Cherly Susanti
  • Blog

    19th Fukushima Vocal Ensemble Competition 2026

    Early in 2025, me and Katya decided to ask two friends of ours, Chichi 李駿琪 and Felix 游博能 if they are interested and singing together with us. They agreed, and on 17 January 2025, we made a LINE group named “Sing4Fun” as our main goal is to have fun. We later made an instagram account, thinking we probably want to be a little bit more serious, and later changed our group name to Tala Vocal Ensemble.

    We recorded some videos of us singing some classical choral pieces. Later on, I got a crazy idea to join a competition, and thinking we might need to recruit another bass. I asked Felix if there’s a chance Ken 許啟群, a friend of ours (me and Katya met him in APYC 2019 while he and Felix already known each other for a long time), and he said we can try. Alas, Ken agreed! Now a group of five, we found some songs, rehearsed for several times, and then send our recordings to the committee of the 19th Fukushima Vocal Ensemble Competition 2026 as a part of preliminary registration process. With nothing to lose, we were really surprised that we got accepted! Long story short, on March 2026, we finally really made it to Fukushima as the only overseas group!

    Fukushima was our very first stage, our very first competition. We were so honored to be awarded with:

    • Gold Diploma
    • One of the Finalists for the Grand Championship
    • Special jury award: Avip Priatna Award
    Photo by Seiya Hayakawa

    A bunch of happiness and love, a wonderful beginning, and hopefully a long-lasting friendship. Thank you for giving me the chance to sing with you all on our very first stage, our very first competition; and thank you, dear friends, for premiering my work at the Grand Championship! Also I am so happy to meet old and new friends, Masae and EnsembleM Nagano! Thank you so much for being such a wonderful and supportive friend.

    Thank you Kak Avip for your tremendous support and your profound belief in our music. Your words have touched us deeply and inspired us to keep growing not only to become better musicians, but, as you so beautifully reminded us, to become better human beings.

    Thank you Kentaro Sato for writing such a beautiful song, 「前へ」 Mae-e, so that people like us may share its beautiful message with everyone. We are so honoured to have been able to sing this on the stage of Fukushima, and it truly moved me, I had to hold back my tears the whole time we were singing. I knew the song was written to commemorate the earthquake disaster in Japan in 2011, but only after we finished singing did I realise that it was also the very same disaster that struck Fukushima which made the song even more meaningful. Now it has a special place in my heart.

    Looking forward to many more songs to sing with Tala!

    希望我們可以一起唱歌，每天無論開心還是難過，還是能夠一步一步往前走。

    Anyway, we’re ‘upgrading’ to a group of six now! Very happy to have my best friend, Danivu 莊小以 joining us for our future performances. Yeay! Danivu is a wonderful musician I know from Taipei Chamber Singers, and I believe her presence in Tala will help us to grow even better.

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  • Blog

    Ibu Pertiwi

    Recent news from my homeland was absolutely devastating and heartbreaking for me. Keep on singing this tune for a while, and decided to make an arrangement out of it to cope with my sadness.

    Free to download and use, I don’t care about the copyright or whatsoever, just use it if you want.

    2025-08-29 Ibu PertiwiDownload
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  • Blog

    2nd International Competition for Young Choir Conductors – Preveza 2025

    Never have I ever thought that I will join a conducting competition. Since I would be 35 in 2025, and that’s the age limit to register to this competition, my friends supported me and said I should give it a try. I did. And voila, I got accepted!

    I knew immediately that I am not going to win the competition since I was the only participant with no formal education background in conducting, but I don’t care since I believe it will be a wonderful opportunity to learn from great people. I am so grateful that I was given the chance to participate in this event! I learned a lot from my peers and made some good friends too.

    And Preveza, I fell in love with you! Such a beautiful city, delicious food, and most importantly, lovely people! I might return to this city someday. This two photos were taken from my room at Preveza City Comfort Hotel. Beautiful sunset at 9PM everyday…and I just love the birds that chirp every morning around my hotel room’s balcony!

    Enjoying the incredible views, delicious food, and the wonderful atmosphere of this beautiful place.

    The most amazing thing is, I am super lucky to have the opportunity to be part of this competition—which to me felt more like an educational event than a real competition—and grateful to made some new wonderful friends.

    Here are some photos of the city and the event, with some photos of my quick trip to Athens:

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  • Blog

    Sing for Love 音為愛 2025

    Last year, I decided to join a choral composition competition in Taiwan called 音為愛 Sing for Love. It is a biennial competition that emphasizes the importance of choral music in Taiwan through new freshly written love-themed music, and for the first time since its first batch, is no longer exclusive for Taiwanese only. A huge challenge for me though, is one of the rules: it must be written in either Mandarin, Taiwanese Minnan, Hakka, or Taiwan Aboriginal language(s).

