Lyle Chan

Lyle Chan's compositions are known for their combination of intellectual rigor and powerful emotional impact, even for audiences unaccustomed to classical music. The work that first brought him widespread recognition was Rendezvous With Destiny for narrator and musicians – based on US political history – and performed by Bob Carr, a former Foreign Minister of Australia. His most personal and confronting work is his 90-minute String Quartet, a memoir of his years as an AIDS activist in the 1990s. It was hailed by American composer John Corigliano as "a serious and deeply felt work of art born out of a seemingly endless plague.” He was awarded the 2017 Art Music Awards’ prestigious Orchestral Work of the Year prize for his acclaimed 40-min orchestral song cycle called "My Dear Benjamin", based on the wartime letters between a young Benjamin Britten and his first love, Wulff Scherchen. Chan wrote the work upon discovering – and meeting – the 95-year old Scherchen living in Australia, 80 years later. For the Debussy centenary of 2018, he was commissioned by the Australian National Academy of Music to compose the remaining 3 Sonatas of Debussy's unfinished final project.