Music Director

Prof. CHAN Wing-wah, JP

Music Director of the Hong Kong Oratorio Society since 1995, Chan has been leading this choir with regular seasonal concerts and occasional concert tours to perform oratorios and other masterpieces from Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Mendelssohn to Rutter. Several of which are Hong Kong premieres. He has conducted orchestras in Shanghai, Beijing, Macao, Shenzhen, Gwangju(Korea) in addition to the HK Philharmonic Orchestra, HK Sinfonietta, HK Chinese Orchestra and HK Strings.

Prof. Chan is a prolific composer of orchestral, chamber and choral works including hymns, children songs and film scores.

He was for three seasons Resident Composer of the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra with which he has conducted the premiere of his Symphonies No.5 ‘The Three Kingdoms’ and No.6 ‘Reunification’.  He had also conducted the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra to premiere his Symphony No. 7 ‘The Great Wall’ and Symphony No.8 ‘This Boundless Land’ for organ, choir and orchestra.

Published by Hugo Productions, his Symphonies Nos 1, 3, 4, 5, 6 were recorded by the Russian Philharmonic Orchestra, Voronezh State Symphony Orchestra in Russia.and the Hong Kong Sinfonietta whereas his Symphonies No. 7 and 8 were recorded by the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra..

His international awards include First Prize in the International Double Reed Society Composition Conest, USA; the Yoshiro Irino Memorial Award from the Asian Composers League and the 20th Century Masterpiece Award by the China Culture Promotion Society, Beijing.  Locally he received the Composer of the Year Award from the Hong Kong Artists' Guild (1991), the Ten Outstanding Young Persons Award (1992), TVB Children Song Gold Award, CASH Golden Sail Music Awards 2004 and 2007. His music has been performed in Argentina, Australia, Canada, Mainland China, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Korea, Poland, Romania, Russia, Singapore, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, UK, and the USA.
 
His recent works were performed in International Society for Contemporary Music-World Music Days Festival in Stuttgart, Germany; Summer Music Festival in Ljubljana, Slovenia; Trieste Prima Festival in Trieste, Italy; Alesander Tansman Music Festival in Lodz, Poland; Festival LIM 2Mil in Madrid and the Festival BBK in the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain.

His latest commissioned work on a painting of Paul Klee was premiered in Winterthur and Bern, Switzerland in March, 2008 in a festival entitled Klang-Klee.  His biography is included in the New Grove Dictionary of Music & Musicians Online.

Chan serves as Chairman of the Composers and Authors Society of Hong Kong since 1994, he is also a member of the Council of Directors of the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra, Honorary Music Director of the HK Children’s Choir, Honorary Advisor of the China Broadcasting Folk Orchestra (Beijing), Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, Hong Kong Dance Company and artistic advisor to the Leisure and Cultural Services Department.. He had also served as a member of the Arts Development Council for over ten years, Chairman of the Hong Kong Composers' Guild 1993-2004 and the Jockey Club Music and Dance Fund 1996-2006.  The Hong Kong Government appointed him Justice of the Peace in 2000.

He graduated from the Chinese University of Hong Kong where he earned his BA meanwhile received the FTCL in Composition from the Trinity College of Music, London. He further studied composition at the University of Toronto and earned his Master and Doctor of Music degrees on a British Commonwealth Scholarship. He had also attended the Darmstadt Summer Course in New Music on a grant from the German Academic Exchange Service.

Prof. Chan has lectured on music at the Chinese University of Hong Kong from 1986- 2007. He had been Chairman of its Department of Music for over ten years. He is now Associate Head the College of Humanities and Law at the School of Professional And Continuing Education, The University of Hong Kong (HKU SPACE) and Head of  its Centre for Creative and Performing Arts.