Chong Kee Yong, one of Malaysia’s leading contemporary music composer, is one of the most exciting voices in new music today. Few composers can manage to fashion a truly individual sound from the experimental techniques of today, and Chong belongs to this special class of talents who can turn a melange of exquisite timbres into a compelling piece of music with his own fingerprints. Composer Peter Eötvös calls his music “imaginative and poetic” while Belgian pianists Jan Michiels and Inge Spinette describe his music as “very personal voice, very deep and convincing.”

His musical language embraces not only a rich palette of constantly expanding instrumental colours — and Chong never stops looking for new ones — but is also unafraid to dig into the past traditions with its lyricism, rhythmic vitality and tonality and work it into his austere contemporary language, which is enriched by his own Chinese as well as the multicultural Malaysian heritage.

For example you can find traces of Beijing Opera and Gamelan in his Monodrama for Oboe, Ensemble and Electronics (2004), hints of kabuki and Asian funeral rituals in his devastatingly moving symphonic work Tearless Moon (2006), and elements of calligraphy in his poetic I Hear The Wind Calling (2003).

Reaching deeper into his Chinese roots, Chong also explores the sonic possibilities of traditional Chinese instruments in his Metamorphosis VI — Wind Prayer for Sheng, Gu Zheng, Pipa and Ensemble. It is a growing artistic path for Chong that has led to numerous commissions in this vein, leading up to his most recent masterpiece Shui.Mo, a concerto for 4 Chinese instruments and orchestra premiered in venues around Belgium in January 2008.

Chong began music studies at the Malaysian Institute of Arts, subsequently doing his Bachelor of Arts in China with Prof Rao Yuyan and Prof Zhang Dalong at the Xian Conservatory. In 2001 Chong received his Master of Composition with the Highest Honours from the Royal Flemish Conservatory under the guidance of Prof Jan Van Landeghem and Prof Daniel Capelletti.

His post graduation studies include numerous composition master classes with Brian Ferneyhough, Daan Manneke, Peter Eötvös, Salvatore Sciarrino, Henri Pousseur, Hanspeter Kyburz and many others.

Chong’s distinctive style has won him an unending series of awards and commissions, from his first success in Belgium with the “Prix Marcel Hastir” awarded by Belgium Royal Academy of Sciences, Letters & Fine-arts (1999, and then in 2003) to his triumphant debut in his home country at the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra International Composers’ Award (MPOICA) 2004.

Chong most recently won the BMW Prize at the inaugural Isang Yun Competition in Seoul 2007 and 2nd Prize at the Intersonanzen Brandenburgisches Fest der Neuen Musik 2008 in Berlin.