Meet Our Adjudicators

Meet our distinguished panel of adjudicators for the Sandakan Rainforest Music Festival, a signature event for the 2026 Visit Malaysia Year.

 

 
Alton Wong

Malaysian-born pianist and educator Alton Wong is currently pursuing a DMA in Piano Performance at West Virginia University. As a graduate teaching assistant, he holds responsibilities that include teaching improvisational skills in one-to-one and group settings, contemporary keyboard skills, jazz history, and coaching jazz combos. Outside of academic duties, he performs as a solo artist, or with his group Kangkung Belacan. He recently released his debut album, “Taking Form,” that features all original compositions written in the styles of luminary jazz pianists he respects.

 

Alton is a 2023 winner in the Downbeat Student Music Awards for the graduate jazz soloist category and honorable mention in the 2024 Jazz Education Network Young Composers’ Showcase. He holds a double Master’s in Jazz Pedagogy and Piano Performance from West Virginia University.

Eddy Lim, A Malaysia born Saxophonist has make his name exposed in the music industry throughout the years. Whether international or national, he has perform actively in numerous events, clubs, and Festivals. A Few notable one are, Legend Festival 2015 in Birmingham UK, 2017 Australian Chinese Chamber of Commerce Inc. dinner in Perth Australia, 2019 Miri JAzz Festival, 2023 Huayi Festival in Singapore, 2023 Taipei Lantern Festival in Taipei Taiwan, Sheila Major Bigband Live in Singapore 2023, Hop by the Bay 2024 in FoShan China, and many more.

 

As an Active musician, he is actually man with many faces. Part of few bands and orchestra, you can check him out in JSY九十壹，The Frankie Sixes, and Julian Chan JAzz Orchestra. Sometimes he also session for artist like, The Shang Sisters, Tay Cher Siang, Celist Chow, to name a few. Apart from performing, He is also a passionate Saxophone Teacher/coach and he teaches in a few Universities and schools.

Grace Leong was born in Tawau, Sabah. Grace found her growing desire to pursue jazz seriously after performing Indie/Pop Rock music in hotels, on cruises, and other venues around Asia, including Macau, Singapore, and Thailand for five years. Despite her unconventional background, she applied for West Virginia University and to God’s grace, was given a full scholarship from WVU and awarded Graduate Assistantship at University of Iowa for her Masters in Jazz Studies. She won 1st runner up for WVU Keyboard Festival College Jazz Category and the WVU Young Artist Competition in 2013. As a recording artist, composer and leader, Leong’s released her debut CD “Moving Forward” in July 2015. She has been actively performing various genre in various places including the recent performance with Asia Beat at Borneo Jazz festival 2022

 

Grace’s jazz inspirations include Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Bobby Timmons, Fats Waller and more. As a musician, connecting with the audience and being able to make music that speaks to all people is a vital part of her musical philosophy. Not surprisingly, she savors every opportunity she has to educate and share her love for music, and the pedagogical exploration of jazz, pop and classical continues to be one of the highlights of her music career.

Born in Taiwan, I-Hsuan started her musical journey at the age of 6. After graduating from the University of Taipei under the tutelage of Professor Pei-Chun Liao, I-Hsuan pursued her music education at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire with Professors Julian Jacobson and Philip Martin. She has completed her Master’s Degree in Music with distinction and Conservatoire’s flagship Advanced Postgraduate Diploma in professional piano performance.

I-Hsuan has also participated in many competitions, and successes include first prize in Taiwan Music Competition in Hsinchu (2009), top awards in the National Student Music Competition in Taiwan, as a finalist in Donohoe Gold Medal from UK(2017), and Regional winner of Osaka International Music Competition in Kuala Lumpur(2018).

I-Hsuan is now settled down in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and is one of faculty in Bentley Music Academy and Malaysia Institute of Arts.

More than three decades since adopting Malaysia as her home, Junji Delfino is deeply ensconced in local jazz history. With an unbridled sense of class and sophistication, wit and humour, coupled with a generous helping of joie de vivre her live performances have left an indelible mark in the local entertainment scene, setting the bar upon which other local jazz performers measure up to.

