Malaysian contemporary music

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[edit] Background

Malaysian contemporary music (or variously "art music", "notated music" etc) is a phenomenon that really started to gain visibility and momentum within Malaysia from 2002 onwards, when the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra first programmed several works by Malaysian composers, namely Chong Kee Yong's Echoed Dream (2002), Sunetra Fernando's 'Wayang' (2002) and Tazul Izan Tajuddin's Sebuah Tenunan III (2003). They represent the first local commissions by a professional symphony orchestra in the country. Interest in orchestral music by Malaysian composers slowly grew and when the orchestra held it's first Forum For Malaysian Composers in 2003 the event was a triumph for the local music scene.

The Forum brought together six talented young composers, Ahmad Muriz Che Rose, Chong Kee Yong, Vivian Chua, Johan Othman, Tay Poh Gek and Adeline Wong, from around the country and indeed around the globe, to Kuala Lumpur to compose music for the orchestra. Spread over two years, the Forum yielded six new compositions for chamber orchestra and four for full orchestra. Chong Kee Yong, who had won numerous awards in Europe, emerged as the winner of the Forum and won the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra International Composers Award 2004 with his symphony work The Starry Night's Ripples. The Forum was also a success from the audience standpoint, as all concerts were well attended and enthusiastically received by the music-going public as well as by the media.

The success of the Forum is a key factor in raising the profile on Malaysian contemporary music in Malaysia, although the composers who participated, as well as a number of others who were not represented, have been composing music in this medium for a number of years, the majority of their output having been premiered abroad.

That is to say, this does not mean that there was no activity in the field prior to the Forum, only that such efforts were not highly visible or organised. Information on serious composition in the 1980s through to the 1990s by composers such as Tazul Tajuddin (whose Etudes for chamber orchestra was performed in 1995 in USA), Dr Valerie Ross (who was awarded Malaysian Young Composer (1988) by the Asian Composers' League in Hong Kong), Razak Abdul Aziz (who began composing vocal works as early as 1980) and Lisa Ho (a composer of choral works since the late 1980s and co-founder and Choral Director of Cantus Musicus whose latest composition, Magnificat, premiered in Kuala Lumpur on 9 December 2007) is only now slowly becoming available, although a comprehensive survey of the pre-millennium period is still in dire need.

As cited by a Malaysian research paper in the late 1990s, the lack of such musical activities in Malaysia prior to the 21st Century is largely attributed to the absence of professional ensembles in the country who were able to support composers, although key issue has been one of a total absence of infrastructure rather than one of talent.

Fortunately for the Malaysian art music scene progress in the current period has been brisk, and the number of serious composers and compositions in this field is increasing at a healthy rate. The 2006-2007 series of Composers Forums in Kuala Lumpur, for example, introduced new voices such as Ng Chong Lim, Teh Tze Siew, Yii Kah Hoe and Mohd Yazid Zakaria.

This article offers only a brief introduction to Malaysia's growing contemporary music movement, in the absence of a full study on the subject. It also places emphasis on the western-based formal tradition, and on composers largely trained in this tradition, purely as a matter of focus on an area that is particularly lacking in information, notwithstanding the very notions of art music or western-based music is itself evolving rapidly today with the blurring of lines between western and eastern instruments and the smearing of borders between various genres such as avant-garde, minimalism, world music and jazz, amongst others.


[edit] Musical Language

Malaysian composers have won numerous awards abroad and at home with their rich and diverse styles of composition.

At the cutting edge of the avant garde are Chong Kee Yong and Tazul Tajuddin. For their bold work they have received numerous awards and accolades in Europe, Japan, Korea and elsewhere. Yii Kah Hoe is slowly exploring a similar direction as a departure, or perhaps an enrichment, of his work with Chinese orchestral music, as his award-winning composition for Chinese Orchestra Buka Panggung displays. Pianist-composer Ng Chong Lim inhabits the ground between atonalism and aleatoric music based on the live interaction of more tonal fragments.

Preferring a more lyrical and tonal language, the music of Adeline Wong and Johan Othman are colourful and rythmically vibrant. Othman in particular combines a quasi minimalist approach with elements of Malaysian aesthetics tempered with jazzy undercurrents to fashion a truly recognisable Malaysian sound, while Wong has a unique way of building complex structures from basic harmonic material and rich sound colours.

Ahmad Muriz Che Rose works with a more populist approach to Malay traditional instruments in a contemporary language through his work with the Petronas Performing Arts Group. Saidah Rastam experiments with jazz and atonalism in combination with ethnic Malaysian and regional elements from gamelan to ketchak, and has even worked with reinventing Chinese Opera through atonal jazz in her work Spirits. Film and jazz composer Hardesh Singh pushes the limits in the field of jazz composition with his group 50cents Jazz Club, and brings in elements of world music and sound samples into the art.

