Celebrity Biography – Daniel Chua

Daniel Chua is a Senior Associate in Peter & Kim’s Singapore office and specialises in cross-border dispute resolution with an emphasis on international commercial and investment treaty arbitration. His expertise spans industries as diverse as energy, hotels, infrastructure, mining and professional services as well as matters involving public international law and sanctions.

Early Life and Education

Beethoven and Freedom stands as one of the most astonishing books written about musicology – and cultural history in general – of recent years. Chua weaves musical examples into an extensive but rapid hermeneutics; traversing Walter Benjamin, Michel Foucault, Theodor Adorno’s ideas among many others as he skilfully navigates between their heuristics to address most modern Continental intellectual history and modern instrumental music history.

At first blush, Chua’s argument may seem weak: metaphysics has been reduced to irrelevance within theological discourse and music scholars shun its mention due to fears of censorship or exclusion (9). Yet his persuasive writing style makes his case stronger than ever; his compilation of Adornian thought combined with interpretations of Beethovenian texts make this book indispensable in its field; though its emotive language and sudden theological “jolts” may leave some scholars feeling unnerved.

Professional Career

Daniel KL Chua’s multidisciplinary approach to research and teaching has earned him much praise over time. He is known for writing several works related to Beethoven such as: Beethoven and Freedom, Absolute Music and Meaning Construction, Galitzin Quartets of Beethoven as well as several others on Beethoven.

He serves as a consultant to Hong Kong University, and his expertise in procurement and risk management have earned him respect from clients worldwide.

He currently provides advice to state-owned entities and multinational corporations on resolving disputes under international arbitration rules (such as ICC, SIAC, HKIAC and UNCITRAL) and domestic laws such as commercial, investment treaty and public international law. He has experience resolving matters related to mergers and acquisitions, energy infrastructure projects, telecom services contracts and mining operations; furthermore he can enforce arbitral awards through local courts.

Achievement and Honors

Chua’s analysis of Beethoven’s music shows an anti-historical perspective, similar to Vincent d’Indy who at the turn of the 20th century used Christian charity discourses against Romain Rolland’s secular vision of musical heroism.

Chua employs an expansive religious vocabulary throughout this book. In particular, he employs theology to buttress an orthodox image of Beethoven’s heroism and invoke the concept that Beethoven’s symphonies represent a theological revelation of liberty. Although some readers may tolerate such runic passages without discomfit, comforted that they are part of larger frameworks for analysis, ultimately such perspectives are ineffective in combatting poverty where metaphysics no longer makes sense, only fuelling further censorship, irrelevance and offence.

Personal Life

Recent years have seen Chua collaborate on several theologically inspired projects based at Duke and Yale Divinity Schools. He is currently developing a post-human manifesto known as Intergalactic Music Theory of Everything (IMTE).

Chua contends that human autonomy, or “freedom,” brings with it many negative ramifications in contemporary life. Beethoven’s music serves as an allegory that exposes our limits in attaining freedom.

Rejecting reception history as an academic discipline, he relies solely on Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht’s 1970 Zur Geschichte der Beethoven-Rezeption as his foundational text. However, this interpretation completely leaves out Hans Robert Jauss’ argument that any fixed meaning for Beethoven’s music does not take account of historical circumstances that shape it.

Net Worth

Lewis Chua is a well-known Celebrity with an estimated net worth between $1-5 Million. His fortune was built through professional celebrity work; currently unmarried & prefers keeping his personal life private.

Born in Gottingen, Germany on January 15, 1973. He earned a diploma in political science from Freie Universitat Berlin before transitioning to Georg-August-Universitat Gottingen where he studied law and earned a business degree.

Daniel is the founder of marine fuel trader Chemoil and owner of Franklin Baker, a Philippine-based coconut products company which supplies all Girl Scout cookies with coconut. Additionally, he spearheaded procurement activities at German high-tech firm OSRAM and spearheaded procurement activities at German high-tech firm OSRAM. Based on Form 4 filed with SEC Daniel holds over 150,000 Logitech International S.A shares valued at more than $6,256,000.