 

Her live performance history includes stints at well-known hotels and jazz clubs as well as appearances at several jazz festivals, including the ASEAN Jazz Festival 2015 which she hosted and performed in. She has performed in many parts of Malaysia, Singapore and Bangkok and even as far as San Francisco and Daly City in California.

 

Some of these performances have not gone unnoticed earning her a few well-deserved awards, the icing to what some may consider a pretty illustrious career.

 

But while Junji Delfino has stamped her mark in the world of music, her acting talents have also been put to good use in a number of theatre, television and film productions, including the worldwide cinematic runaway hit Crazy Rich Asians. She also earned praise in pre-pandemic times at The OzAsia Festival in Adelaide in 2019.

 

Though she considers herself a late-bloomer on the acting front, the transition from songbird to thespian couldn’t have been a more natural progression. After all, for her, singing is storytelling set to music. And she has told a thousand stories by now.

 

The years have proven that there is no stopping Junji Delfino in her tracks. She is performing like never before and her star is shining ever so brightly.

 

Dr. Tham Horng Kent was one of the recipients of the Asia Yamaha Music Scholarship in 2007 and graduated from Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Glasgow with distinction in Master of Music (Performance) degree in 2011. In 2012-2016, he was awarded a full scholarship by the Malaysian Higher Education Ministry and Sultan Idris Education University at the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin, where he was graduated with a Doctor in Music Performance degree, under Dr. Denise Neary, Peter Tuite, and Prof. Hugh Tinney. In 2015, he has been chosen as an Erasmus Doctoral Student at the Sibelius Academy, Helsinki, Finland, in the classes of Prof. Margit Rahkonen and Prof. Lauri Suurpää. In 2016, he was invited by the European Academic Artists Association to give a piano recital in the Tallinn Town Hall, Estonia, and won the First Prize in the 26th Young Musician International Competition Citta di Barletta (Duo and Ensemble category) in Italy.

 

Academically, he was selected to present a paper in the Ninth Annual Postgraduate Conference of the Society for Musicology, UCSI University Piano Pedagogy Conference 2017, the Second Doctors in Music Performance festival conference at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, the Third Doctors in Music Performance festival conference at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, as well as the Performers (‘) Present International Artistic Research Symposium 2019 at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, National University of Singapore.

 

He was invited to be one of the juries of the 1st WPTA Finland International Piano Competition, 3rd ODIN International Youth Piano Festival in Estonia, Kingsburg International Piano Competition in China as well as Kota Kinabalu Music Festival in Malaysia. Most recently, he was honored to be one of the recipients of the Emerging Artist Incubation Funding Programme awarded by the Malaysian Cultural Economy Development Agency (CENDANA), in promoting Malaysian Contemporary Art Music.

 

Currently, he is a senior lecturer at the Faculty of Music and Performing Arts, Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris.

May Gavin, Commencing piano lessons with her mother at the age of five, May received a Licentiate Diploma of Music at thirteen. For fifteen years, May appeared with her mother, composer and pianist Val Gavin, in the 2-piano team Duo Gavin. Together they made numerous recordings and performed over 100 recitals. May also played the violin, playing professionally for dozens of shows in Melbourne. She still has a strong interest in music theatre, and enjoys coaching singers.

 

May has worked as an accompanist both here and overseas and has also been Music Director for many productions. She toured as the principal accompanist for The Three Chinese Tenors and also as the Music Director for the national tour of The Merry Widow. May and her husband, tenor Raymond Khong have performed extensively in Australia, and have released two recordings on the Move label. May and her brother,  internationally acclaimed tenor Julian Gavin have recently released a recording of music composed by her mother Val, on the Tall Poppies label to high critical praise, She currently works as a regular accompanist for the Melbourne Women’s Choir, who are currently preparing for their second European tour in September, and has released a recording with them My Song in the Night May has a busy performance schedule, both as an accompanist and soloist with local orchestras, most recently performing Gershwin’s Concerto in F, Carnival of the Animals and Rhapsody in Blue. She is a piano examiner both here and overseas, and is Head of Keyboard at Donvale Christian College, loving both the challenges and rewards of teaching.

