Charlie Zhong is an award-winning composer based in Boston, Massachusetts. His music explores themes of memory, transformation, and balance. From the alteration of an individual's perception by different perspectives of viewing an object, to the balancing of conflicting memories. He is also fascinated in the capture of attention (or lack of attention), through the fragmentations of melodies and gestures, or through the embellishment and distortion of memory. Charlie’s music seeks to explore complex topics in a way that is accessible to audiences, yet also pushes the boundaries of unconventional sounds and techniques.

Charlie was a winner of the 2023 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards; a winner of the 2021 National Young Composers Challenge, which included a world premiere by the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra in 2022; the winner of the 2023 DeKalb Symphony Orchestra Young Composers Competition, along with a commissioning of a new work to be premiered at the 2023-24 DeKalb Symphony Orchestra season; 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). He has also been awarded the ASCAP Foundation Irving Berlin Summer Music Camp Scholarship (2022).

Charlie has studied with Tak Cheung Hui, David Hodgkins, Julien Siino, and Marco Flores-Villanueva. His works find inspiration from composers like Lei Liang, Alfred Schnittke, Kaija Saariaho, and Tōru Takemitsu. Some of Charlie's influences can also be found in the songs and writings of Paul Simon.

Charlie spends his summers studying music at The Walden School, and is currently a student at the Commonwealth School in Boston.