Support Messages

Once again I’m happy to welcome you to the SMCC SoundBridge Festival.  I’m glad to see the festival growing with each edition, and this year we welcome composers and performers from Malaysia, the region and beyond.  Although the three concerts and panel discussion each have distinctive themes, running through them is a common thread of collaboration and interaction, whether across geographies, media platforms or performing art forms. Thank you for supporting our efforts towards the creation and dissemination of serious music making in Malaysia, and I hope you enjoy yourself!   

YAM Tunku Zain Al-’Abidin Ibni Tuanku Muhriz 
Patron of Society of Malaysian Contemporary Composers ​
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The management and academic team of SEGi College Subang Jaya, especially the School of Music from the Faculty of Creative Arts & Design is very proud to be part of SMCC Contemporary Music Festival 2017.  
 
I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the working committee members of the festival, and thank you to everyone who are in attendance to join in the festival. I am sure that SMCC Contemporary Music Festival will be an outstanding event and a great platform for the musicians and composers in the music scene within the Southeast Asian region, as well as all around the world. I am pleased to extend my warmest greetings for the grand success of the Festival. Let’s enjoy the music and fun!  
 
Roslan Bin Othman  
Head, Faculty of Creative Arts & Design  
SEGi College Subang Jaya  

First of all, I would like to congratulate the Society of Malaysian Contemporary Composers and the organizers of the SoundBridge Festival 2017 for organizing this important cultural bi-annual event for the third consecutive time since 2013. The festival is so important because it helps to develop contemporary music and to establish its place in society. From its beginning, the festival has also supported innovative cross-media approaches. It is a great honor for the Goethe-Institut to cooperate with the festival and to be able to support it by inviting German musicians and conductors.  
 
Three is a magical figure. In fairy tales, protagonists and heroes have to deal with three challenges and fulfill three tasks in order to achieve their goals and to win the prince or the princess over. I am sure that the festival will be another success and that it yet again will win the audience over. After three times it certainly will become a permanent event in the Malaysian cultural landscape.  
 
Rolf Stehle  
Director of Goethe-Institut Malaysia  
 

Greetings from UiTM Faculty of Music! It is our pleasure to support and participate in Sound Bridge 2017.  Sound Bridge provides an important and necessary outlet for musical expression within Malaysia, ASEAN and even beyond.  We congratulate the Society for Malaysian Contemporary Composers and artistic director Dr Chong Kee Yong for their initiative with Sound Bridge and wish them much success with Sound Bridge 2017 and with future initiatives.   
 
Thanks and all the best with the upcoming Sound Bridge 2017.   
 
Dr. Ramona Mohd. Tahir  
Dean of College of Music, UiTM  
 ​

I would like to thank Dr Kee Yong Chong, Malaysia’s leading contemporary music composer and a very inspiring musician for joining us at the Damansara Performing Arts Centre (DPAC) to showcase some of his work and the work of his invited guests in SoundBridge 2017. SoundBridge is a platform for non-mainstream musicians organized by The Society of Malaysian Contemporary Composers (SMCC). A successful and encouraging platform for this genre, the music festival has grown from strength to strength. It has proven to be a gathering of musicians, artists and fans alike, sharing and appreciating great compositions. At DPAC we would like to support and encourage all kinds of music and musicians. With the potential of SoundBridge we hope that it opens up bigger and better avenues for contemporary music anywhere in Malaysia.  
 
Mr. Bernard Goh    
Artistic Director of Damansara Performing Arts Center  

I appreciate the vision of Dr Kee Yong Chong, and congratulate him for the program of SoundBridge Contemporary Music Festival. Having an initiative to create a vibrant art festival by collecting works from Southeast Asia is an excellent platform for creative artists and audience alike. I am sorry for not being able to participate in person. I am positive I could understand Asian music, despite not speaking any of the local languages. Music as a language is international, and we hope to hear your compositions here in Europe as well in the coming years.  
 
