Elaine Wan Chan
Elaine Wan Chan is an award-winning music composer and music director in Singapore.
Biography
Elaine started her first composition at the age of eight. She made her mark at 18, when she wrote her first full length musical score and toured South New Zealand with it, winning songwriting awards, including The Wong Yee Hua Memorial Award for musical excellence. Elaine later studied music composition in the University of Texas at Austin.[1] She is currently conducting the ACS(I) IB Acapella Society.
Credits
In 2005, Elaine was invited to write and direct original music for the National Day Parade, 2005 (NDP'05) for the celebration of the Singapore's 40th anniversary of Independence, and is to date the first female composer ever to do so.[1] Collaborating with longtime friend Selena Tan, she wrote the song "Reach Out For The Skies",[1] which was performed at the 2005 event by Singapore Idol Taufik Batisah and actress Rui En.
Elaine has also collaborated with Selena Tan to write hits for W!LD RICE's musical productions including Aladdin (2004), CinderellaH! (2003) and the first 3 installments of Dim Sum Dollies amongst many other corporate projects.[1][2]
Elaine is also a choral music and music theatre composer, arranger and director. Her credits in 2005 include Toy Factory’s Spring Singing, Selena Tan’s Wedding Concert, Singapore Management University’s Anything Goes, the Wild Rice Ball, a performance tour to conduct the NUSS Kent Ridge Guild House Chorus at the Forbidden City Concert Hall and W!LD RICE’s Sleeping Beauty[1] in December 2005.
Other notable credits include a commissioned Temasek Medley which was performed in the June 1998 Singapore Arts Festival by the Singapore Youth Choir. This piece was published by the Boosey & Hawkes publishing company in New York. More theatre credits includes recording and performance of school and church musical productions, Singapore Airlines Flight Fever & Hearts over Heels, Dream Academy Productions’ Island Magic, iTheatre’s 3 men & a boot (2003), Toy Factory’s Morning People (2001), Action Theatre’s Chang and Eng (2000), Rainbow Theatre’s Sayang (2001), Temptations (2000), Drama Box’s Mr Beng & Singapore Lyric Opera’s Grand Opera Gala (1999/2000), I Have a Date with Spring (1999), Singapore Repertory Theatre’s They’re Playing Our Song (1999), Into the Woods (1994) and Godspell (1993, 2002).
She also composed a musical, titled Haven, which premiered on August 4 and 5, 2006 at Anglo-Chinese School (Independent), where she was formerly a music teacher.[3] She also taught in Fairfield Methodist Secondary School as a music teacher.
In 2013, Elaine was invited again to write a theme song for the National Parade with Selena Tan. The song was widely slammed by members of the public for being corny and cheesy even before the official release.[4][5]
References
- 1 2 3 4 5 "Reach Out For the Skies: ACSPress Interview: Mrs Elaine Wan" (PDF). ACSPress. August 2005. Retrieved 2006-10-12.
- ↑ Sistic
- ↑ "Principal Circular for Term 3 2006" (PDF). Anglo-Chinese School (Independent). 2006-06-27. Retrieved 2006-10-12.
- ↑ NDP 2013 theme song, One Singapore
- ↑ http://www.straitstimes.com/the-big-story/ndp-2013/story/national-day-2013-song-one-singapore-receives-online-brickbats-and-some