Ho Chee Kin was born in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and has been playing chromatic harmonica since the age of 14. At the age of 20, he possessed an impressive list of musical prizes and concert appearances. He has established himself as one of the leading harmonica players of his generation, and long had a reputation of astonishing his audiences with the musical authority and blistering virtuosity. Chee Kin has been long in demand internationally, appearing regularly as a concerto soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician at many of the world’s major musical venues and festivals.
He is an award winner for numerous competitions including the 2000 International Harmonica Competition in the Bournemouth, UK. Most notably he was awarded the First Prize in solo and trio at the International Harmonica Competition and he also awarded as an Overall Champion for the New Millennium player at the young age of 20. In 2009, he was awarded Champion in Trio at World Harmonica Festival which was held in Germany (Trossingen). In 2002, he was awarded gold medal in small ensemble at the 4th Asia Pacific Harmonica Competition and Festival in Japan (Atsugi). At the Malaysia Book of Record, he received the “First to Represent Malaysia in International Harmonica Competition” as well as “Longest Harmonica performance, playing non-stop for 24 hours”.
Ho Chee Kin was named as the Asian Rising Power Star by the Hong Kong Harmonica Association for 2004 and since then, he has performed a recital tour which included Hong Kong Cultural Centre, Yuen Long Theatre Auditorium and Hang Zhou Theatre (China). Mr. Ho has also performed in numerous concerts spanned across Asia, namely Taiwan, Japan and South Korea. Mr. Ho is often invited by local radio stations for interviews. Besides that, Mr. Ho gets invitation by TV medias for live performance, e.g. The Phoenix Media 30th anniversary celebration, TV1 Hujung Minggu Malaysia and Astro.
In July 2007 he published his first CD album “Owen Harmonica” and was sold out within 3 months, it is presented to the best harmonica recordings of the year. At the same time, he has developed a series of chromatic harmonica syllabus from grade 1 to Bachelor degree. This is the first syllabus for chromatic harmonica in the world.
In 2010 and 2012, Singapore & Malaysia Harmonica association invited him as a guess performer as well as judges for Chromatic harmonica, diatonic, and harmonica ensemble. In 2012 the 9th Asia pacific harmonica festival, Mr. Ho was invited to compose a Chromatic harmonica test piece for Chromatic elite category. Mr. Ho has compose an extraordinary composition and created a new technique which need harmonica player to have fantastic technique to handle it. The technique need player to hold a minim note together to play a staccato note below the minim. Mr Ho has make a premier perform on the harmonica master concert right after the competition end.
In 2015, Mr. Ho was invited to perform at the Classical Excursion for Franck Sonata, the piece is original written for Violin, but Mr. Ho has taken the challenge to overcome all the violin technique and perform the whole Sonata in that night. It was a great hit at that night and all the audience are surprise that a Chromatic Harmonica can do so well on a Franck Sonata.
In 2016 January 29th and 30th, Mr. Ho was invited by Hong Kong Pan Asia Orchestra to do two live performance at Sha Tin Town Hall and Yuen Long Theatre. The conductor for this concert was Mr Fan Tao, who is a great master of conductor in Beijing. Mr. Ho has chosen his favorite harmonica piece written by Michael Spivaskosky & Robert Farnon; Harmonica concerto & Prelude & Dance. Mr. Ho ended the performance with his own composition Love of Hope. This is the first composition that he wrote during his studies in UCSI University.
Institute of Music, UCSI University 