For the past decade, Asia Culture Center (ACC) has organized various projects to preserve and discover Asian traditional music and raise awareness of it through operating the Asian traditional music community. This year, as part of the contemporary content development for Asian traditional music, ACC promotes the ATO's expanding repertoires by composing new pieces on the theme of peace, harmony, and living together.
 
The yearly-held workshops and performances for Asian traditional musicians were canceled due to the COVID-19 in 2020. ACC sought an alternative in the crisis of international exchange projects and for the directly affected artists. ACC promoted solidarity in the Asian traditional music community by conducting non-face-to-face workshops with traditional musicians as a new international exchange and cooperation method. Furthermore, ACC decided to release new repertoires to expand artistic competencies, and for this purpose, produced a non-face-to-face performance video. In a situation where 37 performers could not gather in one place, every musician contributed to a process of non-face-to-face workshops, recording sound sources, and filming videos. Finally, thanks to the video technology, ACC created a scene as if the performers were physically together on one stage.
 
Through this creative process, participants had an opportunity to think anew about international exchange, its direction, and the value of art in the post COVID-19 era. Also, we wish to deliver a message of comfort and hope to everyone and artists worldwide through this online presentation of the ATO.

Sam-Ang Sam, Khmer composer, studied composition at the University of the Philippines (UP) under the tutelage of Dr. Eliseo Pajaro and Dr. Ramon Santos. He also studied, at UP, music arrangement under Prof. Lucio San Pedro, conducting under Prof. Rey Paguio, and ethnomusicology under Dr. Jose Maceda.
After UP, Sam-Ang Sam continued his composition study at Connecticut College, USA under Dr. Chinary Ung and Dr. Noel Zahler, where he received a B.A. (1983) and M.A. (1985) in Music Composition. Dr. Sam received a Ph.D. (1988) in Ethnomusicology from Wesleyan University, USA.
Dr. Sam-Ang Sam has taught music theory and composition at Cornish College for the Arts, USA and Royal University of Fine Arts, Cambodia.
His compositions have been performed in the Philippines, USA, Korea, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia. Among his orchestral works are Rêverie, Kansaeng Kraham, One Asia, Eternity, and Raven.

Piao Wei Zhe, a composer of Asia of Light, obtained his B.A. degree in arts and literature from Yanbian University in China. He worked as a full-time professor at the same university, where he was actively working on various compositions while based in China.
In 2002, he obtained his Ph.D. degree in Korean Music at the Graduate School of Pusan National University. Since then, he has been fostering students in universities in Korea and other educational institutions.
Park participated in establishing the ATO in 2009 (formerly the Korea-ASEAN Traditional Orchestra) as an arranger who also did the musical instrument's composition. Later he continued to work as an arranger for the ATO.
With the in-depth knowledge of Asian traditional instruments, Park composed 'Asia of Light' to commemorate the 5th anniversary of ACC this year.

He commenced his career in 1993 as the Malaysian representative at the Malaysian Jazz Festival and also in the ASEAN Symphony Band in Bangkok the following year. Since then, Yazid has served as a music director in numerous productions including the award-winning musical theatre Puteri Gunung Ledang (1999), Lambang Sari dan Malim Deman (2000), Hanuman (2001), Mahsuri (2003) and Semerah Padi (2008). His theatre production Indraputra won him the Cameronian Arts Award for Best Original Composition in 2002.

Based on his experience as an artistic director and a conductor such as Hallyu Arts Festival, Silk Road IRAN-KOREA Cultural Festival in 2017, and Gyeongju International Music Festival in 2018, he has led the Asian traditional music community by suggesting various directions for traditional music.