KUALA LUMPUR: Louisa Foong, who starts her music lesson at the age of four at the Yamaha Music School’s special course for gifted kids, has never stop fulfilling her dreams to be an established woman musician.
Turning aged 25 in August, the Kuala Lumpur born musician, not only has produced and directed her first music video “Revival” in December 2015, but two months later on February 29, 2016 managed to hold her first concert named after her music video at the Berklee College of Music, Boston, Massachusetts, United States.
Foong, a pianist, music producer, band leader, arranger, conductor and music engineer, said she is currently working on her first gospel single with the full arrangement of music written by her, featuring American singer-songwriter Tyesha Chaunte, and expected to be released soon.
She said enrolling herself for the Berklee Transfer Programme (BTP) at the International College of Music (ICOM) here in 2012, has exposed her to a lot to contemporary music.
“The contemporary side of learning is indeed very different from classical training and I could not deny that I struggled in the beginning,” she told Bernama.
“However, it was definitely essential in preparing me for my studies at Berklee College of Music in 2014,” she added.
Foong did not deny that studying in Berklee College had been difficult since she had to adapt to new environments, with tough assignments and strict datelines.
One of the tough challenges she faced was to prove that as a woman musician, she is capable of doing the same things like other male students, she said.
Her most memorable experience was doing the opening act for Richard Clayderman’s tour here in 2013, and singing with the Berklee Gospel Choir with Grammy Award winner Chris Tomlin at his “Love Ran Red” tour in Lowell, US in 2015.
She is also a keyboardist and arranger for her band “Starlight Astronauts” and they had featured an act at the 13th annual jazz festival in Shanghai, China last year.
“With my ability and experiences studying abroad, I wish to collaborate those ideas and skills with the knowledge I have of music back home and uplift the music industry and the sound that Malaysia already has now through arranging and production,” she added.
The KL born Foong hoped that there would be more women musicians in the music industry which will create a whole new level of innovation in the music industry. -- BERNAMA