Grace Chan worked as an Optometrist. An avid audiophile, she also has worked as a Recording Engineer in Asia before immigrating to Canada. Gifted with a voice of rich natural color and a mezzo-soprano register, she pursued her studies at The University of British Columbia where she obtained BMus in Vocal Performance in 1998 and a MMus in Opera Performance in 2000.
With over 25 years of experience as a voice teacher and coach she started singing in Pop and Broadway musical genres before she emerged as an opera and theatrical singer performing on stages around the globe. Grace has performed with the Vancouver Opera, Stratford Festival, Tapestry New Opera Works, Vancouver Chamber Music Festival, Puente Theatre, and Belfry Theatre, The Burnaby Lyric Opera, Viva Musica, Vancouver Symphony Vancouver Recital Society and the Sinfornia plus numerous commission projects with composers and poets. She was also a member of the renowned Vancouver Chamber Choir from 2007-2015 whose performances were broadcast on the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Company). Her career has taken her to stages all over the world including Singapore, Hungary and Manila. Some of her most roles include: Carmen in “Carmen”, Alisa in "Lucia di Lammermoor:, Gertrude in "Romeo et Juliette", La Principessa in "Suor Angelica", The Third Lady in Mozart's "Die Zauberflote" and Ulrica in "Un Ballo in Maschera" by Verdi.
As a performer, Grace has received accolades from many publications including; Opera Canada, The Globe and Mail, Time Magazine and the Vancouver Sun. In 1994 Grace opened her voice studio, Voice Gym Vancouver (Marpole) where she works with children and adults from 6 years of age and up teaching fundamentals and musicianship, performance, vocal projection for public speakers, actors and educators and voice discovery for persons with disabilities. Through the years Grace has been affiliated with esteemed educational institutions, Trinity Western University and the British Columbia Conservatory of Music.
Having been raised in the Asia where women were not expected to speak, Grace though having the spirit of an artist, and interest in medicine and a beautiful mezzo-soprano voice chose to go the more socially accepted route and become a doctor, an optometrist. It took a while for her to find her voice both literally and figuratively and is interested in developing a practice/collaborations with others who run NGO's or non-profits, or Voice Therapy focusing on helping people break through psychological barriers through the use of speech and singing, combining Teaching, Therapy and Art.
Answering the question what is art and what is medicine to create a therapeutic process that helps people to become empowered and achieve their goals. Grace's key to success is timing as for her greatest professional achievement she views being able to help young and old to find the power of expression as one of them. As Grace so eloquently puts it "The world is big enough to fit in the voices." More is yet to come.
International Alumni Association Member, Grace Chan, can be found on the Association Directory where she is looking forward to networking with you.
