Since her first brush with fame a decade ago, Hong Kong-born conductor Elim Chan has fought a “long-term battle” against tired assumptions about herself, music and how orchestras should be run.
In 2014, Chan became the first woman to win the major Donatella Flick Conducting Competition, kick-starting an international career that included a stint at the London Symphony Orchestra and opening this year’s BBC Proms, Britain’s top classical music festival.
“I love to surprise people,” Chan, 38, said in an interview ahead of guest-conducting the Hong Kong Philharmonic this month.
“When I started, people had super low expectations of me. They thought, ‘Yeah, a little Asian girl … what can she do?’”
Her rise reflects how the classical music world is being gradually reshaped by a new generation of conductors.