Tian Hui Ng – conductor
Tian Hui Ng is the Music Director of the Pioneer Valley Symphony, Boston Opera Collaborative, the Victory Players, and White Snake Projects. In addition, Tian serves as Director of Orchestral Studies at Mount Holyoke College.
Tian has conducted orchestras around the world including the Savaria Symphony Orchestra (Hungary), Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra (Czech Republic), Dartington Festival Orchestra (UK), Orchestra of the Royal Opera of Wallonie (Belgium), and the Oregon Bach Festival Orchestra (USA). A versatile musician, he is equally at home in the realm of choral music and has conducted ensembles like the Stuttgart Chamber Choir (Germany), Carnegie Hall Festival Chorus (USA), Oregon Bach Festival Chorus (USA), Yale Schola Cantorum (USA), and the Young Person’s Chorus of New York (USA). He has collaborated with internationally renowned artists such as Dashon Burton, Tyler Duncan, Marcus Eiche, Jamie-Rose Guarrine, Ayano Kataoka, Ilya Polataev, Gary Steigerwalt, Astrid Schween, Sara Davis Buechner, Hanna Elisabeth Müller, Nicholas Phan, James Taylor, Gilles Vonsattel and Soyoung Yoon.
Well known for bringing new music to fresh audiences, he has premiered new works by numerous composers, including Pulitzer and Rome Prize winners such as Curt Cacioppo, Aaron Jay Kernis, Robert Kyr, David Sanford, and Joan Tower. These include unusual firsts, like Irin Ajo, the first Nigerian opera, by Olabode Omojola and Chaya Czernowin’s ephemeral Once I Blinked, Nothing was the Same.
Tian’s irrepressible musical spirit first expressed itself when he conducted a choir of kindergarten children in his native Singapore at the age of five. A pianist, singer and trombonist, he later studied composition and early music at the University of Birmingham (UK) where he discovered his love for Stravinsky and contemporary music. Returning home, he helped found one of the first contemporary music ensembles in the country, and was soon composing for animation, dance, film, chorus, and orchestra. It was during this time that he discovered his affinity for inter-disciplinary work and created the groundbreaking site-specific community-based arts festival, NOMAD, with which he has won awards from the Singapore National Arts Council. His works have since been heard in diverse settings such as the Hong Kong Film Festival, Animation World Magazine (USA), and Apsara Asia Dance (Singapore). Ng Tian Hui continued his education at the Yale School of Music (USA) where he helped to start a new tradition with the music of his graduation recital reflecting on war and conflict. There, he fed his passion for the masterworks of the choral orchestral repertoire, assisting such renowned interpreters as Nicholas McGegan, Masaaki Suzuki, Dale Warland, Simon Carrington, Marguerite Brooks and Jeffrey Douma. His is indebted to his teachers, including Paolo Arrivabeni, John Carewe, Peter Eötvös, Kurt Masur, and Michel Tabachnik, who have incalculably enriched his musical life.
In 2021 – 2022, Tian looks forward to a season that builds on the excitement of the previous season with premieres with White Snake Projects including Elena Ruehr’s Cosmic Cowboy and Mary Prescott’s Survivors’ Odyssey, the world’s first opera sung in a Native American language, Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate’s Shellshaker, debut performances on National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service in the US with the Victory Players, and first appearances with the New England Philharmonic, and the Lviv National Philharmonic of Ukraine.