Ian Chen is a Taiwanese-Canadian composer based in Los Angeles working across film, television, and interactive media. His recent composing credits include the feature thriller The Evil Inside (2026) and Taiwanese period drama series Trade War (2024). His work has been recognized by the Hollywood Music in Media Awards, the Game Audio Networks Guild Awards, and the Independent Music Awards. Ian’s music can be heard on major streaming platforms including Disney+, Netflix, and Amazon, as well as on television networks across Asia.
Ian studied classical and contemporary orchestral composition at Cornell University under the late Steven Stucky and later completed graduate studies in film music at NYU Steinhardt. This training informs a compositional practice grounded in orchestral structure while remaining adaptable to contemporary production methods. His work integrates acoustic instrumentation, electronics, and sampling, with particular attention to texture, color, and timbral detail. Central to his approach is clear thematic writing, with an emphasis on crafting memorable melodies that support character and narrative while remaining flexible enough to evolve across long-form storytelling.
Drawn to character-driven and psychologically complex material, Ian’s scores often begin with restraint and atmosphere, allowing musical scale, density, and thematic presence to expand as narratives unfold. This sensitivity to dramatic pacing enables him to move fluidly between intimate writing and more assertive orchestral gestures, maintaining narrative clarity while reinforcing emotional impact.
In addition to his work as a lead composer, Ian collaborates as an orchestrator, arranger, and additional writer on large-scale film and television projects. His credits include Daredevil: Born Again (2025), Emperor of Ocean Park (2024), and Five Nights at Freddy’s (2023), working alongside composers such as The Newton Brothers and Amanda Jones. Since 2022, he has also served as Technical Score Coordinator at John Debney Productions, supporting studio features through score preparation, MIDI mock-ups, music editing, and orchestral workflow coordination.
Beyond screen scoring, Ian has worked as Audio Director for narrative-focused video games and has participated in live performance, conducting, and interdisciplinary collaborations, experiences that continue to inform a practice attentive to structure, gesture, and the relationship between sound and dramatic space.
