Though still young, Thai composer Narong Prangcharoen has already established an international reputation as one of Thailand's leading composers.  In 2007 the Thai government named him a Contemporary National Artist and awarded him the Silapathorn Award, one of Thailand’s most prestigious honors.
Prangcharoen has received many prizes, including the Alexander Zemlinsky International Composition Competition Prize, the 18th ACL Yoshiro IRINO Memorial Composition Award, the Pacific Symphony’s American Composers Competition Prize, and the Toru Takemitsu Composition Award.  Most recently, he won the Annapolis Charter 300 International Composers Competition.

              Prangcharoen’s music has been performed in Asia, America, Australia, and Europe by many renowned ensembles such as the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Pacific Symphony, the Grant Park Orchestra, the Nagoya Philharmonic, the Melbourne Symphony, the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra, the Bohuslav Martinu Philharmonic, Ensemble TIMF, The New York New Music Ensemble, and the Imani Winds, under many well-known conductors such Carl St. Clair, Carlos Kalmer, Jose-Luis Novo,  Mikhail Pletnev, as as well as by pianist Bennett Lerner.  He has received commissions from the Pacific Symphony Orchestra, the CCM Concert Orchestra, the Annapolis Symphony, the Bangkok Symphony Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra of Thailand, The New York New Music Ensemble, TIMF Ensemble, the newEar Ensemble, cellist Madeleine Shapiro, and pianist Bennett Lerner.

              Prangcharoen’s composition, Sattha, for string orchestra and percussion, written in memory of the victims of the December 2004 tsunami, was premiered by the Pacific Symphony under Maestro Carl St. Clair in Orange County, California, on November 30, 2005, and was enthusiastically received by the audience.  This performance led to a performance by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra in Australia in 2007 and in the coming season the work will be performed in Germany (Berlin and Weimar).  Phenomenon, Prangcharoen’s best-known orchestral work received its second Japanese performance in August 2007 at the Asia: the 21st Century Orchestra Project and was performed by the Nagoya Philharmonic under the baton of the internationally-known Thai conductor Bundit Ungrangsee.  Phenomenon has been selected for performance at “Looking East”, part of the Grant Park Music Festival at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park, Chicago, making Mr. Prangcharoen the first Thai Composer to receive this Honor.

              Prangcharoen’s chamber music has been presented at many important music festivals, such as the MoMA Music Festival (Museum of Modern Art, New York City), Maverick Concerts: “Music in the Wood”
(the oldest continuous summer chamber music series in the USA), The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (New York City), Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall (New York City), and the Library of Congress (Washington DC).

              Mr. Prangcharoen began studying composition with Dr. Narongrit Dharmabutra in Thailand, and then received a full scholarship to continue his studies at Illinois State University, Normal, Illinois, USA, where he studied with Dr. Stephen Taylor and Dr. David Feurzeig.  He is currently is a full-scholarship doctoral student in composition at the University of Missouri in Kansas City, where his teachers include Dr. Chen Yi (Prangcharoen’s primary teacher), Dr. Zhou Long, Dr. James Mobberley and Dr. Paul Rudy

              Prangcharoen has taught in the Western Music Department of Srinakharinwirot University, Bangkok, Thailand, and was an Instructional Assistant Professor of Music in Composition at Illinois State University.
In addition to working as a freelance composer, he is currently teaching at the Community Music and Dance Academy of the Conservatory of Music, University of Missouri in Kansas City.  Prangcharoen is presently completing a recording project of his orchestra and wind symphony works, which will be released by Albany Records in 2008.  He is the founder of the Thailand Composition Festival in Bangkok, Thailand, now in its fourth year.