Sonia Chan

Born in Canada, Sonia Chan has won attention as an outstanding pianist through numerous appearances and an impressive list of competition awards in North America.

Ms. Chan gave her solo debut at the age of six in a performance in honour of the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, Canada. She was the subject of a CBC Television documentary featuring her own developing career as a musician. Featured as soloist with different orchestras, Ms. Chan has performed with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Aspen Sinfonia, the Canadian Chamber Academy, the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony Orchestra, the Brantford Symphony Orchestra, the Philomusica Orchestra and the Santa Rosa Symphony Orchestra in California.

Ms. Chan’s recent performance schedule include her debut solo recitals in Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall in New York, the Salle Cortot in France, and the Debut Series at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, Canada, return solo recital engagements at Jordan Hall and the Gardner Museum in Boston USA, Rockefeller University in New York City, USA and the Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto, Canada. In addition to playing for Her Majesty the Queen, Ms. Chan has performed recitals at the Bennett Gordon Hall in Chicago, San Luis Obispo’s Mozart Festival in California, Town Hall in New Hampshire, Chopin Festival in El Paso, Texas, Aspen Music Festival in Colorado, and the Santa Rosa Recital Series in California.

Some of her upcoming performance highlights include debut solo recitals in Rome, Italy, Seattle, Washington, and the opening of the Virtuosi Series in Winnipeg, Canada (recorded by the CBC Radio Canada for live/later broadcast).

In 2003/4, in addition to being awarded with the highest award for the Career Scholarship, for three consecutive years by the Government of Canada Council for the Arts for Professional Musicians/ Emerging Artists, Ms. Chan has also been named the proud recipient of the special Sylva Gelber Foundation Award. The award is given “to the most talented Canadian artist / performer of the year in classical music under the age of 30”.

In 2004/5, Ms. Chan was chosen as the award winner of the prestigious “Artist of the Year”. This prize, a Career Achievement Award, is chosen by nomination / audition, at the jury’s discretion, given once every three years only. It is a joint project by the Women Musical Club of Canada, CBC Radio and the de-Radio French in Quebec, Canada. In celebration of the award occasion, Ms. Chan was invited to give her solo recital along with the premier performance of a commissioned Canadian work dedicated to the WMCT and Ms. Chan, with the generous support of the Laidlaw Foundation and the Canada Arts Council.

Sonia Chan is the grand prize-winner of 2002 Pro Musicis International Award in New York City. Her other previous honours include Instrumentalist of the Year, YTV Television Achievement Award, the A&E Television Network Gifts and Scholarship, numerous 1ST Prize from the Aspen Music Festival Piano Concerto (Open) Competition, Canadian Music Competition (both National / Provincial), Kiwanis Music Festival and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (National) Piano Competition.

A scholarship winner every year consistently, Ms. Chan began her studies at the Toronto’s Royal Conservatory of Music at the age of five and half with Marina Geringas. At 12, she earned her performance diploma with lst class honour with distinction.

Awarded with full fellowship for four years, in 2000, Ms. Chan earned her Bachelor of Music, with honours, under pianist Leon Fleisher, at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, USA. Upon her graduation from Curtis, Ms. Chan moved to reside in Boston where she continued her studies at the New England Conservatory of Music with pianist Russell Sherman.

In 2002, Ms. Chan graduated on the honourable Dean’s List, with her Master’s degree achieving the highest marks of her entire class. In 2004, as a NEC Presidential Award scholar, Ms. Chan completed her Artist Diploma at NEC, with distinction in both academics and performance.

Currently Ms. Chan is a student enrolled in the prestigious International Piano Academy of Lake Como in Italy. Her principal teachers at the Academy include Dmitri Bashkirov, Claude Frank, Fou Ts’ong, Leon Fleisher, Charles Rosen, William Grant Nabore, Menahem Pressler and Andreas Staier.