MÜLLER CHAMBER CHOIR
Grand Prix - 9th International Johannes Brahms Choir Festival and Competition 2015
Champions of the Male Chamber Choirs - 9th World Choir Games 2016
Founded in 1999, Müller Chamber Choir is a 30-strong male choir that aims to introduce the finest blend of male choral sound to the choral scene. Since 2013, the choir has been led by Meng-Hsien Peng as the conductor and artistic director and has achieved prestige as one of Taiwan’s foremost choral groups. From 2018 to 2021, Müller Chamber Choir was selected as one of the TAIWAN TOP teams to receive annual grants from the National Culture and Arts Foundation. In 2011-13 and 2016-17, the choir was selected into the Performing Arts Group of the Ministry of Culture, and recognized as the Excellent Performing Arts Group of Taipei City.
Müller Chamber Choir participated in the 9th International Johannes Brahms Choir Festival and Competition in July 2015. It was named category winner in Folk, Sacred and Male Choir categories and took home the Grand Prix. The choir’s competition pieces stood out as richly varied and sophisticated, garnering high praise from the panel of judges with respect to musical interpretation and artistry.
In July of the following year, the choir went on to participate in the 9th World Choir Games 2016: Champions Competition, receiving gold medals in Male Chamber Choirs, Musica Sacra a cappella and Musica Contemporanea categories. Notably, the Taiwanese choir was declared Champion of the Male Chamber Choirs category with a record high score of 97.38. Out of around twenty choirs competing in the Musica Sacra a cappella category, the male choral group came in a close second, with a slight margin of 0.12 points compared to the champion score.
In July 2017, Müller Chamber Choir had the honor to perform two shows in the Singapore International Choral Festival and gave a global live performance on the Choral Festival and Award Ceremony. Right after the event in Singapore, the choir was invited by Sin Chew Daily to perform in Kuala Lumpur. Owing to the immense response the choir created, the choir was invited to perform as the feature choir in the 1st and 2nd Cross-strait Choral Seminar in Fuzhou and Xiamen, China, in 2017-18.
The choir was first invited to the US in September 2018 to give a tour in Seattle, Dallas and San Francisco. In late February of 2019, the choir was invited by the American Choral Director Association (ACDA) to perform in the National Conference on its 60th anniversary. In 2020, the choir was invited to one of the major events, the World Symposium on Choral Music (sadly cancelled due to COVID-19).
According to the latest INTERKULTUR rankings, Müller Chamber Choir ranks #7 among top 1000 choirs. The choir even ranks #1 in the Chamber Choirs & Vocal Ensembles category for four consecutive years, showing its considerable achievements in the long-term cultivation of the field of male choral music.
Müller Chamber Choir takes upon itself the mission to create a distinctive Taiwanese male voice repertoire. Since 2011, it has commissioned composers and writers to collaborate on projects with the potential to bring out the multi-faceted depth and richness of the male choral soundscape. The completed productions include Requiem Pro Amor (2011), Literature via Music (2012), Compose and Sing: Music of Our Land (2013), Songs of the Isles (2014), Wish (2016), WishⅡ(2017), and Wish for the World (2018).
Müller, a homophonic pun meaning wooden building in Mandarin Chinese, refers to that timeworn, now-demolished wooden structure that was home to the music classroom where founding members first discovered the pure joy of choral music. That timeless space serves as a reminder of the choir’s humble beginnings, youthful passion, and unwavering belief in the power of music to bring peace to those around us.
