Danielle Ong

Being a strong advocate for the arts, Danielle aims to foster unique, personal experiences that cross the boundaries of music and culture. Her personal musical voice carries strong influences from her Eastern heritage and culture fused with her Western training and experience, aiming to foster unique, personal and cross-cultural experiences with others. Her interest in diversifying her musical experiences has led her to further explore music in the realm of classical and jazz genres, forming an artistic vision and identity that is versatile and multi-faceted in nature.

Danielle is currently pursuing her Masters in Music at the University of Northern Colorado (UNC) as a Graduate Assistant/Teaching Assistant under the tutelage of Dr. Andrew Dahlke. She is also a graduate from the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA)/Royal College of Music (RCM) with a Bachelor of Music (NAFA) under the tutelage of Dr Leslie Wong Kah Ho. In recognition of her efforts, Danielle was a recipient of the Royal College of Music (RCM) Excellence Award, overall winner for the Woodwind category for the NAFA Concerto Competition 2020, 2021 Sugree Charoensook International Music Competition (Senior Class: 2nd Prize), 2021 Medici International Music Competition (Master Category: Special Mention) as well as the 1st place winner in the 2023 UNC Southard Music Competition. At UNC, she is a recipient of the Brian Bayman Scholarship and the Graduate Dean’s Scholarship Award for her notable track record in her academics and performances.

As an active soloist and chamber musician, she has taken masterclasses from various artists such as saxophonists Chien-Kwan Lin, Mario Marzi, Jonathan Rautiola, and from saxophone chamber groups such as the renowned h2 quartet. Not limited to only woodwind chamber groups and orchestras, her experience performing with string orchestras include the Orchestra of Music Makers (OMM) and The Philharmonic Orchestra (TPO) in Singapore, as well as the Fort Collins Symphony (FCS) and Greeley Philharmonic Orchestra (GPO) in the United States. She is also currently part of the UNC Compass Jazz Orchestra that performed in New Orleans at the 2024 Jazz Education Network (JEN) conference with the Count Basie Orchestra vocalist, Carmen Bradford, and at the UNC Greeley Jazz Festival 2024 with featured vocal artists Michael Mayo, Trist Curless, Genevieve Artadi – as well as opening for the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra. More recently, the Compass Jazz Orchestra has recorded an album of original big band music for composer/arranger Paul McKee in May 2024.

She is also a member of the New Meta Quartet and the Singapore-based Protégé Saxophone Ensemble. Highlights include their concert and workshop Sax 101 in 2018 with the Asia premiere of Steven Bryant’s ‘Redline’ for saxophone ensemble, and their annual Protégé in Concert series in 2019, with the world-premiere of Singaporean composer Joan Tan’s Wildflower. She has also represented these groups internationally at Soochow University, Shanghai Conservatory of Music, Beijing Central Conservatory Preparatory School, British International School of Kuala Lumpur to name a few. More notably, her recent travels have taken her to the World Saxophone Congress XVIII 2018 in Zagreb, Croatia where she had the honour of representing Singapore as a quartet and premiering Singaporean compositions by Dr Zechariah Goh, Dr Emily Koh, Jeremiah Li, Chung Ee Yong and Gu Wei. Under the New Meta Quartet, she has jointly organised and participated in a global saxophone consortium, commissioning the piece Oriri ex Cinere by prolific local composer Dr Zechariah Goh Toh Chai in July 2022. More recently, she presented an all-Singaporean programme of saxophone quartet music at the 2024 National American Saxophone Alliance (NASA) conference, representing UNC and promoting Singaporean works abroad.

With her strong belief in the importance of music education and engaging local communities, she has volunteered and tutored at high school band clinics in Denver, Loveland and Colorado Springs in the state of Colorado. Her teaching experience extends to private students, high school/college bands, private music schools as well as undergraduate students at UNC, where she gives individual lessons, quartet coaching and facilitates studio classes/clinics as part of her teaching assistantship responsibilities. 

Danielle has extensive experience as an administrative staff member and joint organizer of the Asia Pacific Saxophone Academy (APSA) since 2017 and works in music administration and facilitation for this camp. This includes the organisation and participation of lessons, competitions, concerts, masterclasses and recitals – working with faculty, staff and students from all over the world. Recent editions of the APSA summer camp hosted over 150 international students and faculty, including the likes of notable saxophonists such as Nobuya Sugawa, Jean-Yves Fourmeau and Taimur Sullivan, where she has also taken masterclasses with Asagi Ito, Pieter Pellens, Stacy Wilson, Xavier Larsson, Jeffrey Loeffert, Jonathan Nichol to name a few – as well as performed in ensembles under artists such as Toshikazu Nagase.