About

Kengchakaj (Gheng/chAH /kad)

Kengchakaj is a Bangkok-born, New York-based award-winning pianist, improviser, synthesist, and one-half of elekhlekha อีเหละเขละขละ, an artist collective with interdisciplinary media artist, Nitcha Tothong. His practice engages with organizing, synthesizing, and improvising sounds drawn from personal experience influenced by political complexities, ancestral soundscapes, and modes of collaboration and expression rooted in Southeast Asian tradition and lineage. His medium of expression spans acoustic piano, electronics, Southeast Asian tuned analog synthesizer, multichannel spatial audio, instrument making, and live coding—a practice of writing and executing code in real-time—utilizing technologies to produce a multisensory live performance.

Kengchakaj is a Manhattan School of Music (MM) graduate, a Fulbright Scholarship recipient, and a Gold Award Lumen Prize winner. He is a Jerome Hill Artist Fellow, Lincoln Center Collider Fellow, and a Y11 NEW INC member. His projects have received development funds and support from the Jerome Foundation, the Lincoln Center, NEW INC, Queens Council on the Arts, City Artist Corps, Rhizome, Processing Foundation, CultureHub, Babycastles, Eyebeam, and Institute for Electronic Arts.Besides the Lumen Prize, Kengchakaj has won numerous awards, including Best Soloist from Thailand International Jazz Conference(2013), First Prize awards in the Ensemble(2013) and Individual Performance(2011) from Thailand Jazz Competition, Honorable Mentions NYC Jazz Records Best of 2019 New Releases.

-> CV