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Kai-Young Chan has taught at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) since 2016, currently serving as Assistant Professor of Composition. Through compositions and digital platforms, his research on Cantonese contemporary music explores compositional approaches beyond Western paradigms and challenges the stereotypical perception of Asian musics.
Chan’s music has been performed over 200 times in more than 20 countries by renowned ensembles including the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, Hong Kong Sinfonietta, Hong Kong New Music Ensemble, Daedalus Quartet, and Mivos Quartet. His ongoing collaborations with violinist Patrick Yim (University of Notre Dame) have produced works of cross-cultural themes and instrumentations performed by Yim and such esteemed artists as Natalie Douglas (MIT), Joel Smirnoff (Juilliard), and sheng virtuoso Loo Sze-wang. His works are released globally by leading record labels including Ablaze, innova, and PARMA, with scores published by Edition ICOT (Japan), Edition Peters (UK), and Universal Edition (Austria). His hour-long portrait album (Navona Records, 2025) is the first Cantonese choral album published by a classical label. Praised as “a tantalizing direction forward for East meets West classical fusion” by Classical Music Daily, and “exquisitely flavored, with continual tension that captivates” by The News Lens (2023), Chan’s music has been featured in leading festivals worldwide, including the Busan International Contemporary Music Festival (Korea), June in Buffalo (USA), International Forum of New Music Manuel Enriquez (Mexico), Risuonanze Festival (Italy), Internationalen Ferienkurse Darmstadt (Germany), and the Havana Contemporary Music Festival (Cuba). His works have represented Hong Kong at the ISCM World Music Days (2015, 2012) and the International Rostrum of Composers (2014, 2024). Chan has won the CASH Golden Sail Music Award and multiple other international competitions, including VocalEspoo (Finland), International Choral Composition Competition (Japan), Keuris Prize (Netherlands), and Robert Avalon International Competition for Composers (USA), among others. To promote Cantonese musical genres and reduce barriers to composing in this tonal language, Chan has developed the open-access application “Cantonese Melody Generator”, which converts Cantonese texts into intelligible melodies. Since its beta launch in May 2022, it has garnered over 180,000 inquiries from researchers, composers, lyricists, and educators. In 2023, he organized the first international conference on Cantonese contemporary music, recognized by RTHK as one of the Top 10 Music Headlines of 2023 for its cultural and academic impact in Hong Kong. Chan earned his PhD in Music Composition from the University of Pennsylvania, where he was the Benjamin Franklin Fellow. A two-time recipient of the Faculty Outstanding Teaching Award at CUHK, Chan has received six teaching grants to develop videos and online games for music theory education. His music and research, funded by the Hong Kong Research Grants Council, CUHK, the Arts Development Council, and other commissioning bodies, have investigated how Cantonese text-setting constraints inspire creativity in contemporary music, addressed the underrepresentation of Cantonese-language contemporary music internationally, and fostered interdisciplinary collaborations among music composition, artificial intelligence, and neuroscience. 陳啟揚自2016年起任教於香港中文大學，現為作曲助理教授。他透過作品與網上平台，致力於推廣粵語現代音樂的研究，探索有異於西方範式的作曲方法。 陳氏的作品在全球20多個國家與地區演出超過200次，由匹茲堡交響樂團、香港管弦樂團、香港小交響樂團、香港創樂團、Daedalus四重奏、Mivos四重奏等知名樂團演奏。他與小提琴家嚴栢良（聖母大學）長年合作，創作了多部具有跨文化主題和樂器編制的作品，並由嚴氏及小提琴家娜塔莉．道格拉斯（麻省理工學院）、喬爾．