Charlie Chan (composer)

Charlie Chan
Birth name	Maryann Sook Kim Chan
Born	January 2, 1966 (1966-01-02) (age 45) Albury, New South Wales (Australia)
Genres	Jazz, classical, improvisation, world-music
Occupations	Musician, Composer, improvisation, world-music
Instruments	Piano Guitar Double Bass Drums
Years active	1982–present
Labels	Sony Masterworks Martian Music
Website	charliechan.com.au

Charlie Chan (born January 2, 1966) is an Australian pianist/composer best known for her original, mostly instrumental music albums and for creating numerous soundtracks for the stage and screen. Having studied piano, guitar, double bass, orchestration and computer-based music technology in her childhood, Chan’s public career began in the 1990s with a series of original jazz, classical, improvisation and world-music inspired albums on the Sony Masterworks classical label. At this time, she gained a reputation for blending acoustic and electronic music, while pioneering an Australian artist’s use of multimedia technologies and the internet.^[1] From the early 2000s to present, Chan has been regularly commissioned to compose soundtracks for feature films, television series, documentaries and stage productions. Highlights include soundtracks for feature film Me Myself I, long-running television drama McLeod's Daughters, and the 2011 Australian television crime-drama series Killing Time starring David Wenham. Charlie Chan composes on her primary instrument – a 97-key Bosendorfer Imperial Grand 290 piano, and records in her HD 3 studio, combining state-of-the-art technology with collectable vintage microphones and recording equipment. She has been awarded Best Music Performance at the Melbourne Fringe Festival along with being nominated for two APRA (Australian Performing Rights Assoc.) Awards for Best Music for a Television Series and Best Film Score, and three Australian Guild of Screen Composers nominations for Best Soundtrack Album, Best Music for a Feature Film, and Best Music for a Documentary.^[2] Charlie’s live concert appearances include the State Theatre Sydney and Melbourne Town Hall. She performed at the Sydney Opera House in the mid-1990s for the first online live broadcast of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras annual event launch.

Early Years and Musical Influences

The child of a Chinese-Malay father and Scottish-Australian mother, Chan was born and raised in Melbourne, Australia and grew up in the Dandenong area, 30 km from the city’s central business district. She received a ukulele at age three which she took to immediately – a gift from her father’s employer, GM Holden, given to Charlie at the annual company Christmas party. Chan’s parents rewarded her musical interest with a Skylark acoustic guitar and music lessons when she turned five, and she soon began playing her uncle’s pianola and the piano shortly thereafter. Chan also taught herself drums and started her first band at eight years of age with friends at her local Catholic girls’ school.

At this time, influences included those from her parent’s record collection – musicals such as My Fair Lady, Oklahoma and The Sound of Music, along with pop and jazz influences like Chicago, Simon & Garfunkel and The Carpenters, flugelhorn player Chuck Mangione and the Getz/Gilberto collaboration that featured their famous rendition of “The Girl from Ipanema”.

At the age of 12, Chan began work experience in a local Yamaha music store, gaining access to innovative instruments like the Yamaha CP70 electric grand piano along with drum kits and a Rhodes piano. A determined teenager by 13, she cajoled her school into buying a double bass and reached the classical training standard of Grade 7 within three years.

It was at this time that Chan’s experience with music orchestration began. At the age of 14, she started work experience with Young Talent Time as a music copyist, approaching the production herself, and turning up repeatedly until she was offered an ongoing role.

Chan auditioned for and was accepted by three highly regarded music-focused schools at age 15 – the Victorian College of the Arts, Blackburn High School and University High School – opting to attend the latter. By 15, Chan had furthered her orchestration experience, composing and/or arranging music for small ensembles of up to 15 musicians at school along with drama and music camps. One of Chan’s first major orchestration assignments at drama camp was for a stage adaption of the novel They Shoot Horses Don’t They? Originally named Maryann Chan at birth, she was christened Charlie Chan around this time by friends at a drama camp. The name stuck.

As Chan grew into adulthood, the musical influences that would stay with her included an eclectic range from classical greats Mahler, Smetana and Wagner, to contemporary composer/artists Laurie Anderson, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Philip Glass and Keith Jarrett, through to world-renowned Pakistani musician Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and experimental pop artists like David Sylvian and his band Japan, Grace Jones and Peter Gabriel.

Pop bands and solo albums

Chan left Melbourne for Sydney at age 16 which led to commissioned work with drama and dance groups plus stints playing keyboards and drums with successful pop bands Electric Pandas, The Allniters and iconic women’s band The Stray Dags.

These experiences culminated with the release of Chan’s solo recordings and, in 1996, an Australian and Asia Pacific tour supporting world music electronica band Deep Forest after the band and group’s management was sent a Charlie Chan recording.

In the 1990s, Chan released three critically celebrated solo albums on her own label in partnership with the Sony Masterworks classical label and Sony Music Publishing. These were called The Adventures of Charlie Chan (1993), East and West (1996) and Wild Swans (1998). Each of Chan’s recordings suggested an adventurous spirit, creating an unusual compositional blend of classical piano and minimalist figures, ambient soundscapes, globally inspired tribal folk music, jazz trio improvisation, and world-pop styled music.

Wild Swans achieved Gold status for CD sales and contains two collaborative tracks with ARIA Award winning Australian singer/songwriter and Chan’s friend Monique Brumby. Her albums were met with positive media reviews. The Sydney Morning Herald wrote, “Defies all boundaries, shatters musical categories and constantly takes the listener by surprise. Intelligent, sensuous music for the open minded.”^[3] The Sunday Telegraph described her music as “a harmonic meeting of classical music and high-tech soundscapes… ambient yet energetic”,^[4] while Sydney’s Drum Media said that, “organic origins of song, interaction of musicians, and cultural exploration create… a fresh and beautiful collection of music.”^[5]

Bringing two of their artists together, around this time Sony Masterworks released a recording of Charlie Chan and Australian classical guitarist Slava Grigoryan. The pair had recorded an improvised rendition of Chan’s piece Paradise, the original meanwhile was used as the score for popular ABC television series Australian Story.

