Biography
Nok Him Chan ✢ Cellist
Nok Him Chan is a cellist, composer, conductor, and pianist currently studying at the Royal College of Music, pursuing a Master's in Performance. He graduated from the Royal College of Music with first-class honours with joint-principals in cello performance and composition, studying cello with Alastair Blayden, composition with Mark-Anthony Turnage and Deirdre Gribbin, and conducting with Toby Purser. He was a scholarship recipient at the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts Junior Programme, studying cello with Letty Poon and Nan Jia.
Chan frequently appears as cello principal of orchestras, including Firebird Orchestra, Youth Musicians Symphony Orchestra, and orchestras at the RCM, and was a participant in the Lucerne Festival Academy 2024 and 2025. He was invited to perform at 11 Downing Street in 2024 to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, directors, and heads of faculties at the Royal College of Music, and he had been invited to perform Michael Gordon’s Industry in the RCM Electronics Concert. Chan frequently performs recitals in London, including St Pancras Church, Holy Trinity Church, St James Sussex Gardens, et cetera. He had appeared as a soloist several times with the Hong Kong Children’s Symphony Orchestra, which he toured in the United States, Malaysia, and Taiwan. He founded the New Light Duo with harpist Ian Lim and was a semi-finalist in Belgium's Big Little Music Competition. Chan appeared as a performer at the Lucerne Festival, Great Exhibitionist Festival, RCM Chamber Festival, RCM FestivAll, and RCM Super Strings Sunday in recent years.
Chan was awarded an honourable mention in the Royal College of Music Cello Competition 2024 and Contemporary Competition 2025, and 1st prize in the Hong Kong Schools’ Music Festival Cello Competition Cello Concerto Category in 2017. Chan is an RCM scholar and an awardee of the Hong Kong Scholarship for Excellence Scheme.
Nok Him Chan ✢ Composer
Nok Him Chan is currently studying composition with Mark-Anthony Turnage and Deirdre Gribbin at the Royal College of Music, and He was a scholarship recipient at the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts Junior Programme studying with Poly Ng.
Chan’s works have been performed by the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra, the Fidelio Trio, Héloïse Werner and Colin Alexander, the Cong Quartet, the NOVA Ensemble, the orchestra and chamber ensemble at the Royal College of Music, the Senior Choir of La Salle College, and more. His work has appeared at the Head on Photo Festival Concert, the RCM FestivAll, Contemporary Music in Action, Open Day, and the HKAPA Open Day. and. He has also performed at the Great Exhibition Road Festival as an improviser on the Magnetic Resonator Piano. He worked with conductors including Toby Purser, Graham Ross, Chew Hee Chiat, and Angus Lee. Chan was commissioned to write for the 90th-anniversary concert of La Salle College in 2021. He had also worked with the RCM Sparks Orchestra, Pacific Cello Orchestra, and the La Salle College.
Notable awards of Chan include winning the Royal College of Music Large Ensemble Composition Competition in 2024, with the winning piece Starry Night, which was offered a performance at the Royal College of Music 2025 Summer Term, performed by the RCM Chamber Ensemble and conducted by Toby Purser. He was twice selected for the Hong Kong Composers’ Guild New Generation Concert in 2020 and 2021, and a selected composer in the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra “Music of the Heart” Concert 2021, in which the piece Two Dances was selected to be the most loved piece by the orchestra members. He was a first prize winner of the youth category at the 4th Franz Schubert Konservatorium International Composition Competition in Vienna (2021) and a second prize winner and honorable mention at the Malta International Music Competition (2021). Chan is also part of the New Light Duo with Malaysian harpist Ian Lim, which aims to promote contemporary music, including premieres of Chan’s Poem (2021/2023) and Three Dialogues (2024) for violoncello and harp.
Chan is an RCM scholar and an awardee of the Hong Kong Scholarship for Excellence Scheme.
Nok Him Chan ✢ Conductor
Nok Him Chan is studying conducting with Professor Toby Purser, Head of Conducting at the Royal College of Music, and participated in conducting classes by Peter Stark and Natalia Luis Bassa.
Chan debuted as a conductor at the age of 11 with the La Salle Primary School Symphony Orchestra and Choir. He has conducted choirs and orchestras at La Salle College, where he served as an assistant conductor of the choirs. He co-founded the Hong Kong Youth Philharmonia and founded Apollo Sinfonia, which he conducts regularly in Hong Kong and London. Chan also conducted the premiere of his composition, Hamlet, at the Royal College of Music, and other new works written by student composers. He is the assistant conductor at the Fulham Chamber Choir and Kensington Chamber Choir, and he has also assisted in conducting the orchestras at La Salle College and the Hong Kong Children’s Symphony Orchestra. He worked with Russian pianist Misha Kaploukhii with the Apollo Sinfonia in 2025.
Chan is also a co-founder of the New Light Collective, an ensemble that aims to perform contemporary music from diverse cultures and new works by living composers.
Nok Him Chan ✢ Pianist
Nok Him Chan studied piano with Stella Cheng since the age of 5. Chan was the pianist of La Salle Primary School and La Salle College choirs. As a pianist, he had performed in venues including the Royal College of Music Amaryllis Fleming Hall, RCM Performance Hall, St Mary Abbots Church, and Hong Kong City Hall Concert Hall. He performed in the RCM Chamber Festival and SonataFest, and performed on the Magnetic Resonator Piano as an improviser in the Great Exhibitionist Festival.
In 2024, he co-founded the 147 Duo with pianist Nico Varela and regularly performs recitals in London.
