LAUNCHES JANUARY 20
52 albums to be released x 52 weeks
BY AUSTRALIAN COMPOSER & PIANIST CHARLIE CHAN
Constellation, the largest collection of solo piano works ever released anywhere in the world, will be launched on 20th January – the eve of Lunar New Year – by Australian composer and performer Charlie Chan (they/them).
Comprising a total of more than 600+ never-released tracks, a new Constellation album will be released each Friday for the entire year – 52 albums in total – with each album named after a constellation visible in the sky on the day of release.
The first Constellation album, Orion, will be released on 20th January, with Constellation #2, Perseus, dropping on Jan 27th. There will be a new album dropping every Friday throughout the year, until Constellation #52, Andromeda, drops on Friday January 19, 2024.
All the music on all 52 albums has been written and performed by Charlie Chan on a Bosendofer Imperial 290 Concert Grand Piano, the largest piano ever made. Each track has been selected from thousands of Charlie’s works, all of which were recorded over the past 30 years, with none of them ever released until now.
Over the past thirty years, Charlie has composed extensively for Australian film and television, from the themes for the ABC series Australian Story and the iconic children’s program Behind the News, to the soundtracks for drama series McLeod’s Daughters and Killing Time (starring David Wenham) and an anthem for Damon Gameau’s documentary 2040. They have performed at NASA and the United Nations. They are currently composing the soundtrack to the feature documentary Danielle Laidley, produced by Eddie McGuire’s JAMTV and directed by Emmy-Award winning Julie Kalceff (First Day) and Sam Matthews (Unboxed).
All 600+ tracks from Constellation are available for licencing by screen producers.
Charlie says: “This massive collection of compositions lay forgotten for years. With a busy schedule in screen and stage commissions I didn’t have the capacity to release new works as they were being created. I re-discovered them by accident, and there were so many works it took me a few months to truly appreciate their significance. I’m excited to share them with audiences now.”
“My happiest place is at the piano, improvising, experimenting and recording – it’s a very pure creative place without attachment or judgement. I’ve lived with the piano since the age of 3, she (the piano) has been a constant and patient friend. I’ve had my biggest insights sitting in front of those black and white keys creating in harmony and rhythm my passions and dreams. All of these works are a snapshot in my creative timeline now waiting to be heard.”
** Note to media: Constellation will be the largest number of albums ever released in a single year – until now the largest number of albums released in a single year were by James Brown in 1968.
About Charlie Chan
With a career spanning four decades, Charlie Chan is one of Australia’s most sought-after composers; a pioneer in combining innovative technology with music. They are a passionate collaborator alongside fellow musicians, filmmakers, documentarians, tech visionaries and artists.
Charlie’s prolific career includes compositions for stage and screen, including the recent internationally acclaimed documentary 2040, the themes of the ABC series Australian Story and the iconic children’s program Behind the News, soundtracks for drama series McLeod’s Daughters and Killing Time starring David Wenham, the feature film Me, Myself, I, and multiple documentary series for the ABC, SBS, Nine, Seven, Nat Geo and Discovery.
They have released multiple critically-acclaimed solo albums, and performed in some of the most renowned Australian and international venues and locations, from the Sydney Opera House to the United Nations and NASA.
Charlie has always been an innovator, an early adopter of technology and a digital pioneer. They were the first Australian musician to sell music directly from their website, and long before the proliferation of music streaming services they expanded their own label, Martian Music, into a successful independent digital download service for themself and other artists.
They bring broad-ranging musicality, technical innovation, entrepreneurial flair and contagious energy to all their endeavours. A true digital innovator, Charlie operates at the intersection of technology and creativity, and believes strongly that creativity is essential to qualify, test, exploit and improve the innovations around us. In a world increasingly dominated by technology, Charlie believes creativity and creative thinkers are increasingly important to push the boundaries of that technology and challenge its outcomes.
In 2013, Charlie founded the Global Orchestra. Connecting musicians from around the world, its ambitious vision is to use music as an agent for social and environmental change. Utilising state-of-the-art technology, its concerts have involved millions of musicians and orchestras in more than 350 locations globally. In partnership with Accenture in 2017 Charlie founded the Interactive Orchestra, an extension of the Global Orchestra, to showcase the convergence of technology and creativity. It used artificial intelligence and machine learning to showcase a marimba-playing robot improvising with a jazz ensemble.
Charlie is a highly sought-after public speaker. In 2018 they spoke and performed at NASA in Langley, Virginia, delivering the prestigious Sigma Lecture to 18,000 NASA employees.
In November 2019 Charlie performed at the United Nations General Assembly in New York as part of the UNICEF summit held on World Children’s Day to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Together with the PS22 Chorus, a 60-strong children’s choir from Staten Island, Charlie performed their original song We The Children, commissioned for Damon Gameau’s climate change documentary 2040.
A passionate meditation advocate, Charlie is also creator of Museful Live, a livestream series providing meditation through music via social media platforms including Instagram, Facebook and YouTube.
Constellation is released by
MGM (Metropolitan Groove Merchants – https://www.thegroovemerchants.com)
and is available on Spotify, Apple Music and music platforms everywhere.
