Soe Tjen Marching studied composition with Slamet Abdul Sjukur in Indonesia. In 1998, she won national competition for Indonesian Contemporary Composers held by the German Embassy and The association of Indonesian composers. Her compositions have been played in New Zealand, Europe, and Asia. Her work has been released on the CD Asia Piano Avantgarde - Indonesia, played by pianist Steffen Schleiermacher. In 2010, her work has been selected as one of the two best compositions on the International Competition for avant-garde composers held in Singapore.
Besides being a composer, Soe Tjen Marching is also an academic in social sciences and a creative writer. She completed her PhD in Asian studies at Monash University in Australia. Her book, The Discrepancy between the Public and the Private Selves of Indonesian Women was published by The Edwin Mellen Press (2007).
She has also won several creative writing competitions in Australia and has been published in Australia, America and United Kingdom. Her novel "Mati Bertahun yang lalu" is published in Indonesia in 2010.
Her compositions often use different dynamics (instead of pitches) to create polyphony.
