Since December, the Yew Wah/Yew Chung Foundation has been hosting a Music Composition Competition. Students had been aware of the competition for several months and submitted their work in March. They had the choice to create solo pieces, ensemble pieces, electronic compositions, and a simple melody (for Primary students). In all, 8 students from YCIS Chongqing submitted a total of 13 compositions.

The results of their efforts came back last week and we’re proud to say that all of our students have achieved highly. The judges consisted of three professional composers: Charles Kwong, Paul Dean, and Lam Lai. Each student received a certificate and detailed marksheet with feedback about their work. The compositions were judged based on creativity, idiomatic use of instruments, musical form, compositional technique, and the layout of their submitted pieces. All of these added up to a total of 50 points. A Gold award was issued to a student awarded between 45-50 points, a Silver for compositions scoring between 40-44, and a Bronze for students between 30-40.

Year 11 Clarisse Leong and Year 6 Darwin Ye both received Bronze awards. Year 11 students Olivia Choi, Cherry Pan, and Julie Son all received Silver awards along with Year 12 and 13 students Matthew Leaño, Chris Lee, and Brian Ji.

In addition to her Silver award, Julie Son also received a Gold award with her composition “No More Peace” earning 46/50 points.

A very special mention also goes out to Chris Lee, who not only won a Gold award but tied for the highest score foundation-wide with a score of 49/50 for his piece “Variations on a Theme”. Even more, Chris received this bit of feedback on his comment sheet: “This is one of the best high school compositions I have ever heard.”

So a big “congratulations” is in order for the great efforts and achievements of our young composers, they deserve it!