    There were some categories, so I wrote two songs–one for mixed choir category and the other for children choir category–and to my surprise I was awarded with high distinction (特優) –in other words, the first place–for my work for children choir, 《又是美好的一天》 (Another Beautiful Day). That was my first attempt to write a Mandarin song, and with my limited skills in Mandarin and a help from a good friend of mine, Danivu, I was so excited to hear it being premiered!

    On 15 March 2025, a concert for the winning works was held in Zhongshan Hall, Taipei. I took part as one of the singers in Taipei Chamber Singers. All I can say is I was so happy to hear my works wonderfully performed by Hua Hsin Children Chorus! A bonus, one of my arrangements was performed by 3521 Rotary Choir, and some friends told me how they enjoyed both songs. I’m grateful that I am so blessed!

    Some articles about the event: Musico | ET Today | CNA

    PS. I’ll update with the video once it is on air.

    • HuaHsin Children Chorus
    • Taipei Chamber Singers
    • With Koh Tuan-Hoe, conductor of Hua Hsin Children Chorus
    • With Chia-Fen Weng, guest conductor of TCS
    Most photos by Dada Image

    UPDATE: Here’s the video of its premiere performance.

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  • Blog

    The 18th Taiwan Outstanding Women in Science Awarding Ceremony 第18屆「台灣傑出女科學家獎」

    Taipei Chamber Singers was invited to perform in the 18th Taiwan Outstanding Women in Science Awarding Ceremony 第18屆「台灣傑出女科學家獎」 and it was a wonderful experience to see the outstanding awardees and their wonderful projects. We did another one last year, performing a medley of Mo Li Hua and Diu Diu Dang A 茉莉花/丟丟銅仔, which I arranged for SSAATBarB specially for this event. Sadly, it was not recorded, so there has to be another next time to perform the piece.

    This year, the organizer requested us to sing not in a mixed ensemble format but all female, and this year I was again privileged to perform and arrange another medley of Yue Qin and Mei Gui Mei Gui Wo Ai Ni 月琴/玫瑰玫瑰我愛你, and this time it was recorded! I do hope we will have another chance to perform this piece, it was so much fun!

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  • Blog

    Yun-Chen Chang Graduation Recital

    Ever since I was still studying in NTNU, I always see Yun-Chen as a super smart and talented composer. Never thought that I would be honoured to be part of of her composition recital. Thank you for including me on your wonderful project, it was such a pleasure to conduct your ethereal works! Also thank you for all the singers who have worked hard to prepare the music despite all of limitations (especially time) we encountered. Thank you for giving your best efforts in our performance.

    Congratulations on your successful concert, Yun-Chen Chang! It was one of the best graduation concerts I’ve ever had chance to experience!

    Check out the videos below!

    《八隻灰蟬輪唱其中一隻只是回聲》 “8 cicadas” for vocal octet
    《吸石》 “Magnets” for four-part mixed choir
    Photos and videos captured by Yu-Chung Chen

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  • Blog

    Taiwan National Competition of Folksong for Teachers and Students 2024

    My first time conducting choir in a competition here in Taiwan!

    Sometime around mid-end 2023, a friend of mine, Pallas, suddenly offered me to conduct their teacher’s choir for a competition, which I immediately agreed on despite of knowing nothing (not even the name of the choir!). I was then informed that the choir consists of music teachers around New Taipei City area, practicing in Houde Elementary School (厚德國小) every Wednesday afternoon to join the competition which I later found out is the National Competition of Folksong for Teachers and Students (全國師生鄉土歌謠比賽).

    The choir’s full name is 新北市聲懷絕技教師專業學習社群, but they represents Houde Elementary School for the competition. We competed in two categories: Taiwanese music and Southeast Asian music, and by the time I was appointed, they have already agreed with the repertoires for both categories in which they chose to sing my arrangement of Sarinande and Sik Sik Sibatumanikam for the Southeast Asian music category.

    We ended up awarded with High Distinction for both categories! Yeay! Kudos to all the teachers that practice so hard for this competition. They even managed to dance and sing Indonesian folksong very well, so touching!

    Beside conducting the choir, I found many choirs chose Indonesian folksongs, some of them performed my choral arrangements; O Ina Ni Keke was performed beautifully by Jinhua Elementary School (台北市金華國小) and Miaoli Jianguo Elementary School (苗栗縣建國國小) sung two commissioned works of mine, Anging Mamiri and Ampar-Ampar Pisang, and some other schools too! So happy to hear these familiar songs performed in Taiwan.

    It was a great experience for me. You can find an article about it here (it’s in Chinese).

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  • Blog

    You Are My Sunshine


    A tune that brainwashed me since Sunday after rehearsal, thus I made this short arrangement. Applied some unconventional vocal lines I love since it is fun to get some spicy chords, isn’t it?

    You are my sunshine,
    my only sunshine
    You make me happy
    when skies are gray
    You'll never know, dear,
    how much I love you
    Please don't take my sunshine away…

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