Eason’s profile
Chan was an Architecture major at University of Kingston in London before entering show business. At the age of 21, when coming back to Hong Kong for his summer vacation, Chan entered The 14th New Talent Singing Contest, held by TVB in 1995. His performance in the contest was superb - thanks to the 4-year formal musical training he had received in England. Finally, beating 2000 entrants, Chan won the first prize and The Best Individual Interpretation Performance Award with the song Gazing at the Moon (望月), originally sung by Jacky Cheung.
In 1996, he was signed by Capital Artists, one of the major record labels at that time. His debut album Chan Yik-Shun (陳奕迅) was out in the same year. Among all the songs, Sad Letter (傷信) was the most popular because of its beautiful melody, composed by Yukie Nishimura (西村由紀江), a well-known Japanese pianist.
Chan’s singing career began to take off in 1998, when he held his first mini-concert and released his third Cantonese album My Happy Age (我的快樂時代), which was an instant success and was subsequently awarded Best Album of the Year by Commercial Radio Hong Kong (CRHK). Ever since then, Chan has been gaining popularity in Hong Kong, Taiwan as well as Mainland China. In 1999, Chan held his concert in Hong Kong Coliseum for the first time. The name of the show was Chan Yik-Shun Big Concert(陳奕迅大個唱).
In 2000, Chan left Capital Artists and signed on with Music Plus, which is under Emperor Entertainment Group. In the same year, his song King of Karaoke Songs (K歌之王) was so popular that it was awarded the Most Popular Song of the Year and My Favourite Song of the Year by Commercial Radio Hong Kong. Chan’s career further advanced and he was the winner of The Best Male Singer Award and The Media Award, which is presented to most awarded singer of the year by the 4 media organisers - TVB, RTHK, Metro Radio and CRHK. Up until now, King of Karaoke Songs is still one of Chan’s greatest hits. Interestingly, it has become his nickname too.
2001 was another fruitful year for Chan. His album Shall we dance? Shall we talk! was one of the best-selling albums of the year, and the song Shall we talk became a real hit. Moreover, he held his second concert The Easy Ride Chan Yik-Shun Concert (The Easy Ride 陳奕迅演唱會) in Hong Kong Coliseum. Chan’s popularity soared and, naturally, he won a lot of major awards at the end of the year, including The Media Award: Best Album as well as The Media Award. He was also elected as the Hero of the Year by young people aged from 15 to 24 at the music awards show organised by CRHK.
During 2002 - 2003, Chan continued to impress his audience with touching love songs like Siblings (兄妹), Today Next Year (明年今日) and Ambush (十面埋伏). He was awarded Hong Kong Best-Selling Male Singer by International Federation of Phonogram and Videogram Producers (Hong Kong) (IFPIHK) in 2003. In addition, he held a series of concerts in New Zealand, Australia and the US to introduce his music to audiences all over the world.
Chan’s long-time partner is Hilary Tsui (徐濠縈), whom he met when he was at Capital Artists. Their daughter, Constance (陳康堤), was born in October 2004, when Chan was on vacation after his contract with Music Plus had ended.
After resting for almost a year, Chan got back to work and signed a 3-year contract with Cinepoly Records in November 2004. Since then, he has become active in show business again. For example, he was appointed the 30th Anniversary Ambassador by McDonald’s, and he held 2 mini-concerts for Metro Radio and Neway Karaoke Box respectively. In June 2005, he released his new album U87, which was named after the microphone model he used to record all his new songs. In September 2005, the album was regarded as one of the “Five Asian Albums Worth Buying” by TIME Asia magazine.