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BOSTON CONSERVATORY AWARDS 2018 ENTREPRENEURIAL GRANTS TO THREE INNOVATIVE ALUMNAE Boston Conservatory at Berklee’s Alumni Entrepreneurial Grant Program empowers alumni to explore and develop their unique programmatic ideas in the arts. The grant funds innovative, impactful performance endeavors that expand the artist’s toolkit as a performer, leader, and businessperson while fostering a creative spirit. Established in 2013, this program has seeded ideas that have become fledgling theater companies, supported cutting-edge contemporary dance works, and more.
FELICIA CHEN
(M.M. '17, contemporary classical music performance) From an early age, Asian American singer Felicia Chen knew that she wanted to pursue a career in music. Reflecting on her struggle to find role models in the contemporary music world that shared her cultural background, Chen says, “I’ve had to empower myself to carve my own path. I’ve also had to work harder to seek out artists who are like myself.” This experience inspired Chen to use her art to promote cultural diversity in contemporary music. To do this, Chen and cellist Olivia Harris, a Boston Conservatory at Berklee classmate, founded a duo called Mazumal. The name Mazumal is a mixture of words that represent both the benevolence and malevolence of female deities from Chen’s Taiwanese and Harris’s Caribbean ancestry. Mazumal commissions work by composers and poets from often marginalized communities, and, through carefully designed performance experiences, fosters a new social understanding of contemporary classical music. This past summer, Mazumal performed at the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies at University of California, Berkeley and participated in a residency program at the Hartt School at the University of Hartford. The duo also served as ensemble fellows of the Cortona Sessions Contemporary Chamber Music Initiative in Cortona, Italy.
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