斯米爾諾夫（茱莉亞學院）、笙演奏家盧思泓等演奏。他的作品由Ablaze、innova、PARMA等唱片公司全球發行，樂譜則由Edition ICOT（日本）、Edition Peters（英國）、Universal Edition（奧地利）出版。他的個人專輯《制約．創意》（Navona Records，2025）是首張由古典音樂唱片公司發行的粵語合唱專輯。 《Classical Music Daily》稱其音樂為「東西方古典融合引人入勝的新路向」，而《關鍵評論》則稱其作品能「一直維持張力，令樂曲極具韻味」。他的音樂曾在全球各地音樂節演出，包括韓國釜山國際當代音樂節、美國水牛城六月音樂節、墨西哥新音樂國際論壇、意大利Risuonanze音樂節、德國達姆施塔特國際音樂節、古巴哈瓦那當代音樂節等。他的作品曾代表香港參加國際現代音樂協會世界音樂日（2012、2015）及作曲家國際論壇（2014、2024）。陳氏曾榮獲CASH金帆音樂獎及多項國際比賽獎項，包括芬蘭埃斯波聲樂節、日本國際合唱作曲比賽、荷蘭克瑞斯獎、美國羅伯特·阿瓦隆國際作曲比賽首獎等。 為推廣粵語現代音樂創作，陳氏開發了開放的網上應用程式「廣東話旋律生成器」，能直接把粵語文本轉換為可理解的旋律。程式自2022年5月開放公開測試，已獲作曲家、詞作家、教師、學者等超過18萬次查詢。2023年，他籌辦了首個聚焦粵語現代音樂的國際會議，該會議獲香港電台評選為2023年十大樂聞之一。 陳啟揚於美國賓夕法尼亞大學獲得音樂作曲博士學位，在學期間為為富蘭克林研究學人，並先後於香港中文大學取得一級榮譽翻譯文學士及音樂碩士，師從陳偉光教授。他在香港中文大學兩度榮獲文學院傑出教學獎，並六次獲得教學資助，用於開發樂理與和聲教學的影片和網上遊戲。他的音樂和研究，獲得香港研究資助局、香港中文大學、藝術發展局及其他委約機構的支持，專注於探討粵語文本協音的限制如何化成現代音樂的創意，致力於提升粵語現代音樂在國際上的能見度與影響力，並促進了音樂創作、人工智能、神經科學的跨領域合作。 |
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
Journal Articles: “Writing Choral Music in a Tone Language: Problems, Practices, and Potentialities”. TEMPO (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2025). “From Constraints to Creativity: Musical Inventions through Cantonese Contours in Hong Kong Contemporary Music”. Principles of Music Composing 21: 41–59 (Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, 2021). https://zurnalai.lmta.lt/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/MKP-XXI_Kai-Young-Chan.pdf Scores: Constraints/Creativity: Cantonese Choral Works (2024). Vienna: Universal Edition. https://www.universaledition.com/en/Constraints-Creativity/P0285698 “A Chrysalis Tale” for mixed choir (2024). Tokyo: Edition ICOT. https://edition.icot.or.jp/product/a-chrysalis-tale/ Canto: Works for Violin (2024). Vienna: Universal Edition. https://www.universaledition.com/en/Canto/P0275949 “Psalm 23” for treble choir and piano. In Hong Kong Children’s Choir Local Choral Selections (2024). Hong Kong: Hong Kong Children’s Choir. https://www.hkcchoir.org/en/songbooks/hong-kong-childrens-choir-local-choral-selections “Remember” for mixed choir (2020). Tokyo: Edition ICOT. https://edition.icot.or.jp/product/remember/?lang=en Audio Recordings: Constraints/Creativity: Cantonese Choral Works by Kai-Young Chan. Recorded by Die Konzertisten and Felix Yeung. North Hampton, NH: Navona Records (forthcoming 2025). “in search of” for violin and electronics. On New Waves (2024). Recorded by Patrick Yim. Albany, NY: Albany Records. https://www.albanyrecords.com/catalog/troy1959/ “a boat going nowhere” for violin and electronics. On New Waves (2024). Recorded by Patrick Yim. Albany, NY: Albany Records. https://www.albanyrecords.com/catalog/troy1959/ “Murray Murmurings” for violin solo. On New Waves (2024). Recorded by Patrick Yim. Albany, NY: Albany Records. https://www.albanyrecords.com/catalog/troy1959/ “The Crane Releasing Pavilion” for mixed choir. On Quotation of Queries: Choral Encounters of Hong Kong, China and the Distant West (2020). Recorded by Cantoría Hong Kong and John Winzenburg North Hampton, NH: Navona Records. https://www.navonarecords.com/catalog/nv6278/ “Under the Mid-autumn Moon” for mixed choir. On Quotation of Queries: Choral Encounters of Hong Kong, China and the Distant West (2020). Recorded by Cantoría Hong Kong and John Winzenburg North Hampton, NH: Navona Records. https://www.navonarecords.com/catalog/nv6278/ “Away Alone Aloft” for solo violin. On Memory. Recorded by Patrick Yim. North Hampton, NH: Navona Records. https://www.navonarecords.com/catalog/nv6268/ “Mieko” for flute and electronics. On Heard in Havana. Recorded by Sooyun Kim. Saint Paul, MN: Innova Records. https://www.innova.mu/albums/third-sound/heard-havana List of Recent Courses Taught at CUHK
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