![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2018\/03\/Photo_by_Gu\u0308nter_Ludwig.jpg\")
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Ottawa\u2019s Claudia Chan enjoys living in the present moment. Winner of the Eckhardt-Gramatt\u00e9 Competition and prize-winner of the prestigious Orl\u00e9ans International Competition, her successes in contemporary piano performance paved the way for her musical career. Apart from cross-collaborations in theatre and dance, workshopping with the likes of composers Helmut Lachenmann and Unsuk Chin, and touring 20th-century and modern works with her quartet BRuCH \u2014 with a stop inside a German castle \u2014 she is also solo artist-in-residence at France\u2019s Fondation Royaumont for contemporary music until 2020.<\/p>\n
Chan performs with Sinfonia Toronto<\/a> on March 3, and leads a contemporary music masterclass for piano students at the University of Toronto on March 7. Afterwards, she will give performances at the Eastman School of Music, Ottawa New Music Creators concert series and the Manhattan School of Music. Her last Toronto appearance was with Benjamin Bowman<\/a> at last year\u2019s 21C Festival<\/a>.<\/p>\n On the phone with Ludwig van Toronto<\/em>, one could catch a whiff of a German accent in Chan\u2019s speech. We discussed her other takeaways from her eight fruitful years in Germany thus far, distilled into a blueprint for musicians who are also interested in a contemporary music career.<\/p>\n CC: Professionally, it was [winning] the Eckhardt-Gramatt\u00e9 Competition. But my special interest for new music started in Ottawa with Elaine Kruse: she taught me for almost 10 years before I moved to study with John Perry at the Glenn Gould School.<\/p>\n [Kruse] was the one who first brought me to work with Canadian, living composers. I got to know contemporary music as a real, important part of my repertoire, and not putting it on a level below anything else.<\/p>\n CC: Around a year before I did E-Gr\u00e9, I had a personal crisis starting at the end of my second year: I wasn\u2019t actively hearing my own playing \u2014 comments from listeners wouldn\u2019t line up with my own perception of my playing. I was horrified \u2014 I couldn\u2019t trust my own ears. I had to change completely my way of playing; otherwise, I couldn\u2019t go on like this.<\/p>\n CC: It was a regression in my involvement in contemporary music. With John Perry, there was much more of a classical training \u2013 it interrupted the flow of new music study, but it\u2019s helped with contemporary stuff that came afterwards.<\/p>\n Mr. Perry was sometimes a little bit at a loss with me with the [contemporary] pieces I was bringing to class. I did my Bach and Brahms and Beethoven with him, and then I would bring the repertoire I was interested in looking at. So it wasn\u2019t always the best fit for him in those terms.<\/p>\n When I went to Europe to study, I hadn\u2019t yet been exposed to the roots of European contemporary music. I got retrained then in the literature of contemporary music that I\u2019d been trying to tackle in North America.<\/p>\n CC: I\u2019d heard from quite a few people that it was a very interesting place for contemporary music. And that\u2019s where Pierre-Laurent Aimard was teaching; I also studied with Florence Millet for my Master\u2019s in Cologne. It ended up being the perfect place: I find there\u2019s a lot of respect for the arts in Germany in particular and Europe in general.<\/p>\n Cologne, in particular, is a big centre for new music. There are lots of flourishing young ensembles as well as three big classical orchestras and the opera company.<\/p>\n CC: At the beginning, I was\u00a0really lost in German. I didn\u2019t speak it for the first six months, and then all of a sudden, just by being around the German language, it somehow seeped in. Then it went quickly \u2014 now I feel very comfortable in German; in a way, almost as good as English. Somehow it feels like a language that\u2019s very close to me even though I haven\u2019t known it for that long. Now, whenever I try to speak French, I speak German instead.<\/p>\n CC: Yeah, it\u2019s fantastic! I can\u2019t say if knowing German is better than knowing French or Spanish, but one of the greatest things is just to be able to read texts, or markings, or letters from composers in German: you understand it in a different way than if it were translated.<\/p>\n There\u2019s something about Germany that has inspired hundreds and hundreds of great art, especially music. It\u2019s nice to be able to get close to that spirit through the language.