Conductors
Keynes Chen, Artistic Director, Chamber and Symphony Orchestra Conductor
Mr. Yin-Feng Keynes Chen has devoted most of his life to the violin. The son of a famous violinist and pedagogue in China, Mr. Chen began the violin when he was only four years of age. He entered the Chungking School of the Arts at the age of eleven, then the Shanghai Music Conservatory when he was thirteen. In 1995, he moved his violin study to CU Boulder for both his Bachelor and Master Degrees in Music Performance. Mr. Chen has been teaching violin since 1994 and he has received his complete Suzuki pedagogy training under the famed Suzuki Pedagogue Dr. William Starr. Mr. Chen was the principle violin teacher for Englewood Arts’ Strings Attached program at five different Englewood public schools for two years. He served as a board member for Boulder Youth Symphony (BYS) from 2005-2006, and then the President of BYS from 2006-2007.
Throughout Mr. Chen’s music career, he has received numerous prestigious awards which include the Denes Koromzay Chamber Music Award; winner of CU College of Music’s Concerto Competition in 2000; winner of both the State and Regional Music Teachers’ National Association Music Competition in 2001; and winner of both First-Prize Award and the Audience’ Choice Award in the 2002 Bruce Ekstrand Competition with his former quartet—Nacht Quartet, which was the Graduate String Quartet in Residence and the Performance Teaching Assistant at CU Boulder. He was chosen to attend the prestigious Takács Quartet seminar both in 1999 and 2001. His frequent regional performances have included solo concerts with the CU Symphony Orchestra and the CU Baroque Ensemble; a solo recital for the Colorado Music Festival in 2001; two solo performances with the Colorado Symphony Chamber Musicians’ Up Close and Musical Concert Series; a duet performance with the world renowned Grammy winner, Kitaro, at the Boulder Theater in 2003; five quartet concerts at Boulder's Backyard Arts Series in 2005; and a duet performance for Boulder Chamber Orchestra’s Chamber Concert Series in 2006. In the summer of 2007, Mr. Chen became the first violinist of the established Illuminati Quartet to perform and teach for the String Quartet Program of Northern Colorado.
Currently, besides his solo and chamber concert performances throughout the Front Range area, Mr. Chen serves as the Artistic Director for BYS, and as well as the conductor for BYS’ Chamber Orchestra. He also is the Music Director for Longmont Youth Symphony (LYS), and the conductor for Colorado Youth Symphony’s Philharmonic Orchestra. Besides conducting, he coaches and mentors BYS’ and LYS’ chamber ensemble programs; serves as the Executive Director of A Mid-Summer Day’s Dream String Camp, and often gives sectional rehearsals and master classes for Front Range area youth orchestras. Because of their passion for music education, in 2006 Mr. Chen and his wife, Regan Kane, founded a high-standard music school in the Boulder area called Flatirons Strings Academy. Since then, many of their students have won numerous competitions and awards.
A journalist once asked the French conductor and teacher Nadia Boulanger how it felt to be the first woman to conduct the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic. "I have been a woman for fifty years," Boulanger replied, "and long since overcome my initial astonishment."
Erik Johnson, Wind Ensemble and Symphony Orchestra Conductor
Erik Johnson is an award winning conductor, educator, and musician. He has won many major awards including the Colorado “Teacher of the Year” Award, Channel 9 News “Teacher Who Cares Award,” and Teacher of the Year at Highlands Ranch High School. He has an undergraduate degree from the University of Colorado and two Masters degrees from University of Southern Oregon and the University of Colorado (Wind Conducting). Mr. Johnson has extensive experience as a guest conductor, clinician and adjudicator in various All-State, All-County, and other honor ensembles in the US. Erik was the founder of the Youth Music Program at Aurora Elementary and has conducted and worked with various orchestras and bands at the University of Colorado. He has been published as editor of Jefferson County High School Music Theory Curriculum, author of Curriculum for Beginning Wind and String Students, Aurora Public Schools, Continuing Education Division, and is well known around the state of Colorado and beyond. Eric has led high school programs to record numbers in all-state groups and has helped high school groups collaborate with organizations such as the Breckenridge Music Festival. Mr. Johnson joined Boulder Youth Symphony in Fall 2008 as the founder of the Wind Ensemble.
Paul Rowinski, Chaconne Orchestra Conductor
Paul Rowinski has been teaching violin using the Suzuki Method in Boulder, Colorado since 1983. He graduated from the University of Colorado with a degree in music, studying violin performance and pedagogy with William Starr. He is the director of the Woodsong Suzuki Violin Instruction program in Boulder, and performs locally in various community orchestras.
"If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music" —Gustav Mahler