From
Mountains: The Dreams of Lily Kwok (Royal Exchange Theatre/New Earth Theatre)

Mountains - Opening Sequence Arriving Hong Kong

Mountains - Mahjong Scene

Mountains - Act 2 Opening (In between Worlds)

Taming of the Shrew - Canta E Bevi (Sing and Drink)
(Royal Shakespeare Company 2019)

A Reinvention of the original Tourdion song 'Quand je bois du vin clairet' (published in 1530), translated into Italian as the opening of the final scene of Taming of the Shrew (where there's a party!)
Using rock renaissance, Annie Lennox and 90s synth pop as inspiration for the song.

Below is a blog I wrote on my research on female Italian Renaissance composers as well as my approach to writing the soundtrack for a gender swapped production of Taming of the Shrew.
https://www.rsc.org.uk/blogs/international-womens-day/what-would-music-be-like-if-it-was-dominated-by-female-composers

Taming of the Shrew - Canta E Bevi (Royal Shakespeare Company 2019)

I don't usually upload early stage rough sketches, but wanted to share my thought process into creating music that represents universal, Globalness(not world music), a piece that cannot be geographically placed. Combined with experimenting on post effects

FTFT Drafts 2022

Island Sketch Idea

Soundtrack for The Hatchling Queen Platinum Jubilee Pageant

Our Hatchling dragon puppet led an array of cultural celebrations outside Buckingham Palace at the Platinum Jubilee Pageant on Sunday 5th June 2022, bringing central London to life with colour, street theatre and dance. 

Singer: Angela Hicks

https://thehatchling.co.uk/jubilee-pageant

The Hatchling Dance for Queen Platinum Jubilee Pageant

From BFI commissioned silent film: Around China with a Movie Camera.

Performed at BFI Southbank, China Changing Festival Royal Festival Hall, Flatpack Film Festival

BFI Around China with a Movie Camera

Around China with a Movie Camera - Hong Kong Excerpt

Around China with a Movie Camera - Beijing City excerpt 2

Around China with a Movie Camera - Beijing Excerpt 1

A Very British Airline - Documentary Series for BBC 2 in 2014

A Very British Airline - Introduction

A Very British Airline - Big China City

The Last Days of Limehouse

Curtain Call and Last Scene.

Ghostly reminiscent of Limehouse in the 1920s combined with a Chinese hint by using the erhu (to be recorded) and live stage sounds: typewriter, woks, cleaver, footsteps

The Last Days of Limehouse - Curtain Call

An unused draft to represent the club scene of the gritty underground, using industrial sounds and the Berlin dance scene as the main inspiration. 

Metropolis East- Mechnical Urban Club Scene

Demo for CAS's Commission.

Performed at Rich Mix, Albany and Trafalgar Square as part of Chinese New Year Celebration

Moon's Magmatism - Moon Theme Snippet

Rain – ‘Bad News’ Tenor aria, ‘Good news, Bad News’ Tenor and Baritone duet and ‘You’ve reached the depths of your bountiful fountain’ Soprano aria by Ruth Chan

Performed on Sunday 21 September 2014, King's Head Theatre, London.

Scene Description:
Well-In- The-West Water Company CEO Barry Brookes is seen as incompetent and has been the butt
of some very bad publicity. His future with the company is now at risk. Brookes demands his Public Relations Officer, Marcus, launch a media campaign that will improve his image and the company’s
fortunes. If he fails, Marcus will be out of a job.
Marcus meets Asha who cleans the company offices. She tells of her homeland in Sudan where communities are desperate for water, where women have to walk miles to polluted streams and wells, risking the dangers of rape and death to fetch water for their families. Marcus is smitten by Asha, and wants to impress her. He hits upon the idea of persuading Brookes to front a high profile campaign to promote bring water to these drought ridden regions.

Libretto: Elaine Ruth White

Performers: Peter Willcock (Baritone), Geoff Williams (Tenor) and Marie Lemaire (Soprano)

Rain Opera Drafts

RAIN - Short Opera Excerpt by Ruth Chan

Around China with a Movie Camera – Kunming scene by Ruth Chan

Performed on Thursday 21st July 2016 at BFI Southbank, London.

