TZELAW CHAN

Tzelaw Chan is Music Director of Singapore's Metropolitan Festival Orchestra and the award-winning Orchestra of the Music Makers. In 2018 he received the Composers and Authors Society of Singapore’s Artistic Excellence Award for his numerous contributions to the Singapore music community.

Chan's performances of Mahler's 8th symphony with the Orchestra of the Music Makers and Sing50 concerts with the Metropolitan Festival Orchestra and Lang Lang were named “Best Concerts of 2015” by Singapore's Sunday Times. Germany's Der neue Merker observed that in Chan's Mahler 8, “listeners felt they have concluded a great journey of time and spirit". Fanfare Magazine states “Chan paces the climaxes so adroitly that, the listener is nearly swept out of the room on tidal waves of sound”. The West Australian lavished praise on his performance of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring “Tze Law (Chan) did wonders from the podium. It was a tour de force.” American Record Guide remarked that that in Mahler's Resurrection symphony he led “with a full understanding of the Mahler idiom”. More recently, Chan's performance of Elgar’s The Music Makers was described by Classical Voice America as having “breathtaking walls of sound and intimate moments of haunting beauty”.

Chan has appeared with major orchestras in the Asia Pacific region and with soloists including Joshua Bloom, Fiona Campbell, Warwick Fyfe, Deborah Humble, Lee Hyon, Caitlin Hulcup, Lang Lang, Ng Pei-Sian, Melvyn Tan, Albert Tiu, Qin Li-Wei, Virgillio Marino, Daniel Sumegi and Igor Yuzefovich. Concerts and CD recordings conducted by Chan have been broadcast on Australia's ABC Classic FM, UK's BBC Radio 3 and featured on Singapore Airlines’ Krisworld In-flight Classical Music selection.

As a pedagogue, Chan is Vice-Dean and Associate Professor of the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, National University of Singapore, and is widely credited for his founding role of the conservatory orchestra and New Music Ensemble. Chan was also the founding chief conductor of the Australian International Summer Orchestral Institute. He has given masterclasses in conducting at the Peabody Institute, USA, and the Royal Academy of Music, London as well as lectures on leadership in conducting at the Senior Management Programme of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. In 2019, he served on the selection committee of the Oxford Conducting Institute International Conducting Studies Conference.

Chan's teachers included conducting luminaries Christopher Adey and Norman Del Mar, and he made his Singapore conducting debut with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra in 2001. Chan’s CD recordings are available on Spotify and iTunes.