Prof. Peter Eötvös  
Composer, conductor and teacher  
Founder of The Peter Eötvös Contemporary Music Center  
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The Soundbridges is truly a commendable project in the field of contemporary arts, with its focus on the music and sound arts.  As its title suggests, it connects the artistic works of musical artists from Southeast Asia and the world at large.  It also explores other possibilities in the expressive arena of both the performing and creative musical arts together with other artistic media, continuing the traditional concept of the arts in Asia which is integrative and all-encompassing.  I therefore congratulate Dr Kee Yong Chong as well as the Society of Malaysian Contemporary Composers for this initiative and hope that it will continue to flourish and reach the lives of many young artists especially in the region of Southeast Asia.  
 
Prof. Ramon P. Santos, Ph.D.  
National Artist for Music (Philippine)  ​

"SoundBridge Festival, at its best, has redefined contemporary music as the bridge between contemporary musical ideas and the musician's soul."  
 
Prof. Wen DeQing  
Professor of composition and artistic director of   
Shanghai Conservatory of Music’s New Music Week

SoundBridge Festival in Malaysia is the only festival in Asia that specializes in new music! This season, renown contemporary pianists Xie Ya-Ou and Xie Yashuangzi, will both have a hand or two in accompanying young Sheng Maestra Shen Ling Xuan's world premiere of Dr. Chong Kee Yong's transcendental piece: "Yuan Liu". Presenting along the masters is a piece by young Malaysian composer Leong Ching Chiang who, like the premier soloist, is himself a prolific sheng performer.   
May Malaysia's SoundBridge Festival have a successful run this season!  
May the new pieces of high art receive success in its maiden debut. 
 
Prof. Wu Wei  
Sheng master  
Director of Dragon Ensemble  ​

It is simply amazing to realize such a big international festival which encourages the exchange of artistic ideas, and communication among multi-cultural musicians with many supporters including from sponsors, institutions, and many more.  
I really appreciate all musicians and people involved who work hard to realize the idea behind the SMCC SoundBridge festival directed by my old friend, Dr. Chong Kee Yong, who is definitely one of the most active and energetic composers today.  
I wish you all the best and I am dreaming to hear some nice sound, music, and enjoy good atmosphere from your festival. Congratulations!  
 
Keiko Harada 
Composer  
Associate Professor at Tokyo College of Music (Composition Dep.)

It is with admiration that I congratulate the Society of Malaysian Contemporary Composers (SMCC) on another edition of the Sound Bridge Festival. A Festival which has come to be known for interesting writing, innovative collaborations and new artistic visions. This Festival has over the years stimulated interest in contemporary music amongst many who had never encountered it before, and created links between artists of different countries and from diverse cultures, which have resulted not only in further interactions but also enduring friendships. This is due in some degree to the hard work, resourcefulness and ingenuity of the Society’s committee members, working in an environment which is challenging in several aspects, not the least of which is financial support. Truly, this Festival can be said to be a labour of love and passion. May it grow from strength to strength!  
 
Datin Saidah Rastam  
Director, Deep Culture  
Senior Research Fellow, Khazanah Nasional Berhad

Congratulations on the 2017 edition of the Society of Malaysian Contemporary Composers’ SoundBridge Contemporary Music Festival. The festival is now a key and highly anticipated event in the contemporary music landscape bringing together some of the most important established and new voices in performance and composition from across ASEAN and internationally. Such a forum is crucial in building a depth of culture founded on diversity and excellence through the sharing of artistic visions. Every Soundbridge festival relies on the enormous hard work behind the scenes of all involved and especially the Artistic Director, Dr Chong Kee Yong and the festival deserves the strong support of audiences and financial backers. I send you all my warmest best wishes for a successful and stimulating festival!  
 
