Chia Cheng Kok

Chia Cheng Kok is currently working as a percussionist/ timpanist in the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) based in Istana Budaya, Malaysia. He is also music educator of various school and university orchestras.

Chia started to play percussion instruments at the age of seven. He credited his skills as a percussionist under the guidance of the former Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra (MPO) principal timpanist Mr. Paul Philbert. He participated in master classes of various percussion artists such as Mr. David Herbert (Principal Timpani of Chicago Symphony Orchestra) and Mr. Robert Van Sice (Adams Marimba Education Artist). Chia is experienced in music notation and theory, with good playing skills in orchestra music on timpani, mallet percussion, Latin percussion, modern percussion etc.

As an active percussionist, Chia has either performed or conducted in numerous concerts, music festivals and commercial video shooting such as the Japan International Music Festival (Tokyo), Japan Shizuoka Symphonic Band Music festival, Spain (Castelon) International Music Festival Jiayi City International Music Festival (Taiwan), Klang Music Festival Malaysia, Musical of Beauty and The Beast, Halloween Hantu Ball and Warna Warni Award Astro. He also played ensemble music, chamber music, musicals and opera theatre with Asian China Youth Symphony Orchestra at Cambodia (Angkor Wat), Malaysia Philharmonic Orchestra (MPO), PJ Youth Symphony Band, KLpac Symphony Band and other orchestras/bands.

Chia founded the very first percussion ensemble in Malaysia, Percussion Ensemble of National Symphony Orchestra (PENSO) with the support of the National Symphony Orchestra, Malaysia and J.S. Music in 2013. PENSO comprises of eleven members who are mostly teachers and university students.

In year 2015, PENSO had won the champion in Winter Guard International (WGI) in International Open Categories and National Open Categories in Malaysia with the collaboration with the well-knowed drumline Batteryheadz. Besides that, PENSO also had a collaboration concert with well-known percussion ensemble from Singapore, the Singapore Wind Symphony Percussion Ensemble (SWSPE)