Aidan Chan

Aidan Chan is an Irish-Chinese pianist and PhD candidate at the ÃÛÑ¿TV, fully funded by a LAHP studentship supported by the AHRC. His practice research, supervised by Dr Maiko Kawabata (RCM) and Dr Broderick Chow (Royal Central School of Speech and Drama), explores how diasporic identity is constructed, embodied, and articulated through performance. Grounded in his semi-nomadic Hakka heritage and conservatoire training, Aidan’s work investigates how racialised and diasporic bodies are made legible to dominant cultural frameworks through processes of commodification, homogenisation, and spectacle. Informed by Marxist aesthetics, postcolonial theory, and minoritarian performance studies, he is developing a performance methodology that resists cultural legibility and embraces fragmentation, opacity, and contradiction. His artistic praxis is increasingly moving towards transdisciplinary work, with a focus on reclaiming performance as a means of production from the logics of capitalist consumption.

Described as “fearless and uncompromising,” Aidan has performed as a soloist and chamber musician in the US (Carnegie Hall), UK (Wigmore Hall), Hong Kong, France, Switzerland, China, and across Ireland. As a concerto soloist, he has appeared with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, RTÉ Concert Orchestra (giving the Irish premiere of John Adams’ Eros Piano), Westminster Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonic Orchestra of Budweis, and TUD Sinfonia. He was recipient of the 2023 RDS Music Bursary, the most prestigious Western classical music award in Ireland. 

He has commissioned and premiered Knuckleduster (2021) and torn, to the ground, exhausted, sobbing (2024) by Alex Ho, Polygon by Delyth Field (2022), and Reflections and Refractions by Philip Hammond (2023). 

Aidan obtained a Master of Music degree with distinction from the RCM under Professors Nigel Clayton and Andrew Zolinsky, having also completed his undergraduate studies there with first class honours. He undertook a residency at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity in 2024. 

Upcoming performances in 2025 include the world premiere of Alex Ho’s 3 Chinese Myths and Satie’s Vexations. 

Photo: Frances Marshall Photography

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