Anna da Silva Chen is widely regarded as one of Australia’s most versatile concert violinists, equally at home as a soloist, chamber musician, and director. Known for her virtuosity and boundless curiosity, she takes a keen interest in diverse stylistic practices across several musical periods, with a particular passion for neglected repertoire. In 2021, she founded the Alma Moodie Quartet, and she has been a core member of the Australian Chamber Orchestra since 2024.

As a soloist, Anna has performed with many of Australia’s major orchestras, including the Sydney, Adelaide, Queensland, Tasmanian, and Canberra Symphony Orchestras, as well as numerous regional, youth, and community ensembles. Concerto highlights include Beethoven (with her own cadenzas) with CSO, and Steel City Strings, Elgar with ASO, Shostakovich No. 1 with Ensemble Apex and West Phil, Brahms with NSSO, the Butterfly Lovers with QSO, and Sibelius and Tchaikovsky concerti with several orchestras. In 2024, she gave the Australian premiere of Max Reger’s 1908 Violin Concerto with Concerto Arcana. Overseas, she made her German debut in 2020 with the Göttingen Symphony Orchestra, toured Spain as a soloist with the SCM Wind Symphony Orchestra, performed and tutored chamber ensembles at the Netherlands’ Orlando Festival (2022), and led a performance of Ligeti’s Melodien at Italy’s Chigiana International Festival (2024).

By the age of 15, Anna had won Australia’s Kendall National Violin Competition (First Prize and Audience Choice), the National Youth Concerto Competition, Fine Music FM’s Young Virtuoso Award, and was a semi-finalist in the Menuhin International Violin Competition. She went on to win the overall prize of KPO’s NSW Concerto Competition, the Sydney Conservatorium’s Concerto Competition, multiple University of Sydney Academic Merit Prizes, the Corrina Taylor Memorial Prize, and the Miss Ada Thompson Scholarship, and was a frequent finalist in the ABC Young Performers Awards. In recent years, she has been a laureate of the Vienna and Gisborne International Music Competitions and was one of 22 violinists selected to compete in the Carl Nielsen International Competition.

Anna is deeply motivated as a chamber musician and curator. As leader of the Alma Moodie Quartet, she shares her dedication to the music their namesake championed - the classics as well as rarely heard quartets by Schoenberg, Reger, Ligeti, and Zemlinsky. She has performed as guest violinist with the Australia Ensemble, Omega Ensemble, Australia Piano Quartet, Ensemble Q, and Selby & Friends; as soloist, guest director, and concertmaster of Ensemble Apex; and as a festival artist at the Canberra International, Tasmanian, Brycefield Estate, and Newcastle Music Festivals. She has been privileged to perform chamber music alongside Richard Tognetti, Shunske Sato, Andrew Haveron, Julian Smiles, Shuann Chai, Konstantin Shamray, Daniel de Borah, and Lee Dionne.

Born in Sydney and raised in Wollongong, Anna began violin lessons at age eight with Sarah Hindson. She maintains a strong connection to audiences on the South Coast, having performed at the Gerringong Music Club series every year since she was eleven. She studied with Dr Robin Wilson in the Sydney Conservatorium’s Rising Stars program, as an undergraduate with Alice Waten, and with Prof Mihaela Martin in Cologne, Germany. She has also had memorable lessons with Eberhard Feltz (Conservatorio di Verona), Ilya Gringolts (Accademia Musicale Chigiana), Shunske Sato, Laurent Korcia, Johannes Meissl, Maxim Vengerov, Barnabás Kelemen, and Boris Kuschnir (Kronberg Academy).