Born in a pre-independence era on 21 August 1952 in Singapore, Phoon Yew Tien straddles with ease the divide between Western classical and Chinese orchestral traditions. His musical style—based largely on a Chinese idiom but inflected with contemporary tones—has earned him numerous commissions from the likes of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, the Hong Kong Philharmonic, and the Singapore Chinese Orchestra. Today, he is the nation’s most-recorded composer. A 1996 recipient of the Cultural Medallion, Phoon is also an active collaborator with artists from different art forms, who use his music as the backdrop to dance or theatrical productions. Phoon’s major works, many of which have been performed and recorded by orchestras around the world, include Han Shi (1983), which draws upon classical poetry for inspiration, and Variations on an Ancient Tune (2000), which fuses Eastern and Western musical vocabularies.

Growing up in the turbulent years of modern Singapore’s founding years, Phoon Yew Tien learnt music the hard way—by transcribing popular tunes by the likes of Zhou Xuan after hearing them on the radio. The first instrument the young Phoon picked up was the dizi (Chinese flute) while in school, but his ear for music meant that he was selected for the Singapore Chinese Youth Orchestra at age 19. Under the tutelage of the late respected musician Leong Yoon Pin, Phoon was introduced to Western classical music. Initially slated for a career as a professional flautist, Phoon realised his talent was in drawing from the inspirations of Chinese music, Malay folksongs, and other regional tunes rather than in perfecting breathwork. "The flute was a struggle for me. I realised there were so many things to learn and so many mistakes to correct," he said in an interview with Tutti magazine in 2012.

With this fortuitous twist of fate, Phoon soon became a prolific composer. His oeuvre of work, including Ping Diao (1984), Meditation of a Poet (1987), Memories of March (1985), Kaleidoscope (1992), Memories (2003), Ringtone Medley (2007), Chinese Music for All Seasons (2006) and many others are a vivid reflection of Singapore’s socio-cultural landscape, which in turn had inspired the works. In 2000, the Singapore Symphony Orchestra premiered his Variants on an Ancient Tune as one of a series of new works commissioned for the orchestra’s 20th anniversary. A joint presentation by the governments of China and Singapore also saw his solo work performed by the Beijing China Film Orchestra at the Beijing Concert Hall. In the same year, Phoon was asked to re-arrange Singapore’s national anthem.

More than just a lover of music, Phoon is a man devoted to cultural pursuits. He is a frequent collaborator on interdisciplinary projects. Transparent and spare, with judicious and masterful use of tone colour in his compositions, Phoon’s music is an evocative backdrop to works by dancers Lim Fei Shen, visual artist and poet Tan Swie Hian, dancer-playwright Goh Lay Kuan (Nu Wa) and playwright Kuo Pao Kun (Descendants of the Eunuch Admiral, The Evening Climb, Lao Jiu). In addition, Phoon has also written music for television, including the successful Mandarin drama series, Grandpa Meat Bone Tea.

On an international scale, Phoon’s works have been published and recorded extensively on different labels by the Russian Philharmonic, the Shanghai Philharmonic, the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, the Singapore Chinese Orchestra, the Taipei Municipal Chinese Orchestra and the Kaohsiung City Chinese Orchestra.

Phoon has lent his expertise as a committee member of the Advisory Council on Culture and the Arts for the National Arts Council. He also served as associate conductor of the Singapore Chinese Orchestra, and as Head of Music at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts.

The music master is also no stranger to accolades. As a young adult, he won the Distinguished Prize in the National Song Writing Competition for three consecutive years from 1977 to 1979. Later on, while on a Singapore Symphony Orchestra scholarship at the Queensland Conservatorium, Phoon received the Dulcie Robertson Prize in composition three times (in 1980, 1981 and 1983) for best composition. On his return to Singapore, he received the prestigious Yoshiro Irino Memorial Prize for Composition, awarded by the Asian Composers League, one of the highest awards to be given to a young Asian composer.

In 1996, 1997, 2001 and 2004, he received the top Local Serious Music Award by the Composers and Authors Society of Singapore. And in 1996, Phoon received the Cultural Medallion for his contributions to music.

Today, Phoon continues to compose, arrange and teach music privately.