Scenes in China | c.1902
Auguste François’s position as French consul in south China between 1896 and 1904, which earned him the moniker “White Mandarin,” allowed access to subjects that would have eluded other visiting cameramen. These fragments include a bustling market in Kunming, a gaggle of Miao soldiers practicing military drills, a wealthy couple dining, lounging opium smokers, and an opera performed at a private party. 

Performers: Wang Xiao (erhu), Meng Meng (Guzheng), Dennis Lee (xiao and dizi) Maurizio Pala (Accordion), Ruth Chan (Piano and Keyboard), Terl Bryant (Percussion)

Around China with a Movie Camera

Around China with a Movie Camera: Kunming Scene (BFI)

A new arrangement of 'None shall Sleep Now' by Puccini into Chinese instrumentation infused with Chinese folk opera style.

Calaf: Bo Wang
with SOAS Chinese Ensemble

Turandot Reimagined: None shall sleep now

Original draft for the last scene of Act 1 in 'Snow in midsummer'. The scene builds up to a heart ripping moment (!) which the heart get paraded on stage.

For performance, I used 2 keyboard/synth players, taiko drums and other percussions (who replicated the heart beats sounds) and a Erhu player

RSC- Snow in Midsummer

Snow in Midsummer - End of Act 1 - Heart being ripped out (Royal Shakespeare Company 2016)

From the Top: by Victor Fung
Commissioned by the Hong Kong Arts Festival 2015

From the Top HKAF 2015

From the Top - Opening Dance

Waltz theme for theatre production 'Mountains: The Dreams of Lily Kwok'
(Royal Exchange/Yellow Earth/Black Live Theatre production)
Violinist: Oliver Morris

Mountains: The Dreams of Lily Kwok: Romance Waltz Theme

Lament for Ying from the Nine Declarations – for Choir and Orchestra 
(Prem. May 2007) 
Commissioned by Redditch Choral Society 


Lament for Ying from The Nine Declarations - Excerpt 2

An old track I found for the feature film 'The Winter Sun is a Lie'

Guitar: Johannes Moller


Winter Sun is a Lie - Romance Scene

Strange Tales by Pu Songling for Traverse Theatre
SAT 30 NOV – SAT 21 DEC 2019

An energetic, strange rock soundtrack for a big action scene with a Teracotta monster. Using Taiko drums and sticks combined with electric guitar as the main theme for this scene.

Strange Tales

Strange Tales - Teracotta Big Fight

Strange Tales by Pu Songling for Traverse Theatre
SAT 30 NOV – SAT 21 DEC 2019

A quirky, energetic comedy sequence of little monster running all over the performer's body. Using a yang qin as the main instrument for the track.

Strange Tales 2019

Strange Tales - The Big Sneeze Comedy Scene

Taming of the Shrew - Prologue (Royal Shakespeare Company 2019)

Prologue - setting the Matriarchal renaissance world in 1591 using rock renaissance and Annie Lennox as my main inspiration.

Below is a blog I wrote on my research on female Renaissance composers as well as my approach to writing the soundtrack for a gender swapped production.

https://www.rsc.org.uk/blogs/international-womens-day/what-would-music-be-like-if-it-was-dominated-by-female-composers

Taming of the Shrew - Prologue (Royal Shakespeare Company 2019)

NIMMERLANDVERRÄTER - A Clown's Tale (Short Film)

Soundtrack - a Clown entertainment montage scene

Synopsis:
Two rebellious clown doctors bring moments of joy and happiness to the terminally ill inhabitants of a hospice for children. But when they encounter Lena, a young girl that vehemently refuses to step into their world of clownery, the two put on the show of their lifetime to fulfil Lena’s last wish.

