"...Conductor Mei-Ann Chen opened the set with Huan-Zhi Li's Spring Festival Overture, the Lunar New Year equivalent of a curtain raiser, immediately warm and recognizable. Along with the music, the projection screen cycled through animated horses, cloud sequences, and multilingual New Year greetings in Korean, Vietnamese, and Chinese.

Chen, a Taiwanese American conductor who has led this program before and visibly loves it, wore a black jacket with deep red cuffs and conducted with the kind of physical energy that makes you feel like she's having more fun than anyone else in the room. She is in fact my favorite guest conductor, always warm and engaging the audience...."

SPRINGFIELD — Women will take center stage at Symphony Hall on Saturday, March 14, when the Springfield Symphony Orchestra presents “Mendelssohn, Gershwin, & A Woman’s Voice.”

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Chen’s passion is to discover hidden gems by women, such as Mendelssohn-Hensel’s “Overture in C major.”

“These are works that deserved to be played yet not in the standard repertoire circulation, especially works by women that have been hidden for a long time,” Chen said, adding that Mendelssohn-Hensel’s only surviving orchestral work is gaining exposure in the symphonic music world after first surfacing in 1994."

Ahead of her February 28 return to  San Francisco Symphony, Mei-Ann Chen speaks with Juliana Tzeng about music. Listen to the interview on the podcast link.