Yiwen was selected as one of two composers for the Staunton Music Festival's Emerging Composers program. He is commissioned to write some songs to be premiered there during the week of August 17-25, 2012. For more information, please visit http://stauntonmusicfestival.com/events_ss.shtml
Yiwen's The Sorrowful Song of Drunken Exaltation, for soprano and orchestra, comissioned by the Bard Conservatory of Music for its first international to China in June, received its premieres in Tianjin on June 19th, in Guangzhou on June 21st, and inWuhan on June 22nd, 2012. For more information, please visit http://conservatory.bard.edu/conservatory/chinatour/
Yiwen's First Orchestral Essay (2010), for full orchestra, was chosen from a pool of 153 candidates as one of six winning compositions, by the Minnesota Orchestra for its annual Composer Institute. The piece received its world premiere by the orchestra under Maestro Osmo Vänskä on January 6th, 2012. For more information, please visit http://www.minnesotaorchestra.org/about/news_story.cfm?id_news=31152116
Yiwen was selected as one of four composers to participate in Carnegie Hall's Professional Training Workshop, directed by soprano Dawn Upshaw and composer Donnacha Dennehy. His commissioned piece Taking Leave of a Friend (2011) was premiered at Carnegie's Zankel Hall at 7:30pm on April 17th, 2011. According to The New York Times, "Mr. Shen set six poems by Li Po with a lucid, economical lyricism handed down by Barber and Rorem." For more information, please visit http://www.carnegiehall.org/Event.aspx?id=2400 and http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/19/arts/music/dawn-upshaw-and-students-at-zankel-hall-review.html?_r=1&ref=arts
Yiwen's First Orchestral Essay (2010), for full orchestra, was selected as one of three winning compositions by the Albany Symphony Orchestra for its Second Annual Young Composer Competition. The piece was read in May 2011 by Maestro David Alan Miller and the Albany Symphony Orchestra as part of the orchestral's annual American Music Festival.
Yiwen was commissioned by the Beijing Modern Music Festival and Beijing Symphony Orchestra for a clarinet concerto. The piece received its world premiere on May 25th, 2011 in Beijing Concert Hall, China.