Weblink: http://alexanderfrank.com/nimmerlandverrater-short.html

A Clown's Tale - Clown montage scene

NIMMERLANDVERRÄTER - A Clown's Tale (Short Film)

Soundtrack - The last scene with End Credit

Synopsis:
Two rebellious clown doctors bring moments of joy and happiness to the terminally ill inhabitants of a hospice for children. But when they encounter Lena, a young girl that vehemently refuses to step into their world of clownery, the two put on the show of their lifetime to fulfil Lena’s last wish.

Weblink: http://alexanderfrank.com/nimmerlandverrater-short.html

A Clown's Tale - End Credits

'Family' - Short Thriller film written and directed by P.D. Blake

Family (short film) - Needle Pricking scene

Faces
A multi-narrative feature film set across four storylines that follow a group of characters as their lives begin to unravel.

http://facesmovie.com

Faces

Faces - Luke's theme

Piano solo piece composed and performed during my time at Oxford University as part of my Finals recital performance exam.

Recorded on a old fashioned clonky upright piano(!)in an old local recording studio!

Warrior's Fire Dance performed by Ruth Chan

Ruth Chan is a composer. Ruth started her career as a pianist, having made her first TV appearance when she was just nine years old. By the age of ten she was regularly accompanying local choirs, leading her to perform at International Festivals such as the Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod. As a pianist, she frequently won regional music competitions. Ruth read music at Oxford University, where she specialised in orchestration and composition. She continued her education at the Royal College of Music, obtaining a Masters in Composition for Screen, where she studied with leading film composers such as Patrick Doyle, Gabriel Yared, Joseph Horovitz and Dario Marianelli.

Music theatre, opera, dance credits include:  'Doncastrian Chalk Circle' (National Theatre/Cast in Doncaster); 'Beauty and the Seven Beasts' (The Opera Story, Brixton Jamm);‘The Hatchling’ (Spectacular outdoor show at Plymouth Hoe and The Platinum Jubilee Pageant); Between Constellations (Pittsburgh Opera Festival & Grimeborn Festival); The Triumph of Time for clarinet trio and actor (Thailand International Composition Festival, Pianoforte Studio Chicago, Shakespearean Theatre Conference Stratford, Ontario); Mokita (Hong Kong Arts Festival); From the Top (Hong Kong Arts Festival); Turandot Reimagined (Tête-à-Tête Opera & Grimeborn Festival); Piccadilly Revisited (Chinese Arts Now, Royal Opera House, Hong Kong Arts Festival, UK Now Festival Beijing); Moon’s Magnetism (Rich Mix, Albany, Trafalgar Square) and As in a Dream (Cambridge University Chinese Orchestra - West Road Concert Hall). Ruth was also the Composer-in-Residence for Endelienta in 2016, Artist-in-Residence for Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra in 2014, finalist composer for the Opera Up Close’s Flourish New Opera Competition in 2014 and was in the National Theatre’s Music Theatre Group scheme in 2018/9. Her re-orchestration of Puccini’s Madam Butterfly for Opera Up Close has finished touring the UK just before the pandemic in 2020.

Theatre credits include: Strange Tales (Traverse Theatre/Grid Iron Theatre), Hedda Tesman (Chichester Festival Theatre); mini-musical Frankie and the Crow (Unicorn Theatre); Taming of the Shrew (Royal Shakespeare Company); Mountains: The Dreams of Lily Kwok (Royal Exchange Manchester/Yellow Earth Theatre); Snow in Midsummer (Royal Shakespeare Company - nominated for The Stage Debut Award for Best Music, 2017); Shangri-La (Finborough Theatre), Ikea the Whale (Fringe Festival North Devon); The Last Days Of Limehouse (Yellow Earth Theatre) and double bill Magical Chairs and There’s Only One Wayne Lee (Southwark Playhouse & Beijing International Fringe Festival). 

Ruth’s soundtrack for silent film Around China With A Movie Camera (British Film Institute) has been performed at Flatpack Film Festival and China Changing Festival at Royal Festival Hall. She has also composed for television documentaries including A Very British Airline (BBC); Attack of the Pentagon (Discovery Channel) and The Trouble With Pirates (BBC). She has also assisted composer Dario Marianelli for numerous films including the soundtrack for Pride & Prejudice which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Score.

Ruth Chan

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