NG Xuan Tyi

Biography

Ng Xuan Tyi (黃宣禔) is a Malaysian Chinese composer from Penang whose work explores how sound can carry place, memory, and cultural experience. Working across orchestral music, chamber music, electroacoustic composition, and mixed media, he is particularly interested in timbral organization, narrative form, and the relationships between sound, text, and visual imagery.

He is currently pursuing a Master of Music in Composition at Western University’s Don Wright Faculty of Music, where he studies composition with Dr. Omar Daniel. He is also completing graduate studies in theoretical composition at Chinese Culture University in Taipei under Prof. Wen-Tze Lu. His earlier training includes bachelor’s degrees in theoretical composition from Chinese Culture University and in composition and composition techniques, with a focus on electroacoustic music, from the Communication University of China. He also studied conducting with Prof. Paul Tien-Chi Lin, an experience that continues to inform the practical and collaborative dimensions of his compositional thinking.

Growing up within Malaysia’s multilingual and multicultural environment has shaped Ng’s sensitivity to the ways different musical traditions, soundscapes, and memories can coexist. Rather than treating cultural materials as fixed symbols, he approaches them as living sources of rhythm, resonance, gesture, and atmosphere. His music often begins with an image, a remembered sound, or a sense of place, gradually unfolding into structures that invite listeners into an imaginative sonic world.

In 2023, his symphonic sketch Mu Ji 《木及》 received First Prize in the Theoretical Composition Division of the Hwa Kang Concerto Competition and was premiered at KHS Hall. His vocal chamber work The Reeds 《蒹葭》 was subsequently selected for the 2024 Counterpoint Ensemble Young Composer Selection and premiered at the Recital Hall of the National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts (Weiwuying). From September 2024 to January 2025, he studied composition with Prof. Lim Ju-Seub (임주섭) at Yeungnam University in Korea as a recipient of the Korean Government Scholarship (GKS). In November 2025, his commissioned chamber work Home Is Where the Heart Finds Peace 《此心安處是吾鄉》 was performed in Kluang, Malaysia.

Ng began studying piano at the age of four. Before turning fully toward composition, he led a songwriting club, produced student performances, and pursued visual-art studies, graduating first in art theory from the Art Program at Jit Sin Independent High School in Penang. These early encounters with music, theatre, and visual culture continue to shape his approach: composition, for him, is not only the organization of sound, but also a way of building places, tracing memories, and imagining how different worlds might listen to one another.