"A range of wonderful oriental flavours and colours" - Mei Yi Foo

Kabus Pantun is derived from Tazul's Pantun cycle, written using gamelan numberings transformed into sounds and notes. Using the four phrase pantun (poem) here, the sections of the piece are like the shadow (pembayang) and the meaning in pantun.

 

Tazul is dean and associate professor in composition at the Faculty of Music, UiTM as well as a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at Harvard University. He has written over 50 works which have been performed and broadcast in 23 countries, and has won numerous awards.

Dol Said tells the story of a nineteenth century nationalist hero in Malacca, and depicts the historical conflict between the Naning people and the Birtish empire.

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Raja Alif lectures composition at Faculty of Music, UiTM. He received his Master of Music Degree from Royal Holloway, University of London.

His compositions are often driven by Malaysian historical subjects, uses unconventional notations and focuses on timbre to paint his sound world.
 

Herringbone suggests a rising and falling contour of the “V” shape found in weaving patterns. The sudden shifts of dynamics, registers and textures from the keyboard gives the impression of a high speed school of herring suddenly changing course.

 

Wong studied composition and piano at the Eastman School of Music, USA and later received a scholarship for Master of Music at the Royal College of Music London, where she was awarded the Cobbett and Hurlstone Composition Prize.

 

She has written works for theatre, orchestra, chamber ensembles, solo instruments and voice, as well as film, and received performances all over the world. She teaches at Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, National University of Singapore.

Vatni in Finnish roughly translates to “of water”. In the piece Samuel sought new ways to listen and play the piano, in a quest for fluidity.

 

Samuel Cho is a pianist-composer based in Germany. His works have been premiered in New York, London and Bucharest. As a pianist, he is an active advocate and performer of new music.

This work adopts elements from the pre-Qin poem “fa-tan”, or "cutting the wood". Among the elements are percussive sounds on the piano, to reflect the cutting of wood and the emotions of the woodcutter, as well as a broader social reference to class struggles.

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Choke Yuan Teng began studying composition at the Malaysian Institute of Arts (MIA) and was winner of the 2015 Modern Poet Composition Contest. She participated in the 2015 and 2017 SoundBridge festivals. Her works have been performed by the DSCH Quartet, Sirius Quartet, Ripieno Ensemble and many others. 

This work creates an atmosphere to represent wandering thoughts as they drift through the mind. It includes various extended techniques on the piano such as harmonics, plucking and placing objects on the strings.

 

Chow is a teaching assistant at Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, NUS, where he graduated with first class honours, and his PhD in 2018. He took part in a student exchange program at Peabody Conservatory of Music under Oscar Bettison and attended masterclasses with Liza Lim and many others.

The work depicts the inner feelings of those who live in the modern city, finding balance in life. The piece comprises two contrasting sections: rhapsodic (fast section) and a fantasia (slow section).

 

Based in New York, Chow is composer-in-residence of the TENG Company (Singapore) and Vivo Experimental Orchestra (Malaysia). An active researcher in Chinese orchestra music, Chow also co-authored 'The TENG Guide to the Chinese Orchestra'.

The piece explores the architectural sound world of the ravanhatta, a traditional Rajasthani string instrument, and explores resonances between the strings. It also includes rhythmic patterns and pitches transcribed from a recording of Goroh chanting a poem called ‘Oath Stones’.

 

Lee received his Bachelor of Music at the University of Western Australia, and PhD in music composition under Liza Lim at the Centre for Research in New Music (CeReNeM) at the University of Huddersfield. Currently a senior lecturer and a fellow researcher at UM Sabah, his work includes exploring oral traditions in East Malaysia.

This piece is a collage of memories related to Asian funeral rites, particularly the composer's mother releasing his father's ashes into the sea at Klang Harbour. This work was prompted by the death this year of his dear friend, teacher and father figure, Luk Hoi Yui, his most important musical inspiration for nearly three decades.

 

Loh learned composition in the early 90s under the guidance of Singapore's leading band conductor Luk Hoi Yui, who commissioned a number of concert band transcriptions such as the Yellow River Concerto and Shostakovich's 11th Symphony.