A multi-faceted musician who engages different segments of the community to promote understanding of Singaporean culture through composition, education and production, Terrence WONG (b. 1989, Singapore) graduated with a Master of Music in Composition in 2021 from the Royal College of Music (RCM) with the support of the Robert Anderson Award from the RCM as well as the National Arts Council Arts Scholarship (Postgraduate). Wong has studied composition with William Mival, Zechariah Goh Toh Chai and Kenneth Hesketh, as well as conducting with Lim Yau and Leonard Tan.
Wong has been commissioned to compose music for notable Singaporean ensembles such as The Philharmonic Winds, Ding Yi Music Company, Asian Cultural Symphony Orchestra and the Singapore Symphony Orchestra. His compositions have been performed by international artists such as Joseph Alessi (Trombone) and Steven Mead (Euphonium), and in numerous countries including Thailand, Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan, Germany, Lithuania and the United Kingdom. Most recently, Wong was commissioned to write the set pieces for the National Piano and Violin Competition 2023, a prestigious Singaporean biennial competition that sees hundreds of young musicians contend for the country’s highest accolade for classical Western piano and violin performance.
Wong is most well-known for his accessible and relatable compositions for wind band, which have been performed by numerous school and community bands. These works speak of unsung Singaporean heroes, such as war hero Lieutenant Adnan Saidi in Battle of Opium Hill (2020), describe historical places as in Keppel Harbour (2021), and re-tell historical events such as The Fall, and Hope (2021), which illustrates the story of the fall of Singapore during the Second World War. He is also often sought after to write music that features inter-cultural elements, such as in Monsoon for oud, table, erhu and the Singapore Wind Symphony (2017), Fortitude (2021) for the Asian Cultural Symphony Orchestra and Light at Tunnel’s End (2022) for Ding Yi Music Company.
His belief in the importance of nurturing future generations of musicians has seen him taking on educational roles in various institutions. From 2012 to 2019, he has worked together with Singaporean conductor and educator Adrian Chiang as his Assistant Band Instructor in schools nationwide. Additionally, Wong has also been teaching composition and orchestration at the School of Music, Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts. Most notably, Wong was the Composer-in-Residence at the Singapore Wind Symphony from 2015 to 2017, spearheading the Young Composers Challenge and Co|Lab programmes, which was instrumental in the creation of many new wind band works by participants such as Elliot Teo, Darren Sng and Edmund Song, who have since become notable composers in their own right. More recently, his full-time employment at the SSO has seen him collaborating with professional musicians and arts practitioners to engage the wider public through meaningful programmes that cultivate interest in and appreciation towards Western Classical music.
Wong believes that a lifelong and fulfilling process of research, appreciation, creative thinking and performance will continue to fuel his mission to bring people together through memorable musical experiences.