MET concertmaster David Chan named director of Credo National Festival

Read more news stories here

Credo Music has announced the appointment of David Chan as its new director. 2024 marks Credo’s 25th anniversary, which will be celebrated this summer as a new orchestral institute held at Chicago’s Symphony Center. This year’s programme will see titled players from major American orchestras play alongside students, providing both personal and professional mentorship.

Chan will conduct at this year’s festival, with his directorship tenure beginning for the 2025 festival.

’After 25  years of consistent faculty and leadership, the Credo mission will prosper with this summer’s infusion of new energy and vision,’ says Credo founder and artistic director Peter Slowik. ’While the format has developed to meet a new generation of musical leaders, the ideals and deeply personal nature of Credo’s work remain bedrock strong. David Chan is the perfect leader for this transition and beyond.’

 The partnership between Chan and Credo will provide ’a uniquely meaningful opportunity where I can draw on every facet of my professional life—as conductor, violinist, and teacher—and also fulfill my personal callings to service and ministry,’ according to Chan, whose values align with Credo’s manifesto of music, faith and service.

Chan is currently in his 24th season as concertmaster of New York’s MET Orchestra. In addition to his career as a violinist, he is establishing himself as a conductor, having recently served as music director of the APEX Ensemble and as music director of Camerata Notturna. As artistic partner of Mainly Mozart’s Festival of Orchestras, he has conducted the organisation’s All-Star Orchestra, while his guest conducting has included Belgium’s l’Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège, the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra, and l’Orchestre Dijon Bourgogne in France; the Grant Park and Classical Tahoe summer festivals; the Juilliard Orchestra and Manhattan School of Music in New York City; and the Apollo Orchestra in Washington, D.C.

A native of San Diego, Chan began his musical education at the age of four. He won prizes at the Tchaikovsky and Indianapolis international violin competitions, going on to make his New York debut in 1995 at Avery Fisher Hall and his Carnegie Hall debut in 2003, performing the Brahms Double Concerto with the MET Orchestra. He received his bachelor’s degree from Harvard University and his master’s from the Juilliard School and studied with Dorothy DeLay, Hyo Kang and Michael Tseitlin, . In addition to being on the Juilliard faculty, he also serves as head of the Orchestral Performance Programme at the Manhattan School of Music.

Playing

In The Best of Technique you’ll discover the top playing tips of the world’s leading string players and teachers. It’s packed full of exercises for students, plus examples from the standard repertoire to show you how to integrate the technique into your playing.

Teaching

The Strad’s Masterclass series brings together the finest string players with some of the greatest string works ever written. Always one of our most popular sections, Masterclass has been an invaluable aid to aspiring soloists, chamber musicians and string teachers since the 1990s.

Calendars

American collector David L. Fulton amassed one of the 20th century’s finest collections of stringed instruments. This year’s calendar pays tribute to some of these priceless treasures, including Yehudi Menuhin’s celebrated ‘Lord Wilton’ Guarneri, the Carlo Bergonzi once played by Fritz Kreisler, and four instruments by Antonio Stradivari.