​JunYi Chow is a composer whose work moves across contemporary concert music, improvisation, interdisciplinary collaboration, and music shaped by different instrumental traditions. His work explores how familiar materials can be reimagined through new timbral, structural, and performance contexts. The Financial Times has described his music as showing “skilful contrasts in both volume and texture.”

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He is Composer-in-Residence with Singapore’s TENG Ensemble, where his work has explored new relationships between traditional instruments, contemporary composition, and electronic sound. His collaborations with TENG include the albums Stories from an Island City and Heirlooms – Reimagining the Sounds of Our Chinese Forefathers. He is also a co-author of The TENG Guide to the Chinese Orchestra, a comprehensive English-language resource on Chinese instruments and orchestration.

 

Chow has been commissioned by institutions including the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra and Singapore Chinese Orchestra, with performances of his music across Asia, North America, and Europe. He previously served as Music Director of the Chinese Music Ensemble of New York, developing programs that placed Chinese instruments in dialogue with a range of musical traditions.

 

In 2021, Chow co-directed Project SEED: Virtual Composition Academy with composer Chatori Shimizu, an Asian Cultural Council-supported initiative focused on the Chinese sheng and Japanese shō, with guest mentors Wu Wei, Mayumi Miyata, and Remi Miura.

 

Born and raised in Kuala Lumpur, Chow studied composition at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing and Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Music Composition at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Also active as a pianist and cellist, he performs both classical repertoire and free improvisation.