Prof. Liza Lim  
Professor of Composition  
Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney  ​

SoundBridge 2017 will once again showcase exemplary examples of up-and-coming avant-garde music and original compositions from Southeast Asia and beyond, performed in Malaysia, the epicentre of the East-West crossroad. Quite like in the days of yore, contemporary Malaysia is privileged to have the might of a multicultural mix of musicking soundscapes as the platform for interactive intercultural expressions, unyoke yet connected by the desire to create neoteric musical expressions. In this respect, I am owed by the successes of the Society of Malaysian Contemporary Composers in seeding the first SoundBridge in 2013 to the present highly anticipated Festival in 2017. Congratulations to the Society of Malaysian Contemporary Composer (SMCC) and the team of “SoundBridge 2017” for their inexorable efforts of pursuing their aspirations to bridge musicscapes from within and beyond Southeast Asia.  
 
Prof Mohd Anis Md Nor, PhD  
Managing Director  
Nusantara Performing Arts Research Center (Kuala Lumpur)  ​

It is with great pleasure that I would like to congratulate the SMCC SoundBridge Festival on another fascinating and highly innovative program for 2017.  
I have been following the activities of this renowned festival for a number of years and am absolutely impressed with this year’s proposed collaborations with video artists, calligraphers, composers, dancers and instrumentalists.   
 
This program is uncompromisingly future oriented, international and beautifully and intelligently planned.  
 
I would particularly like to congratulate the director of the Festival Dr. Chong Kee Yong for this impressive work and planning.  
 
Prof. Peter Veale  
Oboist, Conductor and Artistic director of Studio Musikfabrik  
Cologne, Germany  ​

In a world with gaps and separations, we may call this area with “something” that dividing between the left and the right, the past/traditional/conservative and the future/liberal/progressive, the white and the black, or “nothing” just an invisible gap that make one feels it's different. Human builds the link between the ends of the gap to crossing from one world to the other. SoundBridge is one of travelling options that will bring its passengers experiencing some difference musical wisdoms from the original perspective to new perspective.  
 
Walking across what so-called “Bridge”, there are both joyful and anxiety associated with each other. Of course, the distinction of feelings when one standing on firmly land, to compare with one traveling on the fragile bridge that created to cross the unpredictable world where the hidden hell is waiting for the day to snatch a lost life, it is challenging experience. Questions - What can we trust? Do we trust the bridge which we decided to step our foot on, or trust our way of travel? Can we really reach a new place? Also, If we successfully found another side of the world, will we still be interested in returning to revisit again the old land before crossing that bridge? Or shall we keep moving forward even forget the thinking back and forth about the bridge? Or should we stop questionings and say it’s enough to be remained in the comfortable zone?  
In a transforming world, bridge would make life associated with more or less learnings - -Before we decide to stepping on the bridge - - While crossing the bridge - - and the moment of time that we reach the destination. Every seconds, every minute, the journey is always worth learning.  
 
My faithfully wishes to all the Engineers-Labours-Comrades of 2017 SMCC SoundBridge, with extended to all Bravely Travelers and Friends.  
 
Prof. Anant Narkkong  
Music Director, C ASEAN CONSONANT  
Ethnomusicologist, Faculty of Music, Silpakorn University Thailand

Once again, the international “SoundBridge 2017” Festival is taking place in Kuala Lumpur, and I am proud having been asked to write some introductory remarks.   
 
As in 2013 and 2015, the festival presents a broad spectrum of contemporary arts, and once again, the title seems to be partly the program of the festival. Sound, as the most basic parameter of music, can establish bridges between cultures that have different histories and developments. And if one gives sound a meaning in a music context, this can become an ideal medium for learning about each other.    
 
This year again, I am thrilled how such an attractive and diversive program has been curated. We discover already known formats, but filled with completely new contents, like for example the opening model of “Connecting Cities”, representing especially the international approach of the festival.  After that, the programs turn to more regional and then local art forms. By that, it strengthens Malaysia’s position in the centre of a complex global art scene, where the festival already has achieved an increasingly significant position during the last years.  
 
