Thomas Binkley Award

2026 Recipient: Joyce Chen

A native of Taiwan, Dr. Joyce Wei-Jo Chen 陳瑋若 is a harpsichordist, organist, musicologist, educator, and recipient of the 2026 Thomas Binkley Award from Early Music America, recognizing outstanding leadership in collegiate early music ensembles. She currently serves as Assistant Director of Liturgical Music at the University of Portland, where she oversees the university’s liturgical music program and collaborates with students, faculty, and Campus Ministry in leading music for worship. During the 2026–27 academic year, she also completes her final year as Assistant Professor of Historical Keyboards and Musicology at the University of Oregon, where she teaches organ, harpsichord, and basso continuo, offers musicology courses, and directs the Collegium Musicum. Through her work with the ensemble, she has cultivated an inclusive and collaborative approach to historical performance, inspiring students from diverse musical backgrounds to explore early music and pursue advanced study in the field.

In Spring 2026, Dr. Chen completed her Ph.D. in Historical Musicology and Humanities at Princeton University. Her dissertation, Musica Experientia/Experimentum: Embodied Acoustics and Keyboard Knowledge in Europe, China, and America, 1600–Present, explores the intersections of science, music, and aesthetics through instrument making, sensory experience, and the development of acoustical theory. Her research focuses on early modern keyboard culture, historical performance practice, organology, and the global circulation of musical knowledge. She is the author of the chapter “Strozzi and the Harpsichord” in Barbara Strozzi in Context, edited by Beth L. Glixon and Wendy Heller and published by Cambridge University Press in 2026. Her work has been presented at conferences throughout the United States and Europe, including meetings of the American Musicological Society, the Society for Seventeenth-Century Music, and the History of Science Society. In 2026, she received the inaugural Barbara Owen Research Grant, awarded by the Westfield Center for Historical Keyboard Studies, for her project, Chinoiserie at the Keys: Exoticism, Character, and Interpretation in Eighteenth-Century French Harpsichord Music.

As a solo harpsichordist, Dr. Chen has performed throughout the United States, Europe, and Taiwan. She received the 2018 Individual Artist Fellowship from the Delaware Division of the Arts and was a featured soloist in Early Music America’s 2019 Emerging Artist Showcase. Her appearances include the Musica Antiqua Festival in Belgium, the International Normandy Baroque Competition in France, the Prix Annelie de Man in Amsterdam, the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, Empressa Ensemble, Chamber Music Northwest, the Oregon Bach Festival, Chatter PDX, Ars Musica Chicago, and recital tours in Taiwan and the Pacific Northwest. She also performs regularly as a continuo player, chamber musician, and organist.

Dr. Chen holds a Doctor of Musical Arts in Harpsichord Performance from Stony Brook University and a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.

I am deeply honored to receive the 2026 Thomas Binkley Award and sincerely grateful to the Board of Directors of Early Music America for this incredible recognition. Receiving this award during a year marked by significant personal and professional challenges makes it especially meaningful. It reminds me that none of us accomplishes this work alone, and I am profoundly thankful for the many mentors, colleagues, students, and friends who have encouraged and supported me along the way.

Teaching and directing the University of Oregon Collegium Musicum has been one of the greatest joys of my career. There is nothing more rewarding than watching students discover that early music is not simply something preserved in history books but a vibrant, living tradition that continues to shape how we listen, perform, and create today. Seeing students pursue graduate study in historical performance, present full-length recitals, and develop their own artistic voices has been one of my greatest privileges as a teacher. If my own enthusiasm for early music has inspired even a few young musicians to explore this repertoire more deeply, then I feel I have accomplished something worthwhile.

I believe that early music is an essential part of our shared musical heritage, deserving to be heard, studied, and celebrated by every generation of musicians. I am especially grateful to my teachers—the late Charlene Brendler, Davitt Moroney, Arthur Haas, and Wendy Heller—whose generosity and musicianship continue to inspire my own work. Looking ahead, I am excited to continue sharing the beauty of early music through my Couperin’s Paintbrush multi-album recording project, inviting audiences to experience how François Couperin used music as a painter uses color and light—to portray personalities, emotions, and scenes from everyday life. I am also grateful for the opportunity to continue my musicological research through the inaugural Barbara Owen Research Grant, awarded by the Westfield Center for Historical Keyboard Studies, as I explore the fascinating intersections of Chinoiserie, exoticism, and eighteenth-century keyboard music. 

My greatest hope is to continue encouraging the next generation of musicians to discover that early music is not simply something we preserve—it is something we experience, share, and reimagine together. Soli Deo Gloria. – Joyce Chen

Past Recipients