Chien-Wen Cheng received the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Music Composition at the University of North Texas, where he studied music composition and computer music with Andrew May, Cindy McTee, Phil Winsor, and Joseph Rovan, with music theory as his related field. He also pursued graduate studies in piano and percussion, and has extensive training as an erhu player. Currently he works as a full-time associate professor in the Department of Interaction Design at the National Taipei University of Technology in Taiwan. Besides, he also teaches adjunctively in the Music Department at Taipei University of Education.

He has won numerous awards for his acoustic music including: winner of the NTSO (National Taiwan Symphonic Orchestra) Composer Commission competition in 2013; winner of TMC (Taiwan Music Center) International Composition Competition in 2012 (Taiwan)； 3rd prize in 2011 NTSO orchestral composition competition (Taiwan); first prize in the “2007 Dallas Symphony Orchestra / Voices of Change Young Composers Competition” (USA); second prize in the “2006 Fine Arts Creation Award” (Taiwan); finalist in the “2006 Chang-huei Syu International Composition Competition” (Taiwan); fourth prize in “The 3rd Percussion Music Composing Competition” (2005, Taiwan); selected work in “2004 Taiwanese Young Composers’ Masterpieces” call-for-scores competition; fourth prize in “2003 Fine Arts Creation Award” (Taiwan); selected work in the 2002 orchestral call-for-scores competition in “Tune in to Taiwan – Taiwan Composers Series”; fourth prize in the “2000 Hakka Vocal Music Composition Contest” (Taiwan).

He was awarded a scholarship of $50,000 during 2005-2007 from the Ministry of Education in Taiwan for studying real-time interactive computer music in USA. His electro-acoustic pieces won the Regional Composition Prize in ICMC 2008, and honorary mention in Musica Nova competition (2011). His works were also among the finalists in Musica Nova International Competition of Electroacoustic Music (2010), Città di Udine International Composition Competition of Electroacoustic Music (2010), Bourge International Composition Competition (2009), and VI Concurso Internacional de Miniaturas Electroacusticas 2008 (Spain). Besides, he won the first prize in both 2005 and 2006 National On-line Arts Creativity Competition in Taiwan, and the second prize in 2007. His electroacoustic works are included in SEAMUS CD and DVD, MIT Computer Musical Journal DVD, and ICMC CD releases. His electroacoustic pieces have also been recognized through performances at music festivals and conferences including: Bourges Synthèse Festival in France (2006); SEAMUS National Conference (2005, 2006, 2007); the International Computer Music Conference (2005, 2006, 2008); the Bellingham Electronic Arts Festival in Washington (2005); the Santa Fe International Festival of Electroacoustic Music in New Mexico (2004, 2006); the Spark Festival in Minnesota (2006); the “Primavera en La Habana” International Electro-acoustic Music Festival in Cuba (2004, 2006); the Most Significant Bytes Multimedia Concert in Ohio (2004); the LaTex Electronic Festival in Texas (2004, 2005); New Music/New Media Concert in Oklahoma (2005).