Hailed as the new "Ambassador for New Music" (The Ottawa Citizen) and proclaimed “dazzling” (Classicagenda) and “brilliant” (Piano News), pianist and conductor Claudia Chan is known as one of the foremost interpreters of contemporary music and has been praised for a “piano playing that moves seemingly effortlessly between often hair-raising (but never self-indulgent) virtuosity and sublime sound development” (Fono Forum). Her thoughtful interpretations of music from Brahms to Boulez and beyond have been heard in major concert halls in Canada, the US, Italy, France, Germany, Austria, and South Korea, as well as on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Radio France, and all major German radio stations. From 2017-2020, Claudia was Artist-in-Residence of the contemporary music department at the famed Fondation Royaumont in France, where she organized and presented concerts, interdisciplinary projects, and gave a series of lecture-recitals on contemporary piano music. For her work, she has been featured in an episode of CBC's Next! as one of 8 up-and-coming young musicians from Canada, been profiled by the Huffington Post, and awarded grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst, Deutscher Musikrat, and the Dörken Stiftung. Based in Cologne, Germany, she has been heard as soloist and chamber musician at the Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik, Acht Brücken Festival (Cologne), Heidelberger Frühling Festival, Tongyeong International Music Festival (South Korea), the MATA Festival (New York City), the Klangspuren Schwaz Festival, the Festival Musica Strasbourg, the 21C Festival (Toronto), the Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival, the New Creations Festival (Toronto), the Sommerliche Musiktage Hitzacker, and PianoCity Milan and founded the award-winning new music quartet BRuCH, who have been invited to play at major festivals and profiled by the Westdeutscher Rundfunk and Deutschlandfunk. She has given masterclasses and workshops at major conservatories and universities across Canada, the United States, Australia, France, and Germany. Claudia has worked closely with such composers as Helmut Lachenmann, Rebecca Saunders, Georg Friedrich Haas, Francesco Filidei, Philippe Leroux, Hans Thomalla, Unsuk Chin, Johannes Schöllhorn, Oliver Schneller, Vassos Nicolaou, Brian Current, and Alice Ho, and been the dedicatee of works by many young, exciting composers. Also active as a conductor, Claudia was appointed musical director of the premiere of the opera “Liebesgesang” by Georg Friedrich Haas at the Stadttheater Bern in Switzerland in 2022 and will be reprising this role in 2024. She completed her undergraduate studies at The Glenn Gould School of The Royal Conservatory, studying piano with David Louie and John Perry, her Master’s of Music at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln with Prof. Dr. Florence Millet, graduated with highest honours from the Master's of New Piano Music in the class of Prof. Pierre-Laurent Aimard, after which she obtained a Konzertexamen with Distinction in contemporary chamber music with BRuCH, under the direction of Prof. Barbara Maurer, as the ensemble-in-residence at the Folkwang Universität der Künste in Essen. Her debut solo CD, “Thoughts about the Piano”, featuring music by Elliott Carter, Iannis Xenakis, Philippe Leroux and pieces commissioned for her by Annie Hui-Hsin Hsieh, Matthew Chamberlain and Mael Bailly, was released on B Records (France) in March 2021 to much acclaim, being named CD of the week by Radio France, and awarded 5 stars from Diapason, Classica, and Fono Forum shortly thereafter. In 2024, Claudia will be touring and teaching in Australia, culminating in an artistic residency at the Australian National Academy of Music, release her second solo CD “toccare”, of contemporary Italian music with B Records, as well as release chamber music recordings on avi/Deutsche Grammophon and bastille musique, and conduct and play concerts in Australia, Canada, France, Switzerland and Germany. Claudia has been on the piano faculty at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln since 2018. 

March 2024