Narong Prangcharoen Shares Love for Music as a Composer

Music legacy earns him the Conservatory Alumni Achievement Award

“The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.”

– Albert Einstein

Award-winning composer Narong Prangcharoen (D.M.A. ’10) gives this Einstein quote to his students. It’s a quote he’s also adopted as he expresses himself and his imagination through the art of music.

“After I finished my bachelor’s degree in music education, I practiced piano about six to eight hours per day until I passed my recital certificate from Guildhall School of Music and Drama,” Prangcharoen said. He thought the piano was fun to practice; however, he soon realized he didn’t have much time to spend with friends and family. He also developed a fascination with contemporary music. After taking composition lessons, he found a hidden talent as a composer.

Prangcharoen received his Doctor of Musical Arts in music composition in 2010 from the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music and Dance. Although he was accepted to study in the doctoral program at several universities, he says the composition faculty were the reason he chose UMKC.

Today, Prangcharoen is composer-in-residence with the Thailand Philharmonic, where he is recognized as one of the “national” composers of Thailand. He founded, and for the past decade, has single-handedly run the Thailand International Composition Festival.

He also is a composer-in-residence for the Pacific Symphony, a position that has led to major commissions, performances and professional recordings. He also teaches at the UMKC Conservatory’s Community Music and Dance Academy, which offers applied instruction in music and dance, classes and lessonsinnovative concert programmingprofessional development, summer programs, festivals and the Conservatory in the Schools program.

Prangcharoen will be honored with the UMKC Conservatory of Music & Dance’s Alumni Achievement Award along with his fellow 2015 Alumni Award recipients on April 23. The UMKC Alumni Association’s awards luncheon is one of the university’s largest events and proceeds support student scholarships. Last year’s luncheon attracted nearly 600 attendees and garnered more than $117,000 in student scholarships.

While studying at UMKC with Chen Yi, Ph.D., Lorena Searcy Cravens/Millsap/Missouri Distinguished Professor of Composition, Prangcharoen started to explore bridging the music of his native Thailand with the music of the West. “She told me to explore and find my unique style,” he added. Since then most of Prangcharoen’s work has been a cross between Thai/Asian and Western.

“However, I usually transform and blend it to the Western sound and technique smoothly,” Prangcharoen said. “Therefore, it is reminiscent of this world. Even though we are from different cultures, colors, races, etc., we can still live in this same peaceful world.”

Prangcharoen is considered a “mover” in the modern concert music scene and contributor to the direction of contemporary orchestral music. The Chicago Sun Times called his music “absolutely captivating.”

In his role at the Pacific Symphony, he composes for the Orchestra and the Pacific Symphony Youth Ensemble and creates compositions that are inspired by the people living in the Orange County community. He has also established a Young Composer Program mentoring to composition students between grades eight and 12. For the Thailand Philharmonic Orchestra, Prangcharoen composes orchestra pieces featuring young Thai artists.

Among Prangcharoen’s many awards and commissions are the prestigious 2013 Guggenheim Fellowship and the Barlow Prize, the 20th Annual American Composers Orchestra Underwood New Music Commission and the American Composers Orchestra Audience Choice Award.

“I am proud to state that I am a composer. For the next 50 years, I might not be longer in this world, but all the arts that I have created will still be there. I believe that music is one of the million sources that make this world beautiful. I am glad and thankful that I am a part of it. If I love what I am doing, then I believe that the quality of my art and work will be automatically perfect.”


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