Tenor Tan Chee Shen is a winner of numerous awards including the grand prize of the Singapore-Malaysia voice competition, the Bangkok Opera South-East Asia vocal competition. During the summer of 2005, Chee Shen was awarded a full scholarship to attend the famed Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, California, where he worked with distinguished American mezzo soprano Marilyn Horne and pianist Warren Jones. He also attended the International Vocal Arts Institute at Montreal, Canada in summer of 2008.
Chee Shen earned his Master of music degree from Mannes College of Music in New York where he also attended for undergraduate. Since returning to Malaysia in 2014, Chee Shen has been sought after as a performer, vocal instructor, and adjudicator for competitions. He’s been invited to perform and present masterclasses at Universitas Peliata Harapan in Jakarta, Mahidol University in Bangkok, Tunghai University and Sun Yat Sen University in Taiwan, as well as invited as a visiting teaching artist at Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts at Singapore.
In September 2018, Chee Shen made his Taiwan operatic debut singing the role of Ferrando in a full production of Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte in Tainan’s WanSha Performing Arts Center with Tainan Symphony Orchestra. In 2019, he made his Malaysia operatic debut singing the leading role of Alfredo in Kuala Lumpur City Opera’s production of Verdi’s La Traviata. He has since then performed with the company singing the roles of Don Jose in the production of Carmen in 2022 and Nemorino in L’elisir d’amore in 2023. He also performed the role of Boursiquot in the musical theatre – Mr. Shi and his lover by Canadian composer Njo Kong Kie in Estonia. Chee Shen currently resides in Kuala Lumpur and lectures at the Institute of Music, UCSI University as well as maintaining his own fast-growing private studio.