Dr August Guan is an early keyboardist, organist and musicologist based in Cheltenham. After early training in conducting at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, where he co-founded Mainland China's first academic early music institute, he studied harpsichord at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. During his MMus and subsequent doctoral studies at Cardiff University he served as church organist at parishes in Cardiff and Penarth, and as accompanist to the Cardiff University Symphonic Chorus. He completed his PhD in 2023, with a thesis examining eighteenth-century English keyboard arrangements as a critical site for questioning modern assumptions about genre, authenticity and the work-concept. He presented research at conferences in Bristol, London and Belfast.

Alongside his doctoral studies he trained as a church organist and choir director. He has held posts as Director of Music at Oakham Team Ministry; as organist at St George in the Meadows, Nottingham, where he curated an anonymous consort organ dating from around 1680; and as Sub-Organist at Brecon Cathedral, where he reintroduced Gregorian Chant into regular worship.

August is also deeply interested in instrument building. He assisted many organ renovation projects with Clevedon Organs, working on instruments across Wales and the West of England, and built a harpsichord after the 1769 Taskin model.

Since late 2024 he has been 'titulaire' organist at St Gregory's Catholic Church, Cheltenham, where he gives bi-monthly showcases of organ music, free and open to the public. He has mastered equally the two contrasting organs at St Gregory's. The chancel organ is built by Dutch organ builder Sebastian F. Blank in 1986 in the Dutch Baroque style, whose historically-informed clarity and tonal character are well suited to the Baroque and early keyboard repertoire. The nave organ, of a similar size, is historical in a different way: built by 'Father' Willis in 1866 and well-maintained in much of its original condition and character.