Min-Yen CHIEN est l'un des violonistes les plus importants de la "première génération" (suivant la seconde guerre mondiale et la migration de 1949) à Taiwan. Né à Nantou en 1953 dans une famille de musiciens et médecins, il commence le violon à 7 ans et remporte à 8 ans le Premier Prix du Concours national pour les enfants de Taiwan. C'est durant ce concours qu'il est entendu par Raphael Hillyer, l'altiste du Quatuor Julliard. Celui-ci décide alors de le prendre en parrainage. A l'âge de 10 ans, Min-Yen Chien remporte le Premier Prix du Concours National de violon de Taiwan, organisé par le Rotary Club.
Encouragé et soutenu par Raphael Hillyer, Chien se rend aux Etats-Unis en 1967; il gagne durant l'été le Concours du Concerto à l'académie de Interlochen, Michigan, ce qui lui permet de jouer le Concerto de Mendelssohn avec orchestre. Il étudie ensuite à la North Carolina School of the Arts avec Marc Gottlieb et Ruggiero Ricci. Celui-ci le recommande pour la section junior de la Juillard School (New York) où il étudie avec Ivan Galamian et Sally Thomas. Il étudie également la musique de chambre à la Juillard ainsi qu'au Blossom music festival de Kent (Ohio).Titulaire de la Licence (Bachelor) et du Master de la Juillard, il se perfectionne ensuite avec Albert Markov au Mannes College. Il travaillera aussi avec Gérard Poulet à Tokyo, ce qui marque une étape décisive dans lévolution de son jeu.
Particulièrement intéressé en science et médecine, Min-Yen Chien a été étudiant au College of Medicine de l'Université d'Arkansas (Little Rock) de 1982 à 86.
En 1991 il effectue son début à Carnegie Hall (New York) devant une salle comble. Il est depuis 1986 professeur à l'Université Nationale des Arts de Taipei (Taiwan).
Min Yen Chien is one of the foremost and first generation of Taiwanese international violinists. Born on August 2. 1953 into a medical and musical family in Nantou, Taiwan. He started his violin lessons at age seven, and by the age of eight, he had won the first prize of the National Violin Competition for children in Taiwan. At that competition, Chien was heard by the late Raphael Hillyer then as the violist of The Juilliard String Quartet, visiting and touring Taiwan in 1961. Since that time, Chien became a protege of Hillyer. AT age ten , Chien was the first prize winner of the First National Violin Competition sponsored by Rotary Club of Taiwan.
With the encouragement and sponsorship of Hillyer. Chein came to the United States in 1967, during that summer, he won the first prize of the Violin Concerto Competition at the National Music Camp in Interlochen, Michigan, and performed the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto with its orchestra. In the year of 1967-68, he studied at the North Carolina School of the Arts with Marc Gottlieb and Ruggiero Ricci. Under the recommendation of Ricci, Chien entered the Pre-College Division of the Juilliard School in 1968 as a full scholarship student under the direction of Ivan Galamian and Sally Thomas. He also studied chamber music with Robert Mann, Felix Galimir, William Lincer and Lillian Fuchs. In the summer of 1977, Chien studied chamber music with Ma Si-Hon and Josef Gingold at the Blossom Music Festival in Kent, Ohio. With the Scholarship funded by the Rotary Club of New Jersey, Chien received his Bachelor (1975) and Master (1976) Degrees in Music from Juilliard. He further studied with Albert Markov at the Mannes College, also privatly in Taiwan with Kek-Jiang Lim , former Music Director and Conductor of the Hong Kong Philharmonic, and in Tokyo with Gerard Poulet since 2010.
Since Chien has always had a great interest in medicine and science, he was accepted as a medical student at The College of Medicine at the University of Arkansas in Little Rock; and had studied medicine from 1982-86.
In 1991 Min Yen Chien made his Alice Tully Hall debut in New York City with pianist Wendy Fang Chen to a sold out capacity. And since 1986 he has been on the faculty of the Taipei National University of the Arts in Taipei. Taiwan.