South Coast Youth Symphony Orchestra

Maestro Yiqun Chen, has been a music educator and performer for nearly a decade. He received a Masters of Arts degree in Teaching Music from the University of Southern California with an emphasis in instrumental music education. While attending USC, Mr. Chen received the Ella Fitzgerald Foundation Scholarship. Mr. Chen holds a Bachelor of Music degree in performance with a concentration in saxophone and jazz studies from the Bob Cole Conservatory of Music at California State University Long Beach and was a recipient of the Mary E. Israel Music Scholarship as well as the Jazz Studies Department Outstanding Student Award. His primary saxophone teachers were Chris Charbonneau, Leo Potts, Jay Mason, and James Barrera. He has also studied with Doug Masek and Rusty Higgins. With many years of private teaching experience, his private students have been members of the Southern California Band and Orchestra Association’s Honor Bands as well as the California Band Directors Association’s All State Honor Band and the California Music Educators Association’s All State Honor Band. His students have also been successful in solo competitions such as the Music Teacher’s National Association’s Solo Competition and the Claremont Winds Concerto Competition. In 2006 he was a member of the Disneyland All American College Band and performed full time at the Disneyland Resort. Mr. Chen has participated in the 16th annual Hamamatsu Wind Instrument Academy, the 3rd annual Hong Kong International Saxophone Symposium and the 2011 North American Saxophone Alliance Region 2 Conference. Mr. Chen is the director of instrumental music at Gladstone High School in Covina, California and the director of the Cerritos branch of the SCYSO. He is currently a member of the Southern California School Band and Orchestra Association, the North American Saxophone Alliance, and the Phi Kappa Phi National Honor Society. Mr. Chen toured with the SCYSO to England, Ireland & Wales in 2011 and France & Germany in 2013.