Alan Chan is a multi-faceted composer with a goal to create innovative music that incorporates elements from across cultures and styles to bring a refreshing experience to audiences. His music has been recognized with honors and funding from ArtEZ (Netherlands), American Composers Forum (ACF), ASCAP, Percussive Arts Society, Society of Composers, Inc. (SCI), the Composers and Authors Society of Hong Kong (CASH) and Los Angeles County Arts Commission (LA Arts), among others.

In the jazz big band genre, he is the winner of the 2011 ArtEZ Jazz Composition Contest in Enschede, the Netherlands. He was a member of the prestigious BMI Jazz Compositions Workshop under legendary Jim McNeely from 2008 to 2011. His charts have been performed by the Chuck Owen and the Jazz Surge band, Millennium Jazz Orchestra (Netherlands) and by college big bands in Miami, Redlands and Los Angeles. Coming from a classical background, he began composing for jazz big band under the mentorship of Gary Lindsay in Miami, then Grammy Award winner Vince Mendoza and Shelly Berg in Los Angeles.

Highlights of his commission works include Rock-Paper-Scissors (LA Arts), Acala and Bitter Melon for Chinese instruments (Melody of China), Listen, Hold Your Breath (Gateway Christian Church), Victoria Dispensary (the Walden School) and B for Brazil and Sweet Bach (Lien Percussion Ensemble, Taiwan). His music was featured in Percussive Arts Society International Conference, National Association of Teachers of Singing National Conference, International Jazz Composers’ Symposium, Musica Danubiana (Slovenia), June in Buffalo, Imagine Festival, and various academic conferences; and by performing organizations such as the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra, Fort Worth Symphony, Firebird (Boston), Hexnut (Amsterdam), Eastman Percussion Ensemble, Taipei Percussion and Melody of China (San Francisco).

He has served as a judge at the 2010 PAS Composition Contest and 2011 SCI/ASCAP Student Commission Competition. He held teaching positions at University of Southern California and University of Redlands. His percussion works are published by HoneyRock Publishing (honeyrock.net).