Neo Nai Wen, Kalimba

Neo Nai Wen was born in Sabah, Malaysia. During his secondary school time, he started his violin lessons with the late Mr. Leopold Chen. After graduated from Tshung Tsin Secondary school in 2002, Nai Wen studied at SEGi College Subang Jaya, where he received his Diploma in Music, major in Composition, under the tutelage of Mr. Tan Chin Ho. He also studied Music Aesthetic and Philosophy with Mr. Yii Kah Hoe.             

He received scholarship from the Goethe Institute to participate in Darmstadt International Summer Course, which organised by Internationales Musikinstitut Darmstadt, Germany. Other than that, he was also offered a scholarship to study Music Composition in Birmingham Conservatoire under the tutelage of Ed Bennett, Joe Cutler and Howard Skempton. He has taken part in masterclasses with renowned composers such as Brian Ferneyhough, Liza Lim, Dieter Mack, Manos Tsangaris, Yuval Shaket, Gordon McPherson, David Fennessy, Chong Kee Yong and Jonas Baes.             

Nai Wen is an active composer who participates in many festivals and events in South East Asia such as Kuala Lumpur Contemporary Music Festival, Malaysian Composers Concert Series, Yogyakarta Contemporary Music Festival and Manila Composers Lab.             

His composition 'An Oriental Soundscape' for oboe and handheld percussion is a winning work for the John Mayer Memorial Prize 2011. His music has been performed worldwide by musicians including Ensemble Mosaik from Germany, The Rednote Ensemble from Scotland, New Music Concerts from Canada, Schubert Ensemble, Mary Wiegold, and THUMB from England.             

Nai Wen is now based in Kota Kinabalu. He is a music educator and also a violinist in a local music performing group. He teaches violin and piano at University Malaysia Sabah, Tzuji Education Centre, music school and privately. Furthermore, he has also conducted and coached the choir for Santavana Forest Hermitage, took on the task of completing a requiem by his violin teacher, the late Mr. Leopold Chen.         

Recently, Nai Wen (founder of Kalimbiex) is actively promoting the instrument, Kalimba throughout Malaysia by supplying kalimba, setting up booth and dealerships collaboration, provide teachers training programme and sharing session to public, conduct kalimba regular lessons and performances.         

Other than that, he also published his own kalimba syllabus and books (Let’s Kalimba with Kalimbiex series) to assist kalimba enthusiast enjoy playing the wonderful music instrument. Slow and steady, Nai Wen successfully draw the attention of the public and interviewed by New Life Post (newspaper), China Express (Newspaper), and Aifm (radio interview), and hopefully more and more people in Malaysia enjoy playing the kalimba.        

One of Naiwen’s latest activities (2022) is to collaborate with Borneo Ensemble as performer/interpreter (kalimba player) in the event “Borneo Ensemble Call for Scores International Competition".