Press
"Nathan is perhaps one of the most inspiring human beings that I've come across in the last two decades. It never ceased to amaze me how blessed, generously gifted and humble he is. I can't wait to do other things with him. He is destined for big success." -Roberta Flack
"'The Music in Me' is at once cheerfully hopeful and downright awe-inspiring. Nathan Chan, an 11-year-old cellist, performs Saint-Saens's 'Swan' so plaintively that it calls to mind the human voice." -The New York Times
"In Tchaikovsky's Variations on a Rococo Theme, Chan's rich cello tone and empathy for the work's delicacy were evident throughout..." -South China Morning Post
"...boldly delivered." -The Times, London
“…a full, rich sound. His forte is his preternatural engagement with music. His sense of style in three of Schumann’s Fantasiestucke and Chopin’s Introduction and Polonaise Brilliante was developed and slyly sophisticated, yet something apparently innate.” -The Vancouver Sun
"First up is Nathan, 11, a classical cellist who looks uncannily like a young Yo-Yo Ma. 'I think a good cellist has to feel the music and feel the true meaning,' he says. And as good as his word, he not only gives an elegant performance of 'The Swan,' from Camille Saint-Saëns's 'Carnival of the Animals,' but with remarkable acuity he discusses melodic phrases and harmonic progressions that suggest to him dramatic turns in the music's unfolding narrative." -The Wall Street Journal
"With that, a piano trio hitherto successfully disguised as three kids in their mid-teens turned into an astonishing chamber ensemble, engaged in delivering one of the most exciting readings I've ever heard of the first Mendelssohn Piano Trio." -David Gordon Duke, The Vancouver Sun
"...steeped in the Russian Romantic tradition and played with an assurance way beyond their years... Astonishing." -The Observer, UK (CD Review)
"Nathan was a joy to watch. This young man obviously loves what he does... he exuded the most passion while performing. Parallels with Yo Yo Ma? You bet!" -JustWatchLah, Singapore
"Aged 15, Nathan Chan, from San Francisco, was the oldest hand, his Dvorák Cello Concerto in B minor a remarkably assured reading. He managed the scurrying scale passages with aplomb but where the musicality really shone was in the spacious feel he gave the long, yearning melody – rhapsodic, intense and completely convincing." -The Journal, UK
"Nathan Chan, 15, played Dvorak’s Cello Concerto. This was not playing by rote. It was expressive and mature." -The Northern Echo, UK
"Oh, that beautiful young musical spirit! Nathan is very special. He is an old musical soul. Throughout the history of music, we're learned that there have been many - Mozart was an old soul. There are some young people who are innately born with the gift of music, and Nathan is certainly one of them." -Roberta Flack