To date, Chan has sold 75,000 physical CDs and more than 500,000 individual track downloads to fans via her web site – many of whom reside in the United States.^[6]

Music Technology and Digital Business online

In addition to her proficiency on a diverse range of musical instruments, and her natural business and entrepreneurial flair, Chan leads a highly technical life when it comes to music and computer technology.

Working first with Yamaha as a new product demonstrator put Chan in front of much new music technology. She became proficient on the Yamaha DX7 – the first commercially successful digital synthesizer. She also took to the Minimoog – a monophonic analog synthesizer released in the early 1970s. This led to further experimentation with keyboards, sequencing software and electronic sampling – something Chan embraced at a very young age, and has continued to incorporate into her ongoing work with original albums as well as for stage and screen scores.

Chan was one of the first female Australian musician/composers to embrace technology in her work. As noted by journalist Bridget McManus, “Buzzing with creative energy and driven by an insatiable desire to learn, this composer, performer and cyber-chick is tuned in and logged on”,^[7] the sentiment was also echoed by Cal Clugston writing for Revolver magazine: “As well as being known for her forays into sampling and electronica, this cutting edge pianist and songwriter has a strong association with multimedia (and) the internet.”^[8]

In the early to mid 2000s, Chan expanded her own label, Martian Music, into a successful independent online music service for herself and other artists in Australia and around the world. Its Internet based sales and distribution mechanism pioneered digital downloads and music ecommerce in Australia. Chan has since moved on into the field of application development, partnering with several technology firms to develop new music distribution models.

Soundtracks and scores

A Soundscapes Magazine feature article summarised Chan’s musical career this way: “Charlie Chan is a refreshing change. She composes and she improvises (with) fluency and simplicity… the wide appeal of her music is attested to by the amount of work (she is) commissioned to write and perform.”^[9]

As a composer for feature films, TV series, documentaries, dance and theatre productions, Chan has myriad screen and stage musical credits. These include soundtracks for Killing Time (anticipated 2011 Australian drama series starring David Wenham), Me Myself I (feature film starring Rachel Griffiths), high rating Australian television staples McLeod’s Daughters and Australian Story, acclaimed Sydney Theatre Company play Gift of the Gorgon and numerous free-to-air, National Geographic and Discovery Channel documentaries including Addiction, The Last Warriors, Persons of Interest^{[disambiguation needed ]} and many more.

Film and Television Soundtracks

• Killing Time (2011)

• Persons of Interest (2011)

• Addiction (TV series) (2010)

• Australian Story (2006 – 2010)

• McLeod's Daughters (2001)

• Mystery of the Skull (Documentary) (2002)

• Bizarre Births (Documentary) (1996)

• Chinese Take Away (Documentary) (2002)

• Stings Fangs and Spines (TV series) (2000 - 2001)

• Starting from Zero (Documentary) (2000)

• The Last Warriors (TV series) (1999)

• Me Myself I (Feature Film) (1998)

• Great Train Journey's (TV series) (1996)

• Through Children's Eyes (Documentary) (1993)

• Billion Dollar Crop (Documentary) (1994)

Recordings

• Music for Film Television and Dance (2010)

• Charlie Chan Christmas (2009)

• Charlie Chan Piano (2007)

• All Our Loving (1998)

• Wild Swans (1998)

• Dreamsounds (1997)

• East and West (1996)

• Paradise Remixes (1996)

• Music from the New World (1996)

• The Adventures of Charlie Chan (1993)

• A Prologue to the Adventures of... (1993)

• Transmission (1990)

• The Selected Works of Charlie Chan (1990)

Other Recordings

• McLeod's Daughters (2002) Soundtrack

• Me Myself I (1998) Soundtrack

Personal life

Charlie Chan lives and works in Sydney, Australia with her cat, a Ragdoll breed named Bosun. Outside of music, Chan has an avid interest in horology, clock collecting and sailing. She also has a passion for vintage car and vintage sailboat restoration.

References

1. ^ Cal Clugston, Revolver magazine “Arts Heart & Evolution” http://www.charliechan.com.au/downloads/pdfs/charlie_story_27.pdf
2. ^ http://www.agsc.org.au
3. ^ Sydney Morning Herald, Lynden Barber “Those Adventures in Chan-land” http://www.charliechan.com.au/downloads/pdfs/charlie_story_1.pdf
4. ^ The Sunday Telegraph http://www.charliechan.com.au/downloads/pdfs/charlie_story_19.pdf
5. ^ Drum Media http://www.charliechan.com.au/downloads/pdfs/charlie_story_19.pdf
6. ^ http://www.charliechan.com.au/music/solocareer.asp
7. ^ Bridget McManus “Tuned In and logged on” http://www.charliechan.com.au/downloads/pdfs/charlie_story_24.pdf
8. ^ Cal Clugston, Revolver magazine “Arts Heart & Evolution” http://www.charliechan.com.au/downloads/pdfs/charlie_story_27.pdf
9. ^ Soundscapes Magazine, Lyle Chan “Her Sound” http://www.charliechan.com.au/downloads/pdfs/charlie_story_13.pdf

External links

• http://www.charliechan.com.au

Persondata
Name	Chan, Charlie
Alternative names
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Date of birth	January 1, 1966
Place of birth
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