Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Charlie Zhong. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Charlie, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

“Angels Under the Moonbeam” is my first album. It was written, recorded, and produced by myself and released on May 13, 2025. It has 8 tracks and runs about 35 minutes.

I started working on “Angels Under the Moonbeam” in December 2024, though a songwriting project like this had been on my mind for a few years already. Before the album, my work was on concert music: my most recent work was an orchestral composition titled “Stilling Memory,” a commission from the Atlanta-based DeKalb Symphony Orchestra, who premiered the work in May of 2024.

This album was my first big work as a producer, and a huge part of the process was finding my way with this new role. Most of the song-writing process took place first, during the months of December through February, and the songs were heavily influenced by 80s and 90s acts such as the Pet Shop Boys and David Bowie. Throughout March and April was the recording, producing, and mastering process. The album features a myriad of guest performers, including Acadia Kunkel on violin, Tomi Nishioka on Viola, Andrew Carter on double bass, Anoushka Menon on voice, and Peter Dowd on electric guitar. String arrangements are done by myself.

You can stream ‘Angels Under the Moonbeam’ on all major platforms such as Spotify, Apple Music, and Bandcamp.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am a composer and songwriter based in Boston, Massachusetts. My concert music juxtaposes the physical and material world with the less tangible, internal feelings or emotions; often taking my ideas from a non-musical source, I seek to deliver my concepts to an audience in a way that is both inviting and captivating to the listener. In addition to concert music, my self-produced first album, Angels Under the Moonbeam was released in May 2025. The album features 8 tracks of fully original songs.

I was a winner of the 2023 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards; the 1st place winner of the 2023 American Prize in Composition (high school orchestra division); the inaugural winner of the DeKalb Symphony Orchestra Young Composers Competition, which led to the commissioning and premiere of “Stilling Memory” by the DeKalb Symphony Orchestra during their 2023-24 season; a winner of the 2021 National Young Composers Challenge, which included the world premiere of “Like a Single Star in the Night Sky” by the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra in 2022; an Honorable Mention in the 2023 BMI Composer Awards; and the 1st place winner of the Metropolitan Youth Orchestra of New York’s Emerging Composers Competition (2022-23). I have also been awarded the ASCAP Foundation Irving Berlin Summer Music Camp Scholarship (2022).

I have studied privately with Tak Cheung Hui, David Hodgkins, Julien Siino, and Marco Flores-Villanueva. My work often finds inspiration from composers like David Lang, Lei Liang, Kaija Saariaho, and Eric Wubbels, as well as songwriters like Paul Simon, David Bowie, and Elton John.

Currently, I am an undergraduate student at Yale University, and have spent my summers studying music at The Walden School, Boston University Tanglewood Institute (BUTI), and the Longy School of Music.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The feedback you get from different kinds of listeners and audiences; finding out what people admire (perhaps more universally) about your work, what people find difficult, and what creates conflict. That reciprocal relationship between the artist and the audience is at the core of my work as an artist.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

Perfecting something. When I started, I wanted to do everything in a composition and make everything perfect. I am a perfectionist by nature. I used to get so wrapped up in perfecting the details that I’d lose not only the bigger picture, but also overwhelm the audience. Now, my approach has shifted to finding what expresses my ideas most effectively and most efficiently. Which often isn’t the “perfect” way.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.charliezhong.com/
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/charliezhong.music
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@charliezhongmusic
• Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/charliezhong

Image Credits

Dylan Sherry