Leon Chu
Music Director and Conductor
Born in a grassroot family, Leon Chu did not receive any formal music training during his teens. His first encounter with Mahler’s Symphonies sparkled his interest in music to pursue his musical studies, started with the Centralised Scheme of Music Training for Senior Secondary Students, and percussion studies with Choy Lap-tak. Upon his admission to the Modern Languages and Intercultural Studies in the Chinese University of Hong Kong, he joined a number of choruses and orchestras, and studied vocal under Albert Lim. He later studied choral conducting under renowned European masters including Kåre Hanken, Theodora Pavlovitch, and Gábor Hollerung. In 2014, Mr. Chu attained the Master degree of Choral Conducting from the University of Saint Joseph, Macau, under the tutelage of Colin Mawby, Nancy Telfer and Pedro Monteiro. Recently he furthered his vocal studies under Myra Chih.
In 2006, Leon Chu took up the position as the Music Director of the Chinese University of Hong Kong Chorus. Apart from local performances, he brought the chorus to stages across the mainland China, Taiwan, Malaysia and Thailand. He conducted the chorus in their first commercial recording Spring Breeze Kisses My Face — The Choral Music of Jan Tien-hao, which soon awarded as one of the Best Sales Releases (Classical and Operatic Works Recording) in the IFPI Hong Kong Top Sales Music Award 2014. He is also the Trainer of RC Choir, R.C. Lee Hall, The University of Hong Kong, former Assistant Conductor of VTC Symphony Orchestra & Chorus, and Conductor of New Asia Chorus, CUHK. Chu is an experienced chorus master. In recent years, he closely collaborated with Yan Huichang and Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra on their symphonic choral concerts, and invited by Siam Philharmonic as the guest chorus master in their performance of Mahler's Symphony No. 2, “Resurrection”.
Chu started contributing CD reviews to HiFi Review magazine from his university years. His review writings are published on a number of Chinese newspapers and magazines including Hong Kong Economic Journal, Hong Kong Economic Times, Ming Pao Daily, MUZIK of Taiwan, and Shanghai Artists. He also annotated and translated the house programmes for Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra and Premiere Performances of Hong Kong. His recent writings are uploaded on his blog leonchu.net, and contributed to websites such as Stand News, VJMedia and International Association of Theatre Critics (Hong Kong), covering various topics including critiques, topics on music and even anecdotes about Hong Kong music history. Apart from music, he is the co-author of the book <i>60 Keywords in Cultural Studies</i> with Stephen Chu Yiu-Wai and Anthony Chan.
Since 2017, Leon Chu is an Arts Advisor (Music sector) of the Hong Kong Arts Development Council.