Nicholas Ng
Nicholas Ng is a highly regarded young ethnomusicologist and composer from Canberra, Australia, acclaimed for his aesthetic commercial as well as contemporary classical music.
Born in 1979, he is a postgraduate student at the Australian National University after graduating with honors in composition from Sydney University. Mr. Ng’s diverse works have been performed by new-music ensembles, such as the Australian Voices, and important orchestras, including the Melbourne Symphony. He composed the music for Noonee Doronila’s highly acclaimed Filipino-Australian play Manila Takeaway in 2005. His achievements include the Young Composers’ Salon Best Composition prize, the Ignaz Friedman Memorial Prize, named after the Polish pianist and composer famous for his Chopin interpretations, and the Sarah Theresa Makinson Prize for Musical Composition, named for a Sydney University benefactor. His In Meditation for erhu (a Chinese violin) and SFX was awarded an equal first in the De Viana Liturgical Music Competition by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulbourn. On the erhu, Mr. Ng has appeared in various performance contexts from traditional Chinese and new-music concerts to contemporary dance productions. He has also been recorded in a Britton Films documentary, Yum Cha Cha, recently screened on television by Australia’s multicultural and multilingual public broadcaster, the Special Broadcasting Service.
FROM THE COMPOSER
"The Great Invocation"
Mr. Ng blends multiple intonations of the sacred Hindu syllable Om with Chinese Chán Buddhist (known in Japan as Zen) chants and medieval Gregorian liturgical music using a Javanese skeletal structure. His work seeks to express humanity’s unity through its communion with a needless God whose only emotion is total love for all people of all faiths and spiritual paths.
In The Great Invocation, I use the words of a beautiful and evocative prayer of the same title (permission for use granted by Sarah McKechnie, chairwoman of the Lucis Trust). Written through the cooperation of the spiritual teacher Alice Bailey and Tibetan Master Djwhal Khul, the text expresses the unity of humankind through communion with God. God’s eternal light, together with God’s boundless compassion and unconditional love, form an essence that is the same for people of all faiths and spiritual persuasions. In my setting of the Invocation, the sacred sound Om is intoned in unison, periodically and to begin and end the piece. A recurring instrumental interlude joins the first three verses of the text, which are sung in a certain answer and-response fashion after a mantra-like section inspired by Chán Buddhist chanting. Modal passages, with a hint of European plainchant but using a Javanese skeletal structure, complement long, pedal-point passages that I have inserted to honor musical cultures in which the drone is a prominent feature. In peace and love, I wish for my music to be a spiritual and uplifting experience for all. -Nicholas Ng