<\/p>\n CC: In terms of how it\u2019s affected my career, I don\u2019t know, because audiences wouldn\u2019t have told me that. In a way, there are a lot of people with Asian background working in Germany as well. Sometimes it\u2019s surprising how integrated I feel and maybe speak \u2014 people seem surprised when we talk and I\u2019m actually Canadian but am of Chinese background and speak German \u2014 the mixture still confuses a lot of people. But I don\u2019t know if there\u2019s an advantage or a disadvantage to it; the fact is, it\u2019ll become much more common and what I like is it\u2019s not so focused on here. That\u2019s a very good thing in that way.<\/p>\n CC: Moving from piece to piece is a necessity of doing new music. Being a new music pianist means you\u2019re often asked to premiere pieces \u2014 you\u2019re constantly working to present new programs. It\u2019s unfortunate \u2014 I think we should have more performances of the same thing, but there\u2019s so much new music being created that it\u2019s also, to use the German expression, \u201cSchade<\/em> [it\u2019s a shame],\u201d that we don\u2019t get to hear all of it \u2013 for classical pianists, it\u2019s ok to tour a year or half a year with the same program; it almost never happens in new music.<\/p>\n With new music, you get to\u00a0(in a way) cut some corners. I\u2019m working on Brahms right now, and I spend half of my practicing time wondering what he really wanted there \u2013 just judging by what he wrote on the page, what he meant. In new music, I just go and ask the composer. But ideally you have both \u2014 you have contact with the composer, you have direct input about what they want but also enough time and enough performances of each piece that you become very personally involved.<\/p>\n In terms of chamber music, it\u2019s a very normal part of the job \u2014 and very rewarding. I\u2019d say half of my concerts end up being with different artists.<\/p>\n CC: It\u2019s continuous \u2014 it takes a lot of thought and planning. I still am my own manager, so I do a lot of my own planning for projects, and contracts with composers and presenters.<\/p>\n CC:[laughs] I was in the right place, being, probably in front of the piano when I didn\u2019t want to be. Sometime during my tweens when the bug finally really bit, and I realized \u2014 it\u2019s not just learning notes for the next RCM exam, but something bigger that could become a big part of my life. I\u2019ll probably do that for my kids as well and see if the bug bites. And if not, it\u2019s completely okay.<\/p>\n The interview has been edited for length and clarity.<\/em><\/p>\n Ottawa-born pianist Claudia Chan shares her journey into the heart of Cologne\u2019s new music circles, and insight into a few markers to establishing a sparkling career.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":51377,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[14761,9625,29,36,47],"tags":[4555],"yst_prominent_words":[17282,7138,17277,17275,9434,9426,17274,17281,10212,17278,17280,9875,14706,6616,17283,9024,7299,17279,17276,14707],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2018\/03\/Photo_by_Gu\u0308nter_Ludwig.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bakr-dmo","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51360"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51360"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51360\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51384,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51360\/revisions\/51384"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51360"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=51360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\u2014 \u2014 \u2014 \u2014 \u2014<\/h1>\n
What was the turning point that led you to new music?<\/h3>\n
And outside of E-Gr\u00e9?<\/h3>\n
![\"Performance](\"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2018\/03\/Performance_at_Pianocity_Milano_May_2017_Photo_by_Viole_Merli.jpg\")
Did you find that classical music studies got to be regressive at a certain point?<\/h3>\n
How did you get the idea to study in Europe?<\/h3>\n
And you picked up German in the process!<\/h3>\n
Knowing German has probably opened up so many doors for you!<\/h3>\n
A slightly more sensitive question: what\u2019s it like being of Asian background in Germany or Europe?<\/h3>\n
![\"Claudia](\"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2018\/03\/Claudia_premiered_Huihui_Cheng_s__messenger__at_the_Royaumont_Festival_in_September_2017._Photo_by_Franc\u0327ois_Mauger__.jpg\")
What are the realities of a contemporary music career?<\/h3>\n
Did your career develop organically, or was it methodically planned out?<\/h3>\n
Did you find music, or did music find you?<\/h3>\n
LUDWIG VAN TORONTO<\/em><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"