Amelia Chan

violinist | Creator, First Principles Violin

Amelia Chan is currently concertmaster of the City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong (CCOHK).

She came to this position from her tenure as concertmaster of the West Virginia Symphony Orchestra (US). An experienced leader, Amelia has served in the concertmaster chair under acclaimed conductors such as Sir Neville Marriner, Michael Tilson Thomas, Manfred Huss, Sergiu Commissiona, Anton Coppola, Zdeněk Mácal, Jorge Mester, Julius Rudel, and Gerard Schwarz. She has also performed with the New York Philharmonic extensively. As a chamber musician, Amelia has served as first violinist of the Montclaire String Quartet, and has collaborated with guitarist Sharon Isbin, accordionist Richard Galliano, violinist Lara St. John, the Ying Quartet, members of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players (NYC), among others. She has appeared as soloist with orchestras including the West Virginia Symphony, the International Virtuosi Orchestra on tour in Central America, the New Amsterdam Symphony Orchestra (NYC), the Brooklyn Symphony Orchestra (NYC), and the City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong. She has shared the stage as co-soloist with acclaimed flutist Sir James Galway, and frequently acts as director for the City Chamber Orchestra. She has performed at the Costa Rica Music Festival, the Guatemala Music Festival, Cooperstown Chamber Music Festival in New York and the Pacific Music Festival (Japan).

Amelia has been heard on WQXR, New York; WQED, Pittsburgh; West Virginia Public Broadcasting; BBC Radio Scotland, Scotland; and RTHK Radio 4, Hong Kong.

As an educator, Amelia approaches the teaching of technique through the lens of whole-body biomechanics, and on the principle that techniques of playing an instrument need to be relational to the body, and to how it moves, instead of relying on a static one-size-fits-all method. She believes in a focused and deep education that goes beyond rote training, where the student learns discernment and critical thinking, while sifting through the layers of intellect needed to decipher the depths of the musical art, to get to the natural, joyful simplicity of music-making.

Amelia holds undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate degrees from the Mannes College of Music and Manhattan School of Music (NY). She began her violin studies in the junior school at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts. Her major teachers included Thomas Wang, Alice Waten, Albert Markov, Shirley Givens, Lisa Kim, Yoko Takebe, Sheryl Staples, Glenn Dicterow, and double-bassist Julius Levine.

For more information on Amelia, please go to her Instagram page at https://www.instagram.com/ameliachanviolin/ 

——————————————————————————-

"Concertmaster Amelia Chan in particular played with passion, acting as the vibrant soul of the ensemble.” South China Morning Post 

“…gutsy solo violin throughout [by] concertmaster Amelia Chan…” theprickle.org

Finding Hand Shapes for Double-stops: Those Pesky Thirds!!! [Video]

October 04, 2026  /  Amelia Chan

Using the Theraband to wrap the hand is highly effective for consolidating hand shapes/frames, and for training rapid transitions between them.

First of all, the whole idea of using the arches is that we want to be able to find different configurations of the fingers coming from the palm (arches) as cohesive blocks of shapes — and then being able to switch between these shapes very quickly and lightly; rather than individual fingers swimming about untethered, lost, and often contorted, while still not being able to reach the right positions.

This is a preview post. I'll say more about the details of how to wrap the hand later. For now, observe the following:

There are two different placements of the end of the band: one is around the 2nd finger and the other the 3rd. There are a number of ways to wrap the hand. We all know how certain fingers can't reach back or forward in certain configurations of 3rds! This difference in how I loop the band addresses precisely that issue.

When the pinky stretches, the band wrapped around the base joint helps the student to sense what it means to engage from the base joint, the knuckle. So they're not only aiming with the fingertip.

On the other side (which you cannot see here), the band wraps around the thumb pad. While the thumb should not hold excessive tension, it is an opposable structure and must do much more than simply "relax." Wrapping the pad trains the thumb to engage from its base joint—the exact same concept I discussed in my last post regarding the bow hand as well.

This wrapping technique scales across all levels. All of my students use this method to consolidate fundamental hand frames (e.g., the 1-2-3-4 half-step/whole-step configurations). And in all cases, intonation is greatly improved. It applies just as much to beginners as it does to my own practice.

I recommend using the Theraband for this. In my experience, most other exercise bands are too bulky to deliver the right results.

Comment