Dr. Sarah Chan engages a rich contribution in the musical arts as an international concert pianist, professor, and artist-teacher-scholar whose expertise integrates strength of focus in piano performance artistry as well as breadth of interdisciplinary engagement.
Winner of The American Prize in Piano Performance; PianoTexas International Festival Professional Prize; U.S. Presidential Scholar Distinguished Teacher Award; California State University-Stanislaus Outstanding Professor Award; California State University-Stanislaus Outstanding Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity Faculty Award; the Eastman School of Music Award for Excellence in Teaching; and the CAPMT Outstanding Member State Recognition Award of the California Association of Professional Music Teachers, Sarah Chan maintains a strong commitment to artistic, pedagogical, scholarly, and professional excellence.
As international concert pianist, Sarah Chan has performed throughout North America, Europe, Asia, and South America, including at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Berlin Philharmonic Hall, National Philharmonic of Ukraine, Salle Cortot-Paris, La Cité Internationale des Arts-Paris, St. James Piccadilly-London, Künstlerhaus-Munich, Sala Atenu-Romania, Teatro Municipal de Las Condes-Chile, Beifang Performing Arts Hall, and Ningxia Normal University Concert Hall in China. As concerto soloist, Chan has performed with the MÁV Symphony Orchestra Budapest, National “Mihail Jara” Philharmonic of Romania, Orquesta Sinfónica Universidad Mayor of Chile, New York Concert Artists Symphony Orchestra, Manhattan Chamber Orchestra, Seattle Philharmonic Orchestra, Fort Worth Symphony, and Enid Symphony Orchestra.
Sarah Chan’s solo CD album, “Portraits of France and Spain: Piano Music from Impressionism and National Romanticism to the Avant-Garde, 1880-1960”, is anticipated for release in 2026 with Dux Records.
Dr. Chan currently serves as Coordinator of Keyboard Studies and Associate Professor of Music (Keyboard Studies/Music Theory) at California State University-Stanislaus where she teaches applied piano, collaborative piano/accompanying, piano literature, piano pedagogy ,18th-c. counterpoint, musical form and analysis, and interdisciplinary fine arts (music-art-theatre). She has also served on the piano faculties and music teaching staff of Stanford University and the Eastman School of Music.
Sarah Chan embraces a dynamic multidimensional engagement of the musical arts in interpretive (historical), creative (improvisational/extemporized performance art), and interdisciplinary (music-visual-dramatic arts-humanities-STEM) expressions of the arts. Insight into her work and perspectives may be gleaned through https://www.csustan.edu/people/dr-sarah-chan as well as in interviews on Ukrainian TV, at Berlin Fueilletonscout.com, and in her journal article, “Innovative Teaching Practices in 21st-c. Music Pedagogy”, Мистецтво та освіта (No. 3 (93) 2019), (Art and Education) (No. 3 (93) 2019), published in the international Ukrainian art and educational sciences journal founded by the National Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of Ukraine.
Frequently invited to conduct masterclasses, seminar-workshops, and conference presentations, Dr. Chan has engaged artist-teaching residencies across the U.S., France, Ukraine, China, Chile, France, Canada, and remotely to Ghana. International residencies include leading a two-day national Ukrainian music teachers’ conference focused entirely on Dr. Chan’s creative teaching approaches, as hosted by the Ukrainian Global School, the “Toloka” Center for Educational Initiatives, and the University of Educational Management of the National Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of Ukraine. Artist-teaching residencies in Asia include the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, Beifang University of Nationalities, and Ningxia Normal University. South American residencies include the Conservatorio de Música de Universidad Mayor in Chile, and North American residencies include the University of Lethbridge, California State University-Sacramento, Charleston Southern University, University of Central Missouri, Oklahoma City University, Erskine College, the International Music Festival, and Pacific Institute of Music.
Dr. Chan has judged for such competitions as the IPPA Conero International Piano Competition, Enkor International Music Competition, The American Prize Competition (piano performance, chamber music composition), U.S. Open Music Competition, and the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) Competition.
Sarah Chan received her musical training at the Eastman School of Music (D.M.A.), Paris Conservatory of Music, Peabody Conservatory of Music (M.M.), Manhattan School of Music (B.M.), and the University of Michigan. She engaged liberal arts studies with a concentration in French and French literature at the University of Michigan, Columbia University, and La Sorbonne.
