While still a pre-college student at the College of Music, Mahidol University, Attakorn Sookjaeng began studying composition with Daniel Eichenbaum and Brian Mills. After progressing to his undergraduate studies at the same university, he took both composition and orchestration courses from Atibhop Pataradetpisan and Valeriy Rizayev. He also had his private music theory lessons with Jiradej Setabundhu. Immediately after graduating with his Bachelor’s degree, Attakorn continued his graduate studies at Mahidol, studying composition with Julia Lake Bozone. He culminated his education with a Doctor of Arts degree from the University of Northern Colorado under the guidance of Paul Elwood. Currently, Attakorn Sookjaeng teaches music theory and composition at the College of Music, Mahidol University.

In addition to academic courses, Attakorn was a pianist for the Mahidol University Pop Orchestra (2008 – 2009). He was also a pianist for the musicals “The Tale of Anazia” (2009) and “In-Chan” (2010). In 2011, he composed and arranged the musical “Cleopatra.” As a clarinetist for the Mahidol Wind Symphony, Attakorn participated in the World Saxophone Congress XV (2009) in Thailand and the Gala Concert of Yamaha Australian National Band Championships (2010) in Hobart, Australia. Also as a clarinetist, he performed ‘The Art of Improvisation,’ coached by Ken Ueno in the Thailand International Composition Festival 2014.

Attakorn’s music has been performed internationally. The piece “Remoteness” was selected and performed in Fürth, Germany in 2014 as a part of the Thai Vision Ambassador Competition. He received the Grand Prize for the Young Thai Artist Award Competition 2014 by SCG Foundation for the piece “Bubbles of Time” and was awarded an opportunity to have a reading session for the same piece by Ensemble Mosaik (Germany) in 2015. During his doctoral studies in Colorado, his music was performed in several major events such as the 18th World Saxophone Congress 2018 (Croatia), the 2nd Asia Saxophone Congress 2019 (China), Open Space Music Festival 2018-2021 (USA), ClarinetFest® 2021 Virtual (USA), and North America Saxophone Alliance 2023 (USA).

• The program note was provided to Thai Wind Composers by the composer.