Karyn Chan completed her undergraduate studies at The University of Western Australia (UWA), having gained her Bachelor of Music (Hons.) in Performance. During her time there, she won several awards such as the Vose Memorial Concerto Prize for Music, Dr. V.H. Cooper Memorial Prize and the Margaret Bello Prize for Chamber Music Performance. Following that, she gained entry to the Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester, New York, USA, where she completed the Master of Music in Performance and Literature under the tutelage of Barry Snyder, Professor Emeritus of Piano, an internationally acclaimed pianist and educator. Upon completion, she embarked on further research at the Graduate School of Education (UWA) in the area of music education, where her thesis entitled, Affective Concepts in Music Performance Education: An Einsteinian Approach, was accepted for doctoral degree under the supervision of Keith Punch, Professor Emeritus of Education, an international scholar in the field of education research methods. Karyn was also very fortunate to have had the opportunity, for a substantial part of her PhD, to work under the guidance of Professor Samuel Leong, a leading authority figure in the field of music education.
Karyn has been teaching instrumental piano for over 38 years and also has 13 years experience as a full-time music educator at Hale School (Western Australia) where she was involved in areas of instrumental piano teaching and performance coaching, as conductor and director of ensembles, classroom music teaching, instrumental accompanist and concert organizer.
Apart from teaching, Karyn has also performed in countries such as Australia, Malaysia, Singapore and United States. She was also as an examiner for the Australian Music Examinations Board for 17 years.
Karyn maintains two areas of interest – music performance and music education, with a particular passion for education of the whole-person musician in relation to high school instrumental students and tertiary undergraduate music performance students.