Chong Lim
Chong Voon Lim (born 1958 in Ipoh, Malaysia) is a Malaysian-born Australian-based musical director, keyboardist, producer, and session musician. Lim attended St. Michael's Institution for secondary education. He relocated to Melbourne, Australia in 1977, where he attended Geelong College, and then completed a mechanical engineering course at the University of Melbourne from 1978 to 1981. Lim has toured with Jermaine Jackson and John Farnham, after Farnham's long-time collaborator David Hirschfelder left to concentrate on film scores. He has toured and been music director and producer for Olivia Newton-John since 1998 and is patron of the Olivia Newton-John Foundation. Lim is a consultant for the musical instrument company Roland Corporation, producer of an album for Tommy Emmanuel and wrote music for the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, was musical director and composer for the closing ceremony of the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games. He was also musical director for the stage version of Dirty Dancing, Don't Forget Your Toothbrush and Kylie Minogue's Intimate and Live Tour. In the 2018 Queen's Birthday Honours Lim was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for "significant service to the performing arts as a musician, composer, producer and musical director, and to the community". Career 2000 Sydney Olympics Lim composed several pieces of work for both the 2000 Summer Olympics opening ceremony and the 2000 Summer Olympics closing ceremony. He composed "Nature", an opening ceremony piece, as well as "Journey of Angels", which was played during the placing of the flags. Lim also produced two works for the Opening Ceremony including "Heroes Live Forever", as well as "Dare to Dream", which was sung by Olivia Newton-John and long-time colleague and friend John Farnham. The closing ceremony also included production by Lim, such as "Under the Southern Skies", which was performed by Nikki Webster. He also produced "We'll Be One", the theme song of the Olympics, as well as arranging "Dancing Queen" sung by Kylie Minogue at the Closing Ceremony. All of Lim's original scores of his compositions can now be found in the National Archives of Australia in Canberra. Ceremonies Lim was the musical director of the closing ceremony for the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester and also directed and composed "Don't Dream It's Over" sung by Sarah Blasko and Paul Kelly at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne. Lim also composed segments of the opening ceremony of the 2006 Asian Games in Doha. From 2010 and the six years following, Lim was the musical director for the Melbourne Cup Opening Ceremonies, and was the musical director of the 2015 AFC Asian Cup in Melbourne. Lim also continued these successes globally, where was an arranger for the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. More recently, Lim has worked on National Sporting Event entertainment such as musically directing the 2020 AFL Grand Final and 2021 AFL Grand Final half time show, in which he also arranged for and conducted the Queensland Symphony Orchestra in 2020. Lim was also the musical director for the 2020-21 Big Bash