Alana Chan is an active music educator, adjudicator, examiner, pianist, and conductor across Canada, America, Europe, Macau and China. She is currently on faculty at the Vancouver Academy of Music | S.K.Lee College teaching piano, theory, and ear training. She is also an Examiner of Piano and Advanced Specialist of the Royal Conservatory of Music in Piano, Music Theory & History. Before moving back to Canada, Alana was on faculty at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts. Her abundance of music teaching experience also involved leading music workshops, school bands and choirs. She founded and taught the school choir for children with special needs at the Jockey Club Sarah Roe School of the English Schools Foundation in Hong Kong In 2012, she was invited by the Government of Hong Kong to give a series of “Summer Music Workshops – First Music Lessons” for two consecutive summers. The competitions she adjudicated include the International Piano Competition for Composers of Jewish Heritage in Germany, 20th Asia Piano Open Competition in Hong Kong, Canadian Music Competition (CMC), Vancouver International Music Competition, 25th & 26th Annual Edith Lando Gifted Youth Music Competition, Phyllis Salter Annual Piano Competition, Vancouver Academy of Music Junior and Intermediate Symphony Concerto Competitions, Mastery School of Music Concerto Competition, Mozart School of Music Vancouver Piano Concerto Competition, and the Pacific Rim International Music Festival. She is currently the Vice President of the Vancouver International Music Competition, the Vancouver International Music Festival, and the Canada International Arts and Music Society; and has served on the board for the Vancouver Women’s Musical Society (now known as the Vancouver Westcoast Music Society).
In her earlier musical career as a pianist, Alana has won numerous awards including First Place in the Canadian Music Competition, First Prize in the Kay Meek Competition, and was placed top ten in the International Pacific Piano Competition. This was followed by her debut piano concerto performance with the Canadian legendary Maestro Victor Feldbrill and The Vancouver Academy of Music Orchestra at the prestigious Orpheum Theatre. She is an alumnus of the Vancouver Academy of Music where she studied with Professors Saida Matyukov and Lee Kum Sing. In Hong Kong, she studied with renowned pianist Choi Sown Le. With Distinction, Alana attained her Master of Arts degree in Music, specialization in Piano Pedagogy, and was awarded the Scholastic Award for being the top of her graduating class from the Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU). Shortly after, she was featured in the Hong Kong Ming-Pao Daily newspaper (Feb.2nd 2018 issue) for being one of the most successful alumni of HKBU. Upon invitation, she wrote and published an article on “Playing Together as One” for The Pianist Magazine (Issue 9). In recent years, Alana was featured in the Japanese magazine Fraser Monthly, the Fairchild Chinese Radio, and was interviewed on Fairchild TV of Vancouver in 2020 after she created and directed a music video with A Little Night Music Orchestra dedicated to everyone in the world affected by Covid-19 and discussed how music can promote healing.
With a deep passion for conducting, Alana was recognised as one of the Top Emerging Canadian Conductors at the RBC Canadian Conductors Showcase where she made her guest debut with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra. The orchestras she has conducted include the London Serenata, Prague Summer Nights Symphony Orchestra, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Vancouver Metropolitan Orchestra, Pacific Region International Summer Music Academy Orchestra, Hong Kong Symphonia, Hong Kong Elite Chamber Orchestra, Hong Kong Children’s Symphony Orchestra on concert tour in Vienna. She also conducted the Chamber Orchestra of New York at the International Respighi Conducting Competition where she was the first female conductor to be awarded Honorable Mention in Carnegie Hall. In the summer of 2018, Alana was the Assistant & Cover Conductor for the fully staged opera of Mozart’s “The Magic Flute” at the Prague Summer Nights Music Festival in the historical Estates Theater (the only standing theater where Mozart conducted in) in Prague. She conducted a staged opera scenes concert in Tabor, Czech Republic. Alana was invited to return to Prague in 2019 for the production of Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” and “Marriage of Figaro”. Back home in Canada, she was invited to conduct the musical production “Once Upon a Mattress” by Rodgers and Barer, presented by the North Shore Light Opera Society in May 2019. Alana was the International Ambassador and Conductor for the project “Recuperar Bomtempo” in collaboration with the “Associação Cultural Ekletica” and the Portuguese Ministry of Culture, where the Piano Concerto no.3 by João Domingos Bomtempo was rediscovered and showcased as a Canadian premiere in Vancouver with A Little Night Music Orchestra in their 50th Season Finale in 2023. Alana’s conducting teachers and mentors include Dr. John Farrer, Professor Howard Williams, Dirk Brossé, Salvatore Di Vittorio, Timothy Long, John Nardolillo, Frank Klassen, Ken Hsieh, Darrell Ang, Jonathan Darlington, Arthur Arnold, Jimmy Chiang, and Professor Mark Shapiro with whom she studied with at The Juilliard School in the Advanced Conducting Intensive Program. Alana is currently the Music Director of A Little Night Music Orchestra since 2018. In 2025, Alana celebrated her 10th year anniversary and final season as Music Director of the Simon Fraser University Concert Orchestra, where she has inspired many young musicians and developed the growth and stability of the orchestra. Alana is now the Music Director Laureate of the SFUCO.
Besides music, she has also made contributions in the field of Chemistry and was awarded the Vice President Research Award from the Simon Fraser University.