Annie Kwok

Composer and Educator

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What is your musical background?

I am a first generation Chinese-Vietnamese Australian, and I have the honour of being the first female in my generation to receive a full education. Pretty amazing, from where I stand! I hold a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance, a Graduate Bachelor of Education in Secondary Arts, and I am presently working on my Master of Education, researching the importance of creativity, imagination, and play in music education. I am a full-time secondary classroom music teacher and have taught at Brighton Secondary School in South Australia, and the Conservatorium High School in Sydney. I am presently teaching Year 6-12 Music at Pulteney Grammar School in Adelaide. I’ve also worked with Young Adelaide Voices, the Sydney Children’s Choir, Gondwana Voices, and the South Australian Public Primary Schools Festival of Music.

What is your advice to singers performing your works?

Be interested, be engaged, be curious, and be accurate! You have to be courageous and dare to show yourself while being in a choir; it’s what makes singing in a choir so moving and magical.

Find songs by Annie:

My Corner of the Sea (treble unison with piano, with piano backing track)

The Light of Life (treble unison with piano, with piano backing track)

The Elbow-Sneeze (treble unison with piano, with piano backing track)

G G Giraffe (SA with piano, with piano backing track)

Travelling (treble unison with piano, with piano backing track)

Travelling (SA with piano, with piano backing track)

Festive Jubilate (SSAA with body percussion)

One Misty Morning (SA, cello and piano)

4-Chord Gloria (SABar with piano)

4-Chord Gloria (SSA with piano)

Waking Dreamer (2-parts with piano)

Waking Dreamer (TBarB with piano)

Waking Dreamer (SATB with piano)

Waking Dreamer (SSA with piano)

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What are your favourite pieces you’ve composed?

My favourite for AGES was “Waking Dreamer”, as this was the piece that connected me to Gondwana Voices, and became the inaugural winner of the Gondwana Voices Choral Composition Award in 2006. But I think that one’s been overtaken by 2 recent compositions: “Tango of 13”, which is all about the lurking dangers of raising a Teen, and “My Corner of the Sea”, which I love for the storyline of hope behind it.

Autumn Lullaby (TBarB with piano)

Meditation of Emmanuel (SSA with cello)

Migaloo (SSA with piano)

Migaloo (SA with piano)

Seen Completely (SABarB with piano)

Circles (SA with piano)

Words (SSA with piano)

It Must Have Felt Like Flying (SSATBarB with piano)

You (TBarB with piano)

Fractals of Light (SSAA with soprano solo)

Here Am I (SA divisi with piano)

Winds of Fire (SA with piano)