 

[edit] Selected Works - Malaysian premieres

A list of major orchestral, chamber and instrumental works premiered in Malaysia (and Singapore) over the past years, including some significant experimental theatre productions and film scores are listed below in rough chronological order:

2007
Empunya yang beroleh Sita Dewi - orchestra and wayang kulit ensemble (Adeline Wong)
Ocean's Pulse - orchestra, solo dizi and percussion ensemble (Chong Kee Yong)
Opening Of The Stage - orchestra (Yii Kah Hoe)
Xiang - orchestra (Ng Chong Lim)
Temple of Heaven - orchestra (Teh Tze Siew)
Angin - orchestra (Mohd Yazid Zakaria)
Inner Voices - chamber ensemble (Yii Kah Hoe)
Windows - chamber ensemble (Ng Chong Lim)
Maze - chamber ensemble (Teh Tze Siew)
Heritage - chamber ensemble (Mohd Yazid Zakaria)
Topeng III - orchestra (Johan Othman)

2006
Cabaret! - jazz ensemble, theatre production (Saidah Rastam - Singapore)
Tearless Moon - orchestra (Chong Kee Yong)
Buka Panggung - Chinese orchestra (Yii Kah Hoe - Singapore)
Chermin - film score (Adeline Wong)
'A' Note Promenade - chamber ensemble (Yii Kah Hoe)
Bamboo Forest - chamber ensemble (Teh Tze Siew)
Rimba (Ng Chong Lim)
M! The Opera - mixed ensemble and vocals, theatre production (Saidah Rastam)

2005
Snapshots - cello solo and orchestra (Adeline Wong)
The Starry Night's Ripples (revised) - orchestra (Chong Kee Yong)
Paces - piano and electronics (Adeline Wong)
Daun - piano (Ng Chong Lim)
Spirits - mixed ensemble, Chinese opera vocals, theatre production (Saidah Rastam - Singapore)

2004
The Starry Night's Ripples - orchestra (Chong Kee Yong)
Steel Sky - orchestra (Adeline Wong)
Topeng I - orchestra (Johan Othman)
Benih Harapan - orchestra (Ahmad Muriz)
5 Letters From An Eastern Empire - cello, boy soprano and electronics, theatre score (Adeline Wong)
Sketches For Two Pianos - piano duo (Ng Chong Lim)

2003
Prism - mixed ensemble, theatre production (Saidah Rastam)
Tenunan III - orchestra (Tazul Tajuddin)
Bertabuh Kala Senja - chamber orchestra (Ahmad Muriz)
Water Moods And Reflections - chamber orchestra (Vivian Chua)
I Hear The Wind Calling - chamber orchestra (Chong Kee Yong)
Ittar - chamber orchestra (Johan Othman)
An Evening In The Myth - chamber orchestra (Tay Poh Gek)
Synclastic Illuminations - chamber orchestra (Adeline Wong)

2002
Echoed Dream - orchestra (Chong Kee Yong)
Wayang - chamber ensemble and gamelan (Sunetra Fernando)

2001
Khatulistiwa for 2 pianos and 2 percussionists (Ng Chong Lim)
Sonata for Cello Solo (Ng Chong Lim)

2000
Two Preludes - piano (Ng Chong Lim)

[edit] Selected Works - International premieres

The list of works premiered abroad is extensive, and can be found on the respective composers' websites where available. A small selection of recent premieres are listed below:

2007
"Metamorphosis I" for viola and harp- New York, USA, Vla.:Stephanie Griffin; Harp: jacqui kerrod (Chong Kee Yong)
Piano Concerto "Warna Yang Bernada" (Sound Colour) - London Sinfonietta, UK (Tazul Tajuddin)
Splattered landscape III - chamber ensemble, Seoul, Korea (Chong Kee Yong)
Horizon's Chants - Sheng, Koto & Gayageum, Germany (Chong Kee Yong)
Splattered landscape II "Cloud’s echoing" - Ensemble Modern, Germany (Chong Kee Yong)
3rd String Quartet "Inner mirror" - Spiegel Quartet, Belgium (Chong Kee Yong)
In Liquid Praise of Sound Refraining for a narrator, 4 singers, London, UK (Tazul Tajuddin)
Toccata From 3 KL Miniatures - Aroha Quartet, New Zealand (CH Loh)

2006
Waktu - chamber ensemble, Bang on a Can Summer Festival, New York (Adeline Wong)
Hidden Eternity - 4-hands piano and chamber orchestra, Prometheus Ensemble, Holland (Chong Kee Yong)
Endless Whispering - sheng, flute, oboe, clarinet and tuba, Berlin (Chong Kee Yong)
Timeless Metamorphosis - Estonia Symphony Orchestra, Estonia (Chong Kee Yong)
Gamelbati VI for piccolo, clarinet, violin, viola and cello - Seoul, Korea (Tazul Tajuddin)
Selindung Warna (Hidden Colours) for solo violin - London, UK (Tazul Tajuddin)

[edit] Some resources on Malaysian Composers: