Two-time winner of the Juno awards for best classical composition, Chan Ka Nin’s works have been performed by ensembles and artists such as the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the National Arts Orchestra, the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, the Esprit Orchestra, the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra, the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra London Canada, Symphony Nova Scotia, Amici, the Mirò Quartet, the Purcell Quartet, Rivka Golani, and Lawrence Cherney.
His numerous international awards include the Jean Chalmers Award, the Béla Bartók International Composers Competition, the Barlow International Competition, the International Horn Society Composition Contest, the PROCAN Young Composers Competition, and the Amherst Saxophone Quartet Composition Competition.
Chan was born in Hong Kong and moved with his family to Vancouver in 1965. At the University of British Columbia he studied composition with Jean Coulthard while pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering. After graduation, he decided to continue studying composition with Bernhard Heiden at Indiana University where he eventually obtained master’s and doctoral degrees in music. In 2001, his opera Iron Road won the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Musical. In 2002, his chamber work Par-çi, par-là, which was recorded by Ensemble Contemporain du Montréal, received the Juno award for best classical composition. He has been teaching theory and composition at the University of Toronto since 1982.