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ARTISTIC DIRECTOR / CONDUCTOR
Meng-Hsien Peng
Artistic Director & Conductor
Meng-Hsien Peng, is one of the directors of Taiwan Choral Association, an INTERKULTUR jury member for international choral competitions, the artistic director and conductor of Müller Chamber Choir, Taipei City Teacher Choir, NTU EMBA Chorus and Vox Nativa Taiwan, the general director and conductor of National Hakka Children's Choir, the music director of Rong Shing Youth Choir & Women's Choir, the conductor of The Voice of Great Love Chorus, an artistic advisor to Fujian Association of Art and Education (China) and a member of American Choral Directors Association. In 2021, she is invited as the guest conductor of Taipei Symphony Orchestra Chorus. She has won multiple awards, including Distinguished Teaching Award (2012) and Arts Contribution Award (2016) presented by the Ministry of Education, the Best Conductor in Taiwan International Vocal Festival and Hakka Affairs Medal in 2020. She is also honored by being included in the list of "Who's who in Hakka World."
In recent years, she was invited as a participant in international competitions and sometimes as a juror. Her international engagements have called for extensive trips to choral events all over the world, such as Spain, Latvia, Russia, Germany, the United States, Singapore, Malaysia, China, etc., bringing honor to Taiwan's choral music.
Peng has been the artistic director of Müller Chamber Choir since 2013 and the choir led by her has won multiple international competitions. Under her leadership, Müller Chamber Choir participated in the 9th International Johannes Brahms Choir Festival and Competition in 2015 and the 9th World Choir Games 2016: Champions Competition, winning gold medals in various categories with record high scores. In world rankings released by INTERKULTUR as of 2016 to March 2020, Müller Chamber Choir tops the Chamber Choirs & Vocal Ensembles category for four years in a row. Peng has been highly recognized for her artistry, music talents and overall presentation of pieces of music.
In 2019, Müller Chamber Choir was honored by the invitation by American Choral Directors Association to hold two dedicated concerts at its 60th anniversary. Later in 2020, the choir was selected by the World Symposium on Choral Music - out of 179 choirs in 44 countries - and invited to hold two dedicated concerts, which makes it one of the top 24 choirs in the world. However, the event was cancelled due to Covid-19.
Peng has been invited internationally as a jury member and instructor, for example, by INTERKULTUR to the 5th Canta al mar Festival Coral Internacional and to the Grand Prix of Nations & 3rd European Choir Games in Latvia during 2016 and 2017. In July 2018, she was invited by Taipei Philharmonic Foundation of Culture and Education to be a juror in the 1st Taipei International Choral Competition. Also, she was invited by the Hakka Affairs Council to the Hakka Choral Competition from 2018 to 2020.
Peng was invited as a guest lecturer in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Cross-strait Choral Seminar 2017-2020 (Fuzhou & Xiamen, China) to teach choral musical techniques, attracting more than a thousand students. Müller Chamber Choir was able to hold multiple dedicated concerts during the seminars. She was also invited to the 4th International Choral Arts Workshop (Hunan, China) and instructed 500 students in conducting. In October 2018, Peng gave master classes of conducting at the 2018 MUSICA-MUNDI Choral Conductor Seminar (Guiyang, China) held by INTERKULTUR. 200 conductors from all over China participated in the event. In 2019, she also gave speeches hosted by Taiwan Choral Association. Later in November, she conducted a dedicated concert of Vox Nativa Taiwan in the 21st China Shanghai International Arts Festival and National Hakka Children's Choir to perform Legendary Voices from Taiwan Hakka 369 at National Theater & Concert Hall. In 2020, as the producer and conductor, she presented the founding concert of National Hakka Children's Choir to enhance choral education and performance to a wider and deeper level.
Peng has an ambition to promote choral music with her artistic sense and vision. Besides cultivating local choral music in Taiwan, she aims to engage globally in the international choral stage to link up with the world.
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VIDEO
〈如果明天就是下一生〉
〈Handmade Proverbs〉
〈Fear Not, Dear Friend〉
〈Stars, Ēriks Ešenvalds〉
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CONTACT US
Address
B1F., No. 7-1, Sec. 2, Hangzhou S. Rd., Da’an Dist., Taipei City 106, Taiwan
Tel
+886-2-2365-8943
Fax
+886-2-2341-2340