Ruth Chan

Ruth read music at Oxford University, where she specialised in orchestration and composition. She continued her education at the Royal College of Music, obtaining a Masters in Composition for Screen, where she studied with leading film composers such as Patrick Doyle, Gabriel Yared, Joseph Horovitz and Dario Marianelli.

Ruth’s concert commissions include two suites of Children’s Songs, choral work Lament for Ying of the Nine Declarations and As in a Dream for Chinese and Western instruments where it recently premièred at the West Road Concert Hall in Cambridge. Her composition Piccadilly Revisited is a contemporary multimedia piece with silent film that was performed at the Royal Opera House, the Thames Festival, Hong Kong Arts Festival 2011 and in Beijing as part of the UK Now Festival 2012. Whilst she specialises in classical and orchestral music, Ruth has a great interest in contemporary ethnic fusion music. This has led her to work on a variety of ethnic themed soundtracks. She has worked with many musicians including Indian and Japanese flautists, Chinese instrumentalist, tabla players and Tibetian singers. Ruth also plays the hulusi and Indian Flutes. She also uses electronic and sound manipulation in her works as well as using effects and live sampling for some of her performances which she is continuing to develop.

Ruth is also a renowned composer for film and television. Film scores include the award winning The Winter Sun is a Lie (Director: Nassim Abassi), Undertow (Director: Neil McEmery-West) and The Doll (Director: Noaki Maeda). Recent TV documentaries include Attack of the Pentagon (Discovery Channel), The Trouble with Pirates (BBC Storyville) and ECO Crime Investigators (National Geographic Channel).