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In 1968 twenty string players and a choir led by Chye Pak Leong and Woon Wen Kim formed the Penang Symphony Society. By 1975 the group had developed into a good chamber ensemble and in 1977, when Pak Leong retired as musical director,  brass and woodwinds strengthened the orchestra. Called the Penang Philharmonic, the orchestra was renamed the Penang Symphony Orchestra in 1981. 

The musical family of maestro Woon Wen Kim, cellist Len Kim and basson player Fah Kim are the backbone of  orchestral activities.  The Orchestra gives young learners of musical instruments a chance to play in a group and to learn from other players. It has performed in Singapore, Australia, Thailand, Japan and Taiwan and accompained visiting musicians from  Russia, Germany, USA, England, Ausatralia, Switzerland, Austria, the Netherlands as well as Italy. Operetta presented by the Arts Council of Penang  would have been impossible without the Orchestra. Regular concerts are held to popularise classical music and tunes from the operettas. Pop songs are not disdained.. 

In 1999 the Society launched the Penang Wind Orchestra and in 2000 the Penang Junior Orchestra. Maestro Woon has been an indispensable director of the regular music camps held at RECSAM at Glugor

     The Penang Symphony Society is a non profit organisation aimed at encouraging the performance of music and is located at the Conservatory of Fine Arts at 46 Chow Thye Road
 
 

CREATOR

The little terrace house, sitting in the middle of a row of houses in untidy Jelutong, is just one of the many thousands of terrace houses in Penang. But it  houses the business of P K Foong, the maker of non toxic varnish. 

Called in the trade, Hydro based varnish, it is of the kind that the strict USA laws allow to be imported as health safe. It is useful for concrete floors that want to pose as wooden floors,  turning effiigies of  Kuan Yim into golden images, local wooden cups into walnut works, doors of plain wood into whatever grain you choose. What is remarkable about Mr Foong is that he is not a chemist but stumbled on the formula by sheer perseverance and hard work