As a second generation Taiwanese-Chinese American (born 1976) living in Berlin, Audrey Chen’s work has long dealt with and continues to explore the displacement of story and history due to the migration and integration processes, loss and adoption of language, untold stories, and how the past can be accessed and traced through inherited and lived experience. Her practice is deeply intertwined with this act of invocation, calling upon the physical body to remember beyond the limitations of its own memory, beyond its lifetime into generations past, simultaneously echoing into the present and forwards.

Through extreme and unprocessed hyperextensions of her voice, she invokes a highly amplified joint resonant body/space transforming itself in a feedback loop of imagination, touch, vibration, sound and aural sensation.

Aside from her solo concerts, Chen performs currently, since 2005, in duo with Phil Minton; BEAM SPLITTER with Henrik Munkeby Nørstebø; MOPCUT with Lukas Koenig and Julien Desprez; in duo with electronic music artist Kaffe Matthews; and as a duo for voice/live digital process with Mexican sound artist Hugo Esquinca.

Some album releases include, “By the Stream” with Phil Minton – Subrosa (BE), “Hiss & Viscera” with Richard Scott – Sound Anatomy (Berlin), “Rough Tongue”, BEAM SPLITTER’S debut LP – Corvo Records (Berlin) and latest “Split Jaw” on Tripticks Tapes (US), her solo album “Runt Vigor” – Karl Records (Berlin) and two records with MOPCUT, “Accelerated Frames of Reference” – Trost (AT) and “Jitter”, a split release on Opal Tapes (UK) and Ventil Records (AT).

Chen has performed across Europe, Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, Australia, New Zealand, China, Japan, Taiwan, Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador, Canada and the USA.

Past festivals include: Festival Beyond Innocence (Osaka, JP), Maerzmusik (Berlin, DE), Klangspuren (Schwaz, AT), NUMA Circuit (Tenerife, ES), Sound of Stockholm (Stockholm, SE), Jazz Saalfelden (Saalfelden, AT), Plateaux Festival (Torun, PL), Color Out of Space (Brighton, UK), Music Unlimited (Wels, AT), 2PI (Hangzhou, CN), Jazz à Luz (Luz-Saint-Saveur, FR), Festival Muzzix (Lille, FR), La Voix est Libre (Toulouse/Paris, FR), Total Meeting (Tours, FR), Now Now (Sydney, AU), Uncool (Poschiavo, CH), the Next Festival (Bratislava, SK), Colour Out of Space (Brighton, UK), Donau Festival (Krems, AT), Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville/FIMAV (CA), Festival Ecuatoriano de Música Contemporánea (Quito,Ecuador), Elevate (Graz, AT), Ear We Are (Biel, CH), Meteo (Mulhouse, FR), Angelica (Bologna, IT), Wiener Festwochen (Vienna, AT) and Wien Modern (Vienna, AT).

And venues such as: Covent Garden (London, UK), Radialsystem (Berlin, DE), Zacheta National Gallery (Warsaw, PL), Musée du quai Branly (Paris, FR), Radio France (Paris, FR), Théâtre Bouffes du Nord (Paris, FR), Auditorio de Tenerife (Tenerife, ES), Teatro Colon (Buenos Aires, AR), Bimhuis (Amsterdam, NL), Rote Fabrik (Zurich, CH), Teatro Fondamenta Nuove (Venice, IT), DOM (Moscow, RU), Wiener Konzerthaus (Vienna, AT), Opéra de Lille (Lille, FR) and Robert Wilson’s Watermill Center (Water Mill, NY, US).

“Singing with Audrey is like working with all the possible noises of the universe and beyond, earthquakes, colliding galaxies and slugs sliding down a wet window, very quiet.”  – Phil Minton, Minton at 80, The Wire Magazine December 2020