Described by the New York Times as a “gifted pianist and composer,” Marc Chan, a native of Singapore, is also a lyricist and bookwriter. His music has been performed at Carnegie Hall, Le Poisson Rouge, the Smithsonian, Esplanade Theaters on the Bay (Singapore), and can be heard on Mode Records, Furious Artisans and OgreOgress. Marc’s “My Wounded Head 3” (Mode Records) has been described as an “entrancing piano opus… It’s never less than mesmerizing” (San Francisco Chronicle). As a theater composer, Marc has written music for plays (TERRA FIRMA), film (MY WOUNDED HEAD), and he has participated in Prospect’s Musical Theater Lab as composer, lyricist and bookwriter (THE FINAL SÉANCE OF HARRY HOUDINI). Most recently, he has contributed songs to Astoria Performing Arts Center’s THE INSIDERS (Musicals from the Quarantine) in response to the COVID-19 crisis, and to Skylight Music Theatre’s (Milwaukee) KIDWRITES program. Marc has a DMA in Composition from the Manhattan School of Music and is a member of the New Dramatists Composer-Librettist Studio and the BMI Advanced Musical Theater Workshop.

Marc may be contacted at: marcchan@mac.com

 REVIEWS 

“Inventive … transfixing … of the new interludes [Repeated Measures] the most inviting was Mr. Chan’s … a study in repeating, slowly morphing figures built around chimelike tintinnabulations and ending up in a chromatic Minimalist swirl.”
– The New York Times
“Gifted … [My Wounded Head 1’s] most impressive feature is its daunting physicality.”
– The New York Times
“From quietly intoned sound points to grand waves that warbled and thundered.”
– The Washington Post
“… I’m inclined to think that the composer must be deeply aware of the tradition before such a work could succeed. Marc Chan’s music might be the best example of this I can think of: his pieces J’s Box and My Wounded Head 3 … are remarkable pieces that treat pre-existing music (Bach’s first prelude from The Well-Tempered Clavier and the passion chorale settings from the St. Matthew Passion) as reservoirs of material for a highly nuanced intertextual dialogue. His later works involving the music of Schumann continue this trend and demand, I think, an even greater awareness of their compositional subject.”
– Rob Haskins
“… [The set of five chorales from Bach’s St. Matthew’s Passion] have become an obsession for Marc, and each station of his cycle forges a new ‘road trip’ through the notes, patiently spinning them out into strange and beautiful patterns. My Wounded Head 3, for solo piano, pushes this patience into sublime territory … the rhythms mesmerize, and you may even feel it not long enough.”
– Sequenza 21
“Marc Chan’s entrancing piano opus My Wounded Head 3 … It’s never less than mesmerizing.”
– San Francisco Chronicle
“Chan’s piece [My Wounded Head 3] is among the most brilliant in recent memory.”
– American Record Guide