Such an event includes both, a demonstration of classical contemporary pieces, as well as being the stage for new visions and experiments. The potentially unexpected becomes a challenging manifestation of the current role of an artist, who does not exist outside of his/her society, but reflects and comments it. The artist must be a constant critical mirror of his/her society and not at all a “far away dreamer on cloud 13”. Furthermore, there is hardly another region in this world with a similar and almost overwhelming variety of different cultural memories and aesthetical positions. Therefore, Southeast Asia is predestined to take a leading role in the global arts development. Southeast Asia shall be proud and celebrate or even cultivate that variety and its potential. Thanks to SMCC and all those Malaysian “aficionados”, (including their friends from other ASEAN countries), who have helped and have given support to make such an event possible. I feel deeply honoured to be a part of that event as well.  
 
Prof. Dieter Mack  
Vice-president, Composition professor of Musikhochschule Lübeck  ​

I know from my own experience how difficult is to create a meaningful music festival with limited resources.  I therefore congratulate Dr. Kee Yong Chong and the Society of Malaysian Contemporary Composers for their vision in creating this admirable festival, in spite of  all the material and artistic hardships. Best wishes for a successful festival!  
 
Dan Yuhas  
Vice Chairman ACL  
Director of the Israel Contemporary Players  
Artistic director “Hateiva” Jaffa  ​

I send greetings and congratulations to SMCC on yet another edition of the SoundBridge mini-festival! SoundBridge provides a focal point for artists from across the region and beyond, to come together and explore new music, share expertise, and celebrate success. And in doing so, provide a reference point for new music activity in our region. For SMCC this is indeed an achievement of some significance, representing persistence, resilience, and optimism, demonstrating that such characteristics can not only enable survival, but develop an environment where such endeavour can thrive. I send you warmest wishes for your time together at SoundBridge, and look forward to hearing of its great success!  
 
John Davis  
CEO Australian Music Centre  
Former President, ISCM  ​

Soundbridge 2017 is a worth observing meeting point of contemporary music community in Asia.This event raises some positive challenges to the musicians and offers significant public appreciation towards the spreading of contemporary music in Asia.  
 
Tony Prabowo  
Composer and Curator of Music & Dance in Komunitas Salihara  ​

Soundbridge Contemporary Music Festival is truly a festival that supports contemporary music among Southeast Asia and worldwide. It serves as the meeting point for composers to get to know each other, exchange and broaden their ideas, discuss direction of music in our region, and more. Therefore, it develops contemporary music society to be stronger and increases a number of audiences for new music. This festival, therefore, improves the standard of contemporary music not only at national level, but also at international level. I would like to congratulate Dr. Chong Kee Yong, the Artistic Director, for his contribution to this commendable and successful festival.  
 
Dr. Narong Prangcharoen, D.M.A.  
Associate Dean, College of Music, Mahidol University  
Artistic Director of Thailand International Composition Festival  ​

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Dr. Hoh Chung Shih  
President of Composers Society of Singapore  

“Music is the greatest communication in the world. Even if people do not understand the language that you are singing in, they still know good music when they hear it”. – Lou Rawls  
This festival will become a meeting point not only for talented musicians but also for professionals from the music industry. A place where musicians find opportunities to realize their ambitions (dream) and where new, vibrant creative ensembles are found to present before a huge audience of listeners. The current and the past, new and old, word and music, arts and science, song and play meet here today - people from different parts of the world, artists and art lovers, young and old, individual and society, East and West, North and South. I believe that the exchange of creative experiences between artists will be another important dimension of achievement and success which we will see created by this visionary festival.  
I would like to congratulate the Society of Malaysian Contemporary Composers’ on the implement of the 2017 SoundBridge Contemporary Music Festival. I wish the very best to all participants.  
 
TAN SRI NORLIZA ROFLI  
Director General  
National Department for Culture and Arts  
Ministry of Tourism and Culture  ​