Meijun Chen began playing clarinet in Grade 2 because her band teacher handed her the instrument, insisting it would be a great fit for her height. Chen had hoped to play the flute, but she trusted her teacher’s judgment and gave the clarinet a try.
More than two decades later, Chen still looks good holding the clarinet — as she does waving the conductor’s baton — handling both with irrefutable aplomb.
In 2023, she won first prize in clarinet performance at the prestigious Debussy International Music Competition and has appeared frequently as guest clarinetist with the Royal Canadian Artillery Band. She has also become a first-rate educator and conductor of wind bands (consisting of woodwind, brass and percussion instruments), determined to highlight how their artistic range now thrives not only in military settings but also in vibrant educational environments.
Chen is now graduating with the University of Alberta’s first doctorate in wind band conducting, after working her way through three degrees in music at the university.
“I’ve been studying with no gap year for 11 years in a row, so I’m a very loyal U of A student,” she says.
Music once seemed an unlikely professional path. Growing up in China, Chen started playing piano at age four, and travelled abroad with her school band during summers from elementary school through high school. While music had always been an indispensable part of her life, it began as a personal passion before it became her profession.
When it came time to apply to university, she crossed an ocean to study economics at the U of A, joining the university’s wind band for extracurricular amusement.
”Playing in the band has been part of my life growing up. As a first-year student, I wanted to make friends and thought, ‘What better way to do that than join the band?’ But after my audition, the band director (Angela Schroeder) thought I played clarinet pretty well and eventually persuaded me to switch my major to music, so I did, and remained with an economics minor.”
By her third year, Chen started taking on private music students. That’s when it struck her that, as exhilarating as performance could be, her true passion lay in education. To become a better teacher, she pursued a double master’s degree in wind band conducting and clarinet performance.
“Usually that takes three years; I did it in two. So it was a very intense schedule to complete all the academic courses and recitals while also working my other part-time jobs as a band teaching assistant, a U of A International program assistant and the university orchestra librarian.”
As a conductor, Chen sees herself as educating not just individual clarinet students or even the whole wind band, but also the audience behind her — “all those people sitting in the concert hall” — toward a deeper appreciation of the wind band repertoire.
Her dissertation is a comparative study of wind band music education, with a focus on wind band conducting in China and Canada, with the goal of increasing cultural diversity in the genre.
"This is an area that hasn't received much attention yet," she says. "I hope my work can help start a conversation and contribute to a better understanding."
“We are committed to diversifying our concert program to better reflect and inspire our entire student body. By actively featuring works by female and underrepresented composers, we hope to make every student feel included and empowered to compose and perform.”
In December, Chen will present at the Midwest Clinic International Band and Orchestra Conference in Chicago, the largest wind band conference in the world, offering music educators and conductors guidance on interpreting Chinese-inspired wind band works.
Chen is currently director of Concert Winds at the University of British Columbia School of Music. She has worked with public schools, collegiate, and military bands, orchestras and community choirs across Canada and China, and has served as an adjudicator for music festivals throughout British Columbia and Canada.
She has also been an emerging artist and assistant conductor with the Edmonton Opera, and a conducting intern with the Edmonton Youth Orchestra. Earlier this year, she was named to CBC Music’s Canadian Classical Musicians “30 Under 30” list for 2025.
“I hope to serve as a role model for younger, especially female, musicians, so they have someone to refer to and feel they can pursue something like this in the future,” she says.
“But inspiration isn’t only for future professionals. I want students who played music in high school to know they shouldn’t give it up. Even if they want to be engineers, lawyers, doctors — anything — their music can and should remain a vital part of their lives at university and beyond.”