BIOGRAPHY

Singapore-based Malaysian composer Adeline Wong’s music has often been described as bold, with textural energy and kaleidoscopic colours. Her recent music has aimed for distillation of musical material by concentrating on economy and exploring the material from every possible perspective.

Adeline has written for music theatre, orchestra, chamber ensembles, solo instruments and voice, as well as music for film. Her works have been performed by the Belgian National Orchestra, Orkest de ereprijs, the Netherlands, Bang on A Can USA, The Song Company, Australia, MiNesemblet Norway, New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, and the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra. Adeline has worked with conductors Matthias Bamert, Pascal Rophé, Kevin Field, James Wood, Brad Lubman, Roland Peelman and Kenneth Young.

She has been invited to the Asian Composers League-Asia Pacific Festivals (New Zealand, Taiwan, Vietnam), Norland Music Festival (Norway), Bang on A Can Summer Music Festival in Massachusetts (USA), International Composers’ Meeting Apeldoorn (The Netherlands), TACTUS Composers Forum in Brussels (Belgium), The Australian Composers Orchestral Forum in Tasmania (Australia), Berlinale Talent Campus of the Berlin Film Festival (Germany).

Winner of the 2005 Cameronian Arts Awards for Malaysia’s Most Promising Artist Award and Best Original Composition in 2005 and 2003, in 2014 she was also featured in the 'Top 10 of Asia' list of the New Generation Music Composers.

Graduating from the Eastman School of Music, USA, Adeline received a scholarship for postgraduate studies at the Royal College of Music London, where she was awarded the Cobbett and Hurlstone Composition Prize. Composition teachers have included, Joseph Schwanter, Christopher Rouse, David Liptak, Augusta Read Thomas and Edwin Roxburgh.

Adeline is currently a faculty member of the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, National University of Singapore where she teaches music composition and theory.

She is also the President of the Malaysian Composers Collective, a platform that promotes Malaysian contemporary classical music at home and abroad. In 2019 she was the artistic director of the Free Hand Festival – 1st Malaysian Contemporary Composers Piano Festival 2019 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Following the festival's success, Adeline together with the Malaysia Composers Collective was responsible for curating the nation’s first ever anthology of 21st Century piano scores, published as Free Hand Anthology I and distributed by Faber Music internationally.

Singapore-based Malaysian composer Adeline Wong’s involvement in new music scene in the late 2000’s resulted in a number of compositions including Snapshots (2005), Chermin(2006), Empunya yang beroleh Sita Dewi (2007), Longing (2010; revised 2012), Interweaves (2016), Nexus (2017), Herringbone (2018) amongst others. Adeline’s music has often been described as bold, with textural energy and kaleidoscopic colours. Her recent music is marked by the use and concentration of as little material as possible and exploring them from every possible perspective.

Adeline has written for music theatre, orchestra, chamber ensembles, solo instruments and voice, as well as music for film. Her works have been performed by the Belgian National Orchestra, Orkest de ereprijs, the Netherlands, Bang on A Can USA, The Song Company, Australia, MiNesemblet Norway, New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, and the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra. Adeline has worked with conductors Matthias Bamert, Pascal Rophé, Kevin Field, James Wood, Brad Lubman, Roland Peelman and Kenneth Young.

On the local front, Adeline was the winner of the 2005 Cameronian Arts Awards for Malaysia’s Most Promising Artist Award and Best Original Composition in 2005 and 2003. She was also recently featured in the Top 10 of Asia list of the New Generation Music Composers in 2014.

Adeline studied at the Eastman School of Music, USA and later received a scholarship to study at the Royal College of Music London, where she was awarded the Cobbett and Hurlstone Composition Prize. Composition teachers have included Edwin Roxburgh, Joseph Schwanter, Christopher Rouse, David Liptak, Augusta Read Thomas. Adeline is currently a faculty member of the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, National University of Singapore where she teaches music composition and theory. She is also the President of the Malaysian Composers Collective, a platform that promotes Malaysian contemporary classical music. She was recently the artistic director of the Free Hand Festival – 1st Malaysian Contemporary Composers Piano Festival 2019 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.