 

May is married and has four noisy, artistic and extremely messy children. When she is not busy with family or music, she enjoys long bushwalks, accompanied by her enormous Great Dane, cooking, gardening and sewing.

Na Li, Deputy Director, Associate Professor, Master’s Supervisor of Harbin Normal University.Academic visitor of Walsh Royal College of Music,Member of the Committee of Young Singers of China, Director of Heilongjiang Branch of the Committee of Young Singers of China, Young Innovative Talents of Heilongjiang Province. She presided over one project of Social Sciences in Heilongjiang Province, two projects of Heilongjiang Education Department and Culture Department, and two projects of Heilongjiang Culture Department. Published a monograph and dozens of academic papers, including three CSCI, three national class B, four national class C. She has won many awards for outstanding scientific research projects in Heilongjiang Province, teaching quality awards in Harbin Normal University and excellent young people’s teaching awards in Ningqikun. Five successful solo concerts were held in China and UK. She has been invited to act as an English translator for many international master classes of vocal music.

Rita Liew, founder of Music Matters in Singapore, started this company in 2011 for greater support for music educators and collaborated with many respected musician-educators to provide practical training, valuable resources, and tools to help music teachers reaching across Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia, and New Zealand.

 

She is a trainer for Encore Music Education (Australia) in Singapore for the Kinder Beat Programme as well as Encore on Keys Programme. 

 

A music graduate from Singapore Bible College’s School of Church Music, Rita spent twelve years (1994-2006) in Thailand as a church planter with the Overseas Missionary Fellowship.  In 2006, she relocated to Singapore and grew her passion as a music educator to entrepreneur. 

South Korean Seho Lee is a pianist, piano accompanist, opera répétiteur and International Relations Representative at the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin, Ireland. Seho is also a Guest Professor at the Guizhou Normal University where he teaches Masterclasses, a Professor at the Beijing International Voice Masterclass Series (China). He is Chairman of Jury for the Kingsburg International Piano Competition and a member of jury the Kota Kinabalu International Music festival, Malaysia and High “C” International Singing Competition, China.  He is also Artistic Director of the Clontarf Coffee Concert Series, and ballet pianist for the Irish National Youth Ballet, both in Dublin, Ireland.


Born in South Korea, Seho studied piano (BMus, summa cum laude) at the Chugye University for the Arts, and opera coaching (Artistic Diploma, summa cum laude) at the Korea National University of Arts in Seoul. Among the numerous prizes he won were the President’s Prize and Creativity Awards for outstanding academic performance. In 2007 he joined the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (RCS) Keyboard and Collaborative Piano Department as a pianist Fellow while studying for a Masters in Piano Accompaniment, in addition Seho was also the first student in the UK to be awarded an MMus (Piano for Dance) as a ballet répétiteur (awarded with Distinction). He then obtained a Postgraduate Diploma in Repetiteurship where he also gained a Distinction. Seho was awarded the Piano Accompaniment Award for best accompanist from RCS. During this time he worked closely with the Scottish Ballet and the RCS Ballet School. He won all the Duo Competitions for singer and pianist plus several solo piano competitions while studying at the RCS and was honoured to perform as a representative student at the RCS Graduation Ceremony while also working as a guest accompanist at the Birmingham Royal Ballet, English National Ballet. 


From 2012 – 2014 Seho studied for a Masters in Opera Répétiteur at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama where he was also Fellow Pianist on the Steinway Piano Scholarship scheme. Based on outstanding performances, Seho has completed all of his studies on a full-scholarship basis.


Seho has won over 30 competitions including The Seoul Youth Competition in Korea, Osaka International Competition (Piano Duo) in Japan and the Alberta Conservatory Competition in Canada. In 2012 he won the Delius Prize and performed the Prize-winner Recital in Steinway Hall, London. In 2016 Seho won first prize at the Young Musicians international competition “Citta di Barletta”, Italy.


He has been invited to perform at internationally renowned festivals including the Edinburgh International Festival and the Fringe Festival and also the Oxford Lieder Festival. Seho has performed at St James’ Palace in London and Dora Stoutzker Hall, Cardiff in the presence of the British Royal Family, representing the RCS, in 2008 and at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in 2012.