Composer
ABOUT
Darren is a Chinese Canadian composer who enjoys writing music for concerts, films, and cross-disciplinary collaborations. He is currently pursuing an Artist Diploma at the Royal College of Music. He has had the opportunity to work with various ensembles, including Standing Wave, Piano-Erhu Project (PEP), Trio Immersio, and Rose Geller String Quartet. Darren's first orchestral composition, To Liberate, was recently premiered by the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra at the Winnipeg New Music Festival in January 2023, and later workshopped by the Vancouver Symphony Orhcestra. With the help of Soundstreams’ RBC Bridges Program, his percussion quartet Into the Wilderness – an Open Conversation was performed by TorQ Percussion Quartet in Toronto in October 2022.
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Darren’s collaborations with the Musqueam artist Debra Sparrow culminated in performances of his music as parts of installations and showcase Debra’s Salish weavings, which took place at venues across Vancouver, such as the Museum of Anthropology at UBC, Christ Church Cathedral, and the Vancouver international Airport. His film score, Stargazer, was awarded Best Score by New York Film Awards in November 2018.
Darren began studying piano at age 5 and began composing at the age of 19. He enjoys teaching piano as well as music theory, and was a teaching assistant of aural skills at UBC School of Music. Having spent his childhood in Guangzhou China and Vancouver Canada, Darren is inspired by the different languages he came across. He received a Bachelor of Commerce, a Bachelor of Music, and a Master of Music in Composition from UBC.
Photo by Sofia Ouyang