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/ 

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"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

A New Taxonomy of the Bowing Cycle; and a Redefinition of the Bow Hold

September 20, 2026  /  Amelia Chan

A working theory: a new taxonomy of bow technique, and the subsequent redefinition of the bow hold.

Stripped to its core, all bowing can be reduced to four essential phases: it LANDS, it RIDES, it LIFTS, and it is CARRIED.

Categorizing bowing by traditional bow strokes (like détaché and spiccato) creates the misconception that they are separate physical techniques, each with its own mechanics. It obscures the reality that they are all governed by a single physical system and are thus highly transferable.

The over-reliance on traditional stroke definitions causes two things:

  1. It leaves blind spots in our understanding of nameless techniques for bow control, like the release after a Mozart slur, which is largely undefined beyond a vague "lift." To begin with, the technique behind a lift requires far more investigation than it generally receives. Moreover, the Mozart "lift" is structurally more accurately defined as a Lift, a Carry, and a Landing. The problem is rarely the lift itself. Rather, if the technique of the lift is faulty, it creates problems for the subsequent carry and landing.

  2. It induces a stilted, mechanical musicality. Organic phrasing is a continuous flow between these four phases, not a rigid sequence of independent, non-transferable strokes.

Consequently, this new taxonomy of bow technique organically redefines the bow hold as well. Whether the bow is landing, riding, lifting, or being carried dictates exactly what the hand must do. This renders the age-old semantic debate — whether it is a "hold," a "grip," — obsolete. Defining it as one fixed thing to cover everything we do when we play is, in fact, illogical. Depending on where we are in the cycle, it is sometimes a grip, sometimes a cradle, sometimes a catch.

By shifting our focus to the first principles of bow technique, bowing stops being a collection of isolated tricks and becomes a unified system that creates a more complete and natural musician.

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