About

Charity Chan (she/her/they) is an arts leader who, over the course of more than two decades, has worn various hats in the non-profit arts and culture sector, at various times as a curator, producer, educator, musicologist, composer, arts manager, and performer. Beginning her career as a performer and composer in the 90s, Charity’s professional practice currently focuses on creative production and direction, curation, and arts management.

Her work has encompassed fostering community-embedded learning initiatives to cross-cultural arts curation; public programs development to long-term artistic program planning; academic research to large-scale live event production, and launching development initiatives to million dollar-plus budget wrangling. Charity’s organizational expertise runs the gamut from artist-founded non-profits to institutions embedded within multi-national development agencies. Her areas of specialization include interdisciplinary performance, improvisation, new media, sound and installation art, global and cross-cultural music practices, cultural economics, and social aesthetics.

Since Charity’s arrival in Toronto, her concentration has been on public programming, interdisciplinary live arts curation and production. At MOCA Toronto, Charity was the Head of Public Programmes and Learning, where she oversaw the strategic direction and programming for all performances, lectures, workshops, screenings and learning opportunities. In Toronto, she has held positions at: Art of Time Ensemble, the Aga Khan Museum, Luminato Festival Toronto, and the Ontario Science Centre.

Prior to Toronto, Charity worked extensively in the United States, Montréal, and Latin America as an educator, curator, producer, and arts manager. Previous partnerships and positions include work with : Traquen’art, Productions SuperMusique, Caribou Sonore, Suoni per il Popolo, Princeton University, and McGill University.

Charity’s work as a performer, curator, composer and producer has included opportunities to present/collaborate with artists such as the Instant Composers Pool, Robert Ashley, Fred Frith & Peter Mettler, Roscoe Mitchell, Jeremy Dutcher, Baaba Maal, Eduardo Guerrero, Kayan Kalhor, and Joëlle Léandre. As an artist her work can be found on, among other labels, Carrier Records, Tzadik, and Ambiances Magnétiques.

The recipient of several named fellowships, awards and grants, Charity is also an active workshop leader and guest speaker. Charity holds degrees from McGill University and Mills College. She was an Andrew Mellon Fellow at the Centre for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies at the Princeton School of International and Public Affairs at Princeton University, where she also conducted doctoral studies, and was also a research fellow at the Center for Black Music Research at Columbia College Chicago.

Lectures include speaking engagements at Northwestern University, the International Society for Improvised Music, Columbia University, New York University, University of British Columbia, and the Guelph and Vancouver Jazz Festivals.