Performance & Composition
Since 1998, Charity has performed throughout Canada, the United States, Latin America, and Europe, including multiple national and international tours (solo and as an ensemble), artist residencies and festival performances. With over 800 performances, Charity has graced the stages of cult favorites such as Casa del Popolo, Death by Audio and The Stone, as well as the concert halls of Place des Arts, Roulette, Lion D’Or and Chapelle Historique de Bon Pasteur.
Highly multidisciplinary, she has collaborated frequently with artists in dance, theatre, installation art and media arts, as well as working cross-culturally, unearthing the numerous overlaps in various artistic practices and musical genres. Noteworthy collaborations include work with Fred Frith, Robert Ashley, Thomas Buckner, Roscoe Mitchell, Pauline Oliveros, Zeena Parkins, Elliott Sharp, Marie Brassard, Han Bennink, Bill Nace, Peter Evans, and Alexis O’Hara.
Coming from a background in Western European classical art music, Charity quickly moved into the contemporary music sphere of performance early in her studies and training as a pianist. While her initial focus was on contemporary and experimental improvisation (often referred to as “free” improvisation), her studies and practice soon brought her to learn the basics of other improvised musics — jazz, maqam,. dastgah, radif, and raga traditions.
Beginning during her time in Oakland CA, she extended her artistic practice into areas of electro-acoustic performance, installation art, media art, and interdisciplinary performance, with an emphasis on technology, dance, and cross-cultural practice. Her work in these areas include mounting David Tudor’s RainForest and Alvin Lucier’s Long Thin Wire, as well as numerous performances of various John Cage compositions. From opportunities to compose for Lou Harrison’s American gamelan to Deep Listening training with Pauline Oliveros, Charity’s artistic work became increasingly hybrid in nature.
During her time in New Jersey, New York, Chicago and Montréal, her explorations into collaborative music making and interdisciplinary performance led her to residencies in Iceland working on graphic scores, animation, and Icelandic indie rock; projects with contemporary dance improviser Andrew Harwood; and the composition and presentation of immersive, multimedia projects in Athens, Greece.
Piano III: A New Media Project by Sylvia Safdie, featuring composition & performance by Charity Chan
As part of her new media and video practice, Montréal-based artist Sylvia Safdie recorded Charity’s live performances and improvisations during her early forays into new media and video. Including her first ever tryptich video project, Piano I to III features close-up images of the augmented piano performance techniques Charity frequently incorporated into her work.
Performance with Frank Gratkowski & Elliott Sharp
This excerpt is from a live concert given as part of a multi-show day run of performances at Spectrum in Manhattan NY in 2013. Featuring Frank Gratkowski (saxophones) and Elliott Sharp (electric guitar), this is the first meeting of these three internationally-seasoned improvising artists.
Performance with the Charity Chan Quartet
This excerpt is a live concert given as part of a multi-show residency run at Spectrum in Manhattan NY. This quartet performed fully improvised music, made up of stalwarts from the Canada & U.S., featuring Peter Evans (trumpet), Tom Blancarte (double bass) and Weasel Walter (drums).
Duo with Thierry Amar (double bass)
Taking place at Casa del Popolo in Montréal QC, the duo of Alexander MacSween (percussion) and Charity Chan (piano), regularly hosted corpse exquise-style performances featuring a handful of other local improvisation artists. The format was a round-robin style improvisation where, over the course of an evening, the performers would all perform together as duos. This evening featured guests Lori Freedman (bass clarinet), Thierry Amar (double bass), and Alexandre St-Onge (double bass and electronics), in addition to Charity & Alexander.
Festival d’Accés Asie (2013): In Conversation with Houman Zolfaghari
For the 2013 Festival d’Accès Asie, Charity and translator Houman Zolfagari created a cross-cultural performance blending free improvisation, contemporary Chinese music theory, and Persian poetry. Here, they give a short interview for the festival, talking about their collaboration and the project.
For more videos, please visit the Caribou Sonore YouTube channel. For more photos from live performances, please visit Peter Gannushkin’s work on Downtown Music. For a selection of past concert listings, please visit Tumblr.
