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Njo Kong Kie lives in Toronto, Canada. He is a composer, a pianist and a music theatre creator. He enjoys ping pong and picnic.

His works for stage and screen include the comic opera knotty together (with Anna Chatterton), the concert-theatre Picnic in the Cemetery, the song cycle I swallowed a moon made of iron (set to the poetry of Xu Lizhi), the music theatre Mr. Shi and His Lover (with Wong Teng Chi), the short film Death Mask (with John Greyson), and the play-with-music The Year of the Cello (with Marjorie Chan). These works are inspired by and highlight a host of topics ranging from same-sex marriage (knotty together) to human costs of modernity (I swallowed a moon made of iron).

Upcoming projects include The Futures Market (with Douglas Rodger), an opera web series to be released in the fall of 2025; Lost and Found (with Liza Balkan), an opera for young audiences; and Deng Gao Shang Gao Reverie a VR project with Invalid Symbol.

His music theatre piece Mr. Shi and His Lover became the first-ever Chinese language production at SummerWorks Performance Festival, Tarragon Theatre and the National Arts Centre. The work was a feature Canadian presentation at the Cervantino Festival in Mexico in and toured to Estonia.

Kong Kie also lends his skills to collaborations, including incidental music to theatre works INFINITY (by Hannah Moscovitch), No Strings attached (by Sunny Drake) and Loss (by Ian Kamau) and two productions at the Startford Festival, Canada.

In dance, he has created compositions for Aszure Batron (Nederlands Dans Theater, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago), Shawn Hounsell (Ballet BC) and for Anne Plamondon. He has been twice commissioned by the Hong Kong Arts Festival to compose music to their dance productions. Kong Kie was also the long-serving music director and pianist of La La La Human Steps and has produced four albums of soundtrack for their shows featuring works of David Lang and Gavin Bryars. Kong Kie music directed I Am William at the Stratford Festival in 2021.

Kong Kie has contributed music to a web video of the London International Festival of Theatre (LIFT), the web site of Margaret Atwood's novel Oryx and Crake, the soundtrack of Edouard Lock's film Amelia and the CBC documentary series China Rises. He has worked with Alejandro Alvarez for his award-winning short film Deep Sleep, the CBC short doc Untitled Portrait as well as the web series Off Kilter.

SELECT COMPOSITIONS

Opera and Music Theatre
-The Futures Market, an opera series (with Douglas Rodger)
-Original soundtrack to Cymbeline (Stratford Festival)
Music arrangement for the score of I Am William by Deraspe, Lacasse and Landry (Stratford Festival)
-I swallowed a moon made of iron, a song cycle to poems by Xu Lizhi
-Mr. Shi and His Lover, music theatre in Mandarin (Tarragon Theatre, National Arts Centre, Ottawa; Macau Cultural Centre; Thousand Cranes Festival, Estonia; Cervantino Festival, Mexico)
-Picnic in the Cemetery, a concert theatre (Macau Arts Festival, Canadian Stage, several tours to Asia and Europe)
-La Senorita Mundo, a chamber opera with libretto by Kico Gonzalez-Risso (SummerWorks Festival)
-knotty together, an opera with libretto by Anna Chatterton (SummerWorks Festival, Dublin International Gay Theatre Festival)
-Shattered Glass, a chamber opera, libretto by Douglas Rodger (Rhubarb Festival)
-INFINITY, suite for solo violin for a play by Hannah Moscovitch
-No strings attached, suite of solo piano for a play by Sunny Drake
-Obsequies, soundtrack to the solo theatre work Loss by Ian Kamau

-Untouched, soundtrack to a dance piece by Aszure Barton
-Les memes yeux que toi, soundtrack to a dance piece by Anne Plamondon
-Outspoken, soundtrack to a dance production for the HK Arts Festival
-MOP, soundtrack to a dance production by Macau artists
-RUSH, soundtrack to dance commissioned by the HK Arts Festival
-Playing Landscape, ink-water movement theatre, commissioned by Point View Art Association

Concert Music
-Amplify for string quartet
-The Year of the Cello for cello solo
-Voulez vous jouer avec moi? (a sonata for two pianos)
-Presque Berger for voice and piano (set to poem by Emile Nelligan)
-Agreement for two sopranos, bass, vibraphone, bass and piano
-Red Moon for piano, marimba and drum kit
-Nostalgia for horn and piano
-Picnic in the Cemetery, selection of music for violin, cello and piano

Acknowledgement:

Support for this artist has been provided by the Canada Arts Council, the Chalmers Family Fund and the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Province of Ontario, the Toronto Arts Council and the SOCAN Foundation.