Ballarat-based composer and creative director Chee Wei Tay has received the Top Local Instrumental Contemporary award at the 29th COMPASS Awards in Singapore for his composition Now Is Not The Time – Prologue.
The work was composed for Now Is Not The Time, a landmark immersive exhibition commemorating the centenary of the birth of Singapore’s founding Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew. Presented across approximately 40,000 square feet, the exhibition brought together music, spatial audio, film, virtual production, artificial intelligence, generative art, architecture and sculpture. More than 30,000 visitors attended during its 15-day public presentation.
As Music Director and composer, Chee Wei was part of the exhibition’s creative leadership team, developing its musical identity and using music and sound to shape the audience’s emotional journey through the experience.
“There was an enormous sense of responsibility in finding the right musical and emotional language for something of this significance,” Chee Wei said. “The music wasn’t simply accompanying something happening on a screen. It existed within a much larger environment, where every creative discipline had to work together to take the audience somewhere emotionally.”
Presented annually by the Composers and Authors Society of Singapore, the COMPASS Awards recognise outstanding achievements by composers, songwriters and music publishers.
Chee Wei’s attendance at the awards and associated professional-development activities in Singapore were supported by the Australian Government’s Regional Arts Fund.