鋼琴三重奏，重新詮釋舒伯特與莫札特，讓熟悉的作品展現不同的面貌。
2025 年的《Rendezvous: Jazz Meets Beethoven, Tchaikovsky & More》，進一步重新想像貝多芬、柴可夫斯基、普羅高菲夫、穆索斯基與拉威爾的作品。憑藉對古典曲目的深刻理解，以及即興帶來的創作自由，她從原作中發展出屬於自己的音樂敘事，讓改編成為個人表達的延伸。
2026 年的《Modern Love》，呈現了陳若玗不願被單一音樂語言定義的創作態度。多年古典訓練與爵士經驗，早已融入她聆聽與創作的方式。
她並未將作品構想為傳統的鋼琴五重奏，而是讓弦樂四重奏與鋼琴各自保有聲音與自由。弦樂聲部完整寫下，鋼琴聲部則保持不寫譜的即興空間。她在自己建立的結構中自由演奏，也讓參與錄音的音樂家以各自的個性與詮釋，成為作品的一部分。
對陳若玗而言，《Modern Love》是一張當代音樂作品，也是她至今最貼近自己的音樂表達。除了創作、演出與錄音，陳若玗也持續探索音樂與視覺藝術、建築、科技及空間之間的關係。她曾於臺中國家歌劇院推出《Savage Beauty》音樂互動展，將專輯延伸為結合音樂、新媒體、AR 與空間設計的跨領域作品。
她的作品曾獲 DownBeat、JAZZIZ、All About Jazz、Jazz Japan、Jazz Critique、Rolling Stone France、Jazzman、Jazzthing、JAZZTHETIK、Musica Jazz 等國際媒體報導。
如今，她最簡單的自我定義是：鋼琴家、作曲家。
Copyright @ 2026 Jo-Yu Chen. All rights reserved.