Chieh Tsao

Chieh Tsao ( Chinese : 曹 节 ) (born December 27, 1953 in Singapore , † October 1996 in Singapore) was a Singaporean composer , engineer and mathematician .

Life

Tsao received his basic education at St Michael's and St Joseph's Institutes in Singapore and studied piano with Victor Doggett , where he obtained his Licentiate of the Royal Schools of Music (LRSM) for piano at the age of 18. With a scholarship from the Singapore Armed Forces , he was able to study engineering at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology . While in England he could various seminars for orchestration at the Manchester Music Department show but his vornehmliche source of information was the study of scores and attending concerts with the widest possible repertoire .

After his return to Singapore in 1975 he worked for the Ministry of National Defense in Singapore (MINDEF) on various aspects of national defense and from 1980 onwards was able to study further diploma courses at Stanford University in the United States on a scholarship . At Stanford he also studied composition with Leland Smith . His musical talent emerged when he first prize at the Paul -and- Jean-Hanna - Music Competition with his from Four Songs Romantic Poets won. In 1986 he received the Outstanding Young Person's Award for his great orchestral work Singapore - Symphonic Suite for Large Orchestra . Tsao received his Master of Arts in Music Composition , his Master of Science degree in Mathematics and a PhD as a Ph. D. in electrical engineering sciences .

He came back to Singapore in 1985 and pursued his career at MINDEF and later at Defense Science Organization . He carried out great scientific research in the field of radar technology . He was also Adjunct Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Engineering at the National University of Singapore . In 1995 he left the military organization to become chairman of the board of the Sembawang Corporation . In his spare time he composed works for orchestra and experimented with microtonal music for synthesizers and computers. He also planned to write an opera based on the legend from the Singaporean Bukit Merah . However, he was no longer able to achieve this because he succumbed to cancer at the age of 42.

Compositions

Works for orchestra

• 1982–1983 Overture in C
• 1984–1985 Singapore , symphonic suite for large orchestra
  1. Prelude & Fugue
  2. March
  3. scherzo
  4. Passacaglia
  5. final
• 1987-1988 stasis
• 1989–1990 Amidst the sough of winds .... , based on two poems ( Finger of the Cape and A Boy Drowns ) by Edwin Thumboo for speaker and orchestra
• 1991–1992 Prelude, Interlude and Fugato , for orchestra
• 1994 Two Little Pieces , for orchestra
  1. idyll
  2. Dance

Works for harmony orchestra

• 1988 Singapore Artillery Centennial March 1988

Vocal music

• 1984 Four Songs from Romantic Poets , for soprano and chamber ensemble
• 1995 Old House at Ang Siang Hill , for soprano and piano

Chamber music

• 1980 Canzone , for flute and piano
• 1980 Roundelay , for flute and piano
• 1981 Idyll , for flute and piano
• 1982 Toccata , for flute and piano
• 1984 Caprice , for two flutes and piano
• 1984 Movements , for flute, piano and string quartet
• 1988 Variations , for chamber ensemble

Works for piano

• 1983 Sonata

Electronic music

• 1994 Sine.Mus
• 1994–1995 Test piece for KW , for computers
• 1994–1995 Rhapsody for synthesized flute on a 17-tone scale
• 1994–1995 Study in four temperaments

Publications

• Chieh Tsao: Matrix Quantization of LPC Speech Using the Generalized Lloyd Algorithm , Dissertation Ph.D., Stanford University, 1985.