Kai-Young Chan has taught at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) since 2016. 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, 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.
"Constraints/Creativity: Cantonese Choral Works (2024). Vienna: Universal Edition.
https://www.universaledition.com/en/Constraints-Creativity/P0285698
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/
"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 Pavolion" 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. (2020). 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
"From Constraints to Creativity: Musical Inventions through Cantonese Contours in Hong Kong Contemporary Music". Principles of Music Composing
- MUSC2252 Materials and Structures of Music
- MUSC2262 Advanced Harmonic Practice
- MUSC3343 Composition I
- MUSC5212 Special Topic IV in ‘Music and Creativity’: Frontiers in Music Notation and Creativity (MA)
- MUSC5212 Special Topic IV in ‘Music and Creativity’: Composing Music with Text