Huichang Yan was conferred the title of National Class One Conductor at the First Professional Appraisal of China in 1987. He joins the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra in June 1997. Yan was awarded the “Cultural Medallion (Music)” by the National Arts Council of Singapore in September 2001. In 2004, he was awarded a Bronze Bauhinia Star (BBS) by the Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region in recognition of his remarkable achievements in Chinese music as well as his efforts in promoting Chinese music. In 2008, he was awarded the Jurors’ Award for Conducting at the 6th China Gold Record Awards – Multi Arts Category. In 2010, Yan was awarded the Overseas Award for Music at the 51st Literary and Art Works Awards of the Chinese Writers’ & Artists’ Association (Taiwan).
Yan has been appointed guest or visiting professor by several music institutions, a position that allows him to promote Chinese music for the continuation of its heritage. He has given lectures and talks at the Central Conservatory of Music, Shanghai Conservatory of Music, The Sichuan Conservatory of Music, Shenyang Conservatory of Music, Xi’an Conservatory of Music and China Conservatory in China, and The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts (HKAPA) in Hong Kong. Yan has been a keen promoter of music education. In 2006, he was instrumental in proposing and the subsequent implementation of the Professional Orchestra Internship scheme through collaboration between The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts and the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra. It was followed by The HKCO Orchestral Academy, which was a realization of Yan’s innovative vision. In the same year, he was awarded an Honorary Fellowship by HKAPA, with an appointment as Visiting Scholar of its School of Music, where he gave master classes in conducting and established Master’s degree courses in Chinese music conducting. In 2010, Yan initiated the world’s first ever ‘International Conduction Competition for Chinese Music’, which was enthusiastically supported and highly commended by professional music conservatories in China and overseas. In March 2012, he was invited to give master classes at the Conservatoire royal de Bruxelles, the Conservatoire de Luxembourg, and the Conservatoirenational supérieur de musique et de danse de Paris, which made him the first ever Chinese to hold such classes there.
After graduating from the Shanghai Conservatory of Music in 1983, Yan was appointed Principal Conductor and Artistic Director of the Chinese National Orchestra of China. As a conductor who has worked with all professional Chinese orchestras in Beijing, Shanghai, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong and philharmonic or symphony orchestras such as the China National Symphony Orchestra and the Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra. Yan has won the acclaim of the music circles in China and abroad for his artistic and conducting talents. He is now the Specially Invited Conductor of Chinese Music of the Zhejiang Symphony Orchestra of China. Yan has also been involved in music of other genres. Apart from conducting on the concert stage, Yan is also actively engaged in composition and has won numerous awards. His representative works include the symphonic poem The Sound of Water, Nostalgia for pipa solo, Buddhist music The Weiyang Sect, Qing Lian Yu Yue (‘Cyan Lotus under the Moon’) and Chuan Deng Xu Ming (‘The Passing of the Light’). In the early years of his career, Yan had been the composer and producer of digital music for record releases. The Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra’s audio and video releases over the years have been made under his baton.
Led by Yan, the Orchestra has seen omni-direction growth in the last decade, and is a driving force behind the promotion of Chinese music culture in China as well as other parts of the world.
