Quek Ling Kiong is currently the Resident Conductor of the Singapore Chinese Orchestra, Music Director of the Singapore Youth Chinese Orchestra,
Principal Conductor of Singapore’s top Chinese chamber music ensemble - Ding Yi Music Company, and Music Director and Conductor of the Singapore Management University Chinese Orchestra. He was presented with the Singapore Young Artist Award by the National Arts Council (NAC) of Singapore in 2002, and a recipient of the inaugural NAC Cultural Fellowship in 2013. In 2016, he received the Meritorious Award from the Composers & Authors Society of Singapore (COMPASS). In 2018, he was on the list of Lianhe Zaobao’s ‘Most Featured Personality of The Year’ in Singapore.
Quek has made it his mission to promote new works in Chinese music, and to this end, he has frequently premiered or commissioned original works from the new generation of composers in Singapore and Malaysia, including Zechariah Goh, Tan Kah Yong, Phang Kok Jun, Wang Chenwei, Benjamin
Lim, Dayn Ng Chee yao, Simon Kong Su Leong, Chong Kee Yong, and Chow Jun Yi. Quek has been invited to conduct the closing concerts in many sessions of the China-ASEAN Music Festival held in Nanning, Guangxi. He has also led the Singapore National Youth Chinese Orchestra (SNYCO) on tour to China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. He is frequently invited to be an adjudicator in Chinese music competitions at home and abroad, and as panel member for the accreditation of professional orchestras. In his ongoing efforts to promote Chinese chamber music, Quek has been the driving force behind the Ding Yi International Chinese Chamber Music Festival and the Singapore International Composition Competition for Chinese Chamber Music. The children’s musical series, ‘The Little Adventurer by Professor Quek’, as well as the youth music concert series, ‘Voyage to Nanyang’, of which he is conductor, performer and producer all in one, have become his signature programmes in the Chinese music world. In March 2019, a Quek Ling Kiong Arts and Culture Scholarship was established at the Singapore Management University in support of young people pursuing a career in the traditional arts.
