Kuala Lumpur-born Edane Ng, however, chose an unusual route to further her studies.

When she was 17 years old, she decided that it was time to hone her musical craft at the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM) in the United Kingdom, despite some initial scepticism from her family.

In the course of her studies, however, Ng realised she was not satisfied with just becoming a classical pianist. It didn’t help that the pandemic threw a spanner in the works, leading her to start an online business called Neswin, where she sold stuffed animals.

This, along with an internship at a local radio station, was where the young pianist first picked up animation and video editing. It was then that she had an epiphany that she could combine her interests for a greater cause.

“I saw that combining classical music and animation could work, but I felt that I didn’t want to do it for fun. I want to have an important topic to talk about, so I came up with the idea of combining the two to raise awareness of social causes,” she told FMT Lifestyle.

Things picked up when she received funding from the Manchester International Festival, a big music festival in the UK.

“That was when I saw my own potential doing this because animation is extremely expensive, and it’s very difficult to do. It requires a lot of skills. I’m not good at it, but I just have this huge passion, and having that encouragement made me realise that I might just try this out.

“Later on, I decided I don’t want to limit myself to just doing this, I want to see other possibilities of how I can contribute to society,” said Ng, who turns 26 this November.

It appears that Ng’s gamble is paying off. This summer, she is set to embark on a UK tour and perform at the Edinburgh Fringe. This will be followed by shows in London and Poland in 2024.

So what does Ng talk about in her works?

“Healing Our Child Within” – which Ng will be touring – stems from the idea of childhood trauma.

In the concerts, Ng is joined by fellow RNCM graduate Roksana Dabkowska. Together, they tease out the vulnerability of real childhood trauma and transform them into compelling animated short films.

This is something reminiscent of the silent film era where a small live orchestra would often accompany films. “Healing Our Child Within” also sees collaboration with Malaysian comic artist Mokumentary.

“My current interests are child neglect, abuse of power, and the hierarchy of social class,” said the fiery Ng, who is currently based in Manchester.

Such topics are often hard to portray in art due to their heavy nature. And Ng has learnt how to cope emotionally with the subject matter thanks to the psychologists who were brought on board to help her review her project more rationally.

“In the beginning, it was very, very difficult because I think I’m more of an empathetic person and when you hear so many stories, you want to help,” she said.

When asked about her long-term ambitions, the multi-talented Ng spoke about The Daring Artists, a transnational art collective she started.

“In the long run, I want to be able to commission classical musicians to work on projects with me, especially Malaysian classical musicians because many are not given opportunities to perform outside of the orchestra and concert halls.

“I want to commission a team of animators and do socially engaged projects,” she said.

She said the goal was to tour with these projects so that the social causes were able to “reach different countries, and inspire action”.

She also hopes to work with more people outside of the arts industry to lend her projects a multi-disciplinary nature.

“I also have this dream of working with politicians in Malaysia to have a concert near the Parliament one day,” said Ng, who added that she wants to draw attention to the power of classical music as a means to talk about taboo topics.

Presently, Ng is working with Naked Productions and Malaysian composer Lee Chie Tsang on a project where she will live with Sabah’s indigenous folk and produce music inspired by the experience next year.

Inspired by the works of Hungarian composer and ethnomusicologist Bela Bartok, the project will be funded by the BBC Indie Development Fund.

To keep up to date on her adventures, follow Edane Ng on Facebook and Instagram.