Ng Chor Guan, the co-founder of Toccata Studio, renowned Malaysian composer, sound designer, active thereminist, improviser, educator, and cyclist. A familiar face in many international arts festivals across the continents, Guan is a prolific artist whose diverse body of work is rooted in the contemporaneous currents of technology and yet proves to transcend categories in the performing arts.
The arts collective Toccata Studio is his dedication to creating collaborative and multidisciplinary works: they are responsible for a new, progressive wave of contemporary arts in Malaysia that aims to reach and cross global boundaries of culture and tradition. An advocate of research and development in the arts, Toccata Studio produces ground-breaking, poignant work and also runs regular improvisational sessions within music and between music and dance. In 2015, Toccata Studio has joined forces with community venue, Space. Toccata and utilizes the space provided by the venue to run experimental, multidisciplinary ventures. His ongoing experimental series, New Music Series and Dance=Music Series, both improvisational and cross-cultural in many senses, are Guan’s efforts in cultivating a new artistic, cultural language for Malaysia that unites the diverse media, musical disciplines and traditions available in the region.
Ng Chor Guan is demonstrative in his belief of the arts as a world-changing force: his work is often interactive and engages his audience in participation via literal means and artistic renditions. His most recent project with Toccata Studio, titled ‘2020’, is a project five years long: a multidisciplinary performance powered by the concepts of multiple futures and time travel, 2020 is both a meditation on the future and an active progression into the future.
