Amelia Chan

violinist

Amelia Chan is currently concertmaster of the City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong (CCOHK).

She came to this position from her tenure as concertmaster of the West Virginia Symphony Orchestra (US). An experienced leader, Amelia has served in the concertmaster chair under acclaimed conductors such as Sir Neville Marriner, Michael Tilson Thomas, Manfred Huss, Sergiu Commissiona, Anton Coppola, Zdeněk Mácal, Jorge Mester, Julius Rudel, and Gerard Schwarz. She has also performed with the New York Philharmonic extensively. As a chamber musician, Amelia has served as first violinist of the Montclaire String Quartet, and has collaborated with guitarist Sharon Isbin, accordionist Richard Galliano, violinist Lara St. John, the Ying Quartet, members of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players (NYC), among others. She has appeared as soloist with orchestras including the West Virginia Symphony, the International Virtuosi Orchestra on tour in Central America, the New Amsterdam Symphony Orchestra (NYC), the Brooklyn Symphony Orchestra (NYC), and the City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong. She has shared the stage as co-soloist with acclaimed flutist Sir James Galway, and frequently acts as director for the City Chamber Orchestra. She has performed at the Costa Rica Music Festival, the Guatemala Music Festival, Cooperstown Chamber Music Festival in New York and the Pacific Music Festival (Japan).

Amelia has been heard on WQXR, New York; WQED, Pittsburgh; West Virginia Public Broadcasting; BBC Radio Scotland, Scotland; and RTHK Radio 4, Hong Kong.

As an educator, Amelia approaches the teaching of technique through the lens of whole-body biomechanics, and on the principle that techniques of playing an instrument need to be relational to the body, and to how it moves, instead of relying on a static one-size-fits-all method. She believes in a focused and deep education that goes beyond rote training, where the student learns discernment and critical thinking, while sifting through the layers of intellect needed to decipher the depths of the musical art, to get to the natural, joyful simplicity of music-making.

Amelia holds undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate degrees from the Mannes College of Music and Manhattan School of Music (NY). She began her violin studies in the junior school at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts. Her major teachers included Thomas Wang, Alice Waten, Albert Markov, Shirley Givens, Lisa Kim, Yoko Takebe, Sheryl Staples, Glenn Dicterow, and double-bassist Julius Levine.

For more information on Amelia, please go to her Instagram page at https://www.instagram.com/ameliachanviolin/ 

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"Concertmaster Amelia Chan in particular played with passion, acting as the vibrant soul of the ensemble.” South China Morning Post 

“…gutsy solo violin throughout [by] concertmaster Amelia Chan…” theprickle.org

Presence And Pain

December 24, 2022  /  Amelia Chan

Art in essence is about cultivating deep presence in one way or another. Whether it be a piece of first-hand creation, like composing a piece of music or making a sculpture; or an interpretation (re-creation) of a work that a classical musician or ballet dancer might do. Any meaningful process that comes close to being an art demands and inspires a presence that surpasses mere focus or concentration. It’s a whole different consciousness that is vast, dynamic and all-encompassing. It’s what distincts even the highest-level craftsmanship from artistry.


The tortured artist myth will have you believe that suffering is what creates great art(ists). I believe that is a half-truth at best, and a reductive fallacy. I think loss and suffering can be the biggest lessons in teaching (forcing, really) one to be present, if one doesn’t completely turn away in denial instead. Hence, suffering doesn’t create artists, but how one digests and crystallizes pain could be powerful agents toward transformation. Transformation that changes one’s presence with the self and everything else.

I don’t presume to know artistry, but life has thrown me a few lemons, and I feel I’ve gleaned from them some lessons about presence, art, love, and life. To say pain is redemptive stinks of yet another shallow reductive fallacy of the whole positive psychology thing. But one can’t deny that there can be tremendous transcendence in pain and loss, even when, especially when, you distinctly do NOT want to be present with it. But you do anyhow, and it changes you. Then one day you find a different nuance of presence in the form of a new sense of beauty in what you make, how you see, who you are, what you feel. And underneath that beauty the remnants of the searing pain never leaves. You learn to be present with all of it. Then you play something which touches that part of you, where words can’t reach, only to realize with a start the depths of the journey you’ve gone, the vastness of space you now have within.

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