Career Highlights
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.
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 was commissioned to compose Chai Mon-kon Kaa-Taa for choir and chamber orchestra for the project “Lan Bodhi: Temple in the Cloud” at Siam Paragon in 2012. He arranged music for the album Plum Blossom Vol. 2 (Plum Village Songs for the Practice of Mindfulness) in 2013. The piece Remoteness was selected and performed in Fürth, Germany as a part of the Thai Vision Ambassador Competition by Stefanie Waegner (cello) and Pavarati Mani (piano). 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).
