A few months ago, there was a call for submissions for\nanyone under the age of 28 to compose a five minute-long original piece of work\nfor an ensemble comprising of piano, flute and\/or oboe. The result was five\npieces by five young composers — Chow Jun Yan, Chow Jun Yi, Neo Nai Wen, Ng\nShyh Poh, and Tan Zi Hua. CH Loh of the Malaysian Composers Collective chatted\nwith us about the workshop and its goals, as well as sharing a few music\nanecdotes, and telling us just what exactly is wrong with the music scene\ntoday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
~<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tell us\nabout yourself.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I am a regular Bangsa Malaysia with a bit too much\nfree time on his hands. So I thought I’d make myself useful while I’m still\nbreathing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tell us a\nreally bad musician joke.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Celine Dion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What does\nthe Malaysian contemporary music scene need the most?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Funds. And a proper conservatory. Everything else we have in abundance –\u00ad talent, enthusiasm, creativity…<\/p>\n\n\n\n So what\nexactly is the Young Composers Workshop?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Think of it as the American Idol for Malaysian\ncontemporary classical music. We are flushing out our future Takemitsus and Tan\nDuns, and giving them the chance of a lifetime to be heard. No one really wants\nto give their time of day to unknown, young composers. It’s when you win some\nawards and become famous that they start knocking on your doors. If ever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, I felt we really needed to give budding composers\nthat boost, and to give them committed musicians who would bring their works to\nthe best light, just to see what they are capable of. I approached HSBC with\nthis idea as a compliment to their annual music extravaganza, and I am grateful\nthat they have supported the idea all the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Can you\ntell us a bit about the five young composers whose work we’ll get to hear?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n They’re all very young, between 21 and 25, and they\nare all pretty brilliant. I was humbled after hearing the pieces that they wrote\nfor the workshop. I am also thrilled that we have people from all over\nMalaysia, from as far as Lahad Datu, participating. They come from different\neducational backgrounds as well, and some of them are just embarking on their\nfurther music studies, so this is a very good platform for them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the whole, it is just encouraging to see the\nquality of new composers that are emerging. These guys are the second\ngeneration of composers, after the first generation who gradually came into\npublic view over the past decade; composers like Chong, Saidah and Muriz,\nmembers of our workshop selection panel. Two generations in such a short span\nof time! And to think just ten years ago some silly bloke said there were no\ncomposers in Malaysia capable of writing for a quality orchestra. Tsk tsk, talk\nabout major myopia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tell us\nabout the workshop process. What happens?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n We put together a small committed group of musicians\nwho agreed to tackle this task of performing brand new compositions, consisting\nof piano, flute and oboe, and we called for scores to be submitted for a piece\nlasting about five minutes. A Selection Panel consisting of Chong Kee Yong\n(Chair), Saidah Rastam and Ahmad Muriz had the unenviable task of picking the\nbest five submissions — not an easy task considering the quality we received!\n— which we then rehearsed with the ensemble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The first workshop was held on 23 June at KLPac with the composers and the musicians to work through the compositions, iron out rough spots, and generally allow the composers the rare chance to interact with their performers and senior composers from the Selection Panel as well as the organising committee. This is far better education than just going to a music school. A second rehearsal\u00ad-workshop will be held at KLPac Indicine on 11 July at 8.30pm, and this is open to the public free of charge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the rehearsals, the composers have a chance to\nreview their work, and the works will finally be performed during the concert\non 13 July at 11am at Pentas 2. To make the concert more interesting we are\nalso premiering new works by our veterans Ng Chong Lim (a new piano work titled\nFootprints<\/em>), and Johan Othman (two\npieces for soprano with piano and harp: the\ndancing mouse<\/em> and Dying In Order To\nLive<\/em> — an excerpt from an opera in progress). The titles alone are\nintriguing enough!<\/p>\n\n\n\n You will also get the chance to hear Chong Kee Yong’s\npiano work Splattered Landscape<\/em>\nperformed by one of this year’s Piano Festival’s semi-finalists from the Piano\nCompetition Section held earlier in the week. Plus a surprise item.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you had\nnever heard of music, what would you be doing with your life?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I’d have been an accountant or a lawyer, perhaps. Or\nan organic farmer, which is my preferred profession. I once aspired to be a\npolitician, but someone talked sense into me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What\nshould we prepare ourselves for when we go for the Young Composers Workshop\nConcert?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Be prepared for a good time! We want the concert to be\ncasual and enjoyable, a discovery of sorts, and hopefully a pleasant surprise\nfor everyone. Please don’t come in coat and tie, or batik in lieu of. Unless\nyou really, really want to, that is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What are\nyour greatest hopes for Malaysian contemporary classical music?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n That Malaysian contemporary music becomes a permanent\npart of our classical music landscape, so that our classical music becomes\nsomething that is living, and that truly belongs to Malaysians, rather than as\nsomething that is seen as imported and historical. And that our composers can\nlook forward to an environment where they can realise their artistic impulses\nto the fullest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What do\nyou fear?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The return of the haze. Or that we will spend millions\nto send another astronaut to space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If all the\ncontemporary music in the world had to be wiped from all memory, save for one\nsong, which song would you vote for?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The sound of silence. Not the Simon and Garfunkle one,\nmind you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What’s\nnext for the Malaysian Composers Collective?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Possibly some CD projects, maybe more small concerts\nat alternative venues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What are\nyou dying to say to the Malaysian population?<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Get up and make things happen!<\/p>\n\n\n\n What’s the\nmost productive thing you can do in 60 seconds?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Meditate<\/p>\n\n\n\n What’s\nnext for you?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Working on making this workshop an annual affair. And possibly some CD projects, maybe more small concerts and workshops at alternate venues. Other than that, it’ll be clean air and blue skies for me… <\/p>\n\n\n\n ~ <\/p>\n\n\n\n First Published: 02.07.2008 on Kakiseni <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A few months ago, there was a call for submissions for anyone under the age of 28 to compose a five minute-long original piece of work for an ensemble comprising of piano, flute and\/or oboe. The result was five pieces by five young composers — Chow Jun Yan, Chow Jun Yi, Neo Nai Wen, Ng […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"iawp_total_views":5,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,3558,3537],"tags":[236,3672,226,3674,3675,268,570,3680,1877,493,3673,40,3676,2833,3677,494,3678],"language":[7523],"writer":[7638],"class_list":["post-27284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-interview","category-music-2","tag-ahmad-muriz-che-rose","tag-ch-loh","tag-chong-kee-yong","tag-chow-jun-yan","tag-chow-jun-yi","tag-classical","tag-contemporary","tag-hsbc","tag-johan-othman","tag-klpac","tag-malaysian-composers-collective","tag-music","tag-neo-nai-wen","tag-ng-chong-lim","tag-ng-shyh-poh","tag-saidah-rastam","tag-tan-zi-hua","language-english","writer-yasmin-zetti-martin"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27284"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27284\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39245,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27284\/revisions\/39245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27284"},{"taxonomy":"language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/language?post=27284"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/writer?post=27284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}