Charlie Chan (composer)

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 centre. 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, 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 by 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 early 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 stayed with her included an eclectic range: from classical greats Mahler, Smetana and Wagner, through contemporary composer/artists Laurie Anderson, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Philip Glass and Keith Jarrett, 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 after the band's management was sent a Charlie Chan recording, an Australian and Asia Pacific tour supporting world music electronica band Deep Forest.

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. Chan's albums were met with positive media reviews. The Sydney Morning Herald wrote of The Adventures of Charlie Chan, "defies all boundaries, shatters musical categories and constantly takes the listener by surprise. ... intelligent, sensuous music for the open minded." The Sunday Telegraph described Wild Swans as a "harmonic meeting of classical music and high-tech soundscapes … ambient yet energetic", while Sydney's Drum Media said, "organic origins of song, interaction of musicians, and cultural exploration create … a fresh and beautiful collection of music."

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.

Chan has sold more than 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.

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 among the first group of 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". 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 an association with multimedia (and) the internet."

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 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."

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 (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 and many more.

Soundtracks

Recordings

Other recordings

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.