Music LIFE!

Music LIFE!
THURSDAY, JUNE 11, 2015
C9
2000s: Then and now
Musicians who lead
in the classical scene
Paige Lim
Over the years, many Singaporean classical
musicians who studied abroad have remained overseas to pursue their careers.
Renowned violinist Chan Yoong-Han and
pianist Lim Yan are among the rare few who have
returned here to develop their careers.
And over the past 10 or more years, the pair
have made waves in the local classical music scene.
Besides being members of popular piano quintet
Take 5, both have played as soloists with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra and performed in international music festivals.
Life! classical music reviewer Chang Tou Liang
calls them “two of the most active and busiest
classical musicians” in Singapore today.
“They are leaders in their fields and figures
whom young Singaporean musicians can relate to
and emulate,” he says.
Both musicians came to prominence in the
2000s after returning to Singapore from their overseas studies.
A graduate from Rice University in the United
States in 1995, Chan, 40, was awarded the 2000
Shell-NAC Arts Scholarship by the National Arts
Council. He then completed his masters of music at
the University of Massachusetts.
In 2007, he was appointed concertmaster for the
Singapore Festival Orchestra, the resident orchestra of the Singapore Arts Festival which ended in
2012.
Lim, 35, the nephew of well-known conductor
Lim Yau, was the first Singaporean to play in the
12th Singapore International Piano Festival in
2005. He made history again when he became the
first Singaporean pianist to perform all five
Beethoven piano concertos in a cycle here in 2012.
Chan and Lim were also recipients of the NAC
Young Artist Award in 2004 and 2006 respectively.
Neither has any regrets for choosing to stick it
out in Singapore for the long run.
For Chan, he knew he wanted to contribute to
the home-grown classical music scene.
He says: “The career is meaningless if you don’t
know what exactly it is you want to contribute to
society. My family was here and I have built a
family here as well. I used that as a base to try and
create something special here.”
His wife is a corporate relations manager in the
SSO and they have a six-year-old daughter and a
four-year-old son.
It was also a case of perfect timing that brought
Chan back to the sunny island for good. Though he
had applied for several orchestras overseas after
completing his master’s degree in 2002, it was the
SSO which first came back to him with an offer he
could not refuse – to be the prestigious fourth chair
first violinist, a position he still holds.
Today, he is concertmaster for the Metropolitan
Festival Orchestra, the spiritual successor of the
Singapore Festival Orchestra, as well as guest
concertmaster for The Philharmonic Orchestra
Singapore and The Orchestra of the Music Makers.
He is also a member of the NAC advisory committee for the National Violin and Piano Competition and a member of the governing board in the
Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music at the
National University of Singapore.
Lim returned to Singapore for national service
after graduating from the Royal Northern College
of Music in Manchester, England, in 2003. After
completing it in 2006, he got married to fellow
pianist Koh Jia Hwei and was content to settle
down here. The couple have no children.
He is also teaching at the School of the Arts,
Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts and Yong Siew Toh
Conservatory of Music.
On whether he thought his career could have
Billy Koh’s
(right)
Ocean
Butterflies
Music
launched
JJ Lin’s
debut
album
in 2003.
PHOTO:
COURTESY
OF BILLY
KOH
Violinist Chan
Yoong-Han
(above left) and
pianist Lim Yan
(above right) are
part of Take Five,
a concert series
initiated together
with violinists
Lim Shue Churn
and Foo Say
Ming (left, both
standing) and
cellist Chan Wei
Shing (seated,
centre). PHOTOS:
TIFFANY GOH,
ST FILE
gone further if he had stayed overseas, Lim says
without hesitation: “I’m not the kind of person to
spend too much time thinking like that, on what
would have happened if maybe I had done this.”
Chan and Lim are glad they were around to
witness the slew of significant developments in the
Singapore classical music scene in the early 2000s.
Chan recalls of the year 2002, when the
country’s first world-class performing arts venue,
the Esplanade, emerged: “There were a lot of changes in Singapore during that period. The Esplanade
was opening and it was a great opportunity to come
back and see what it was all about.”
Another major development was the Yong Siew
Toh Conservatory of Music at NUS, founded in
2001. Previously known as the Singapore Conservatory of Music, it was renamed in 2003 and was the
first institution here to offer a four-year full-time
Bachelor of Music degree programme.
Lim says: “It’s great that there is the choice for
children nowadays to stay here or go overseas.”
With institutions such as Nanyang Academy of
Fine Arts’ School of Young Talents and School of
the Arts, which opened in 1999 and 2008 respec-
About Sing50
Sing50 is organised by The Straits Times and The Business Times
to mark Singapore’s Golden Jubilee. The show celebrates 50 years
of songs and music composed, performed or made popular by
Singapore performers, and will include different languages and
music genres. It brings together some of the biggest names in the
local music scene, including Stefanie Sun, JJ Lin, Dick Lee, Jeremy
Monteiro, Ramli Sarip and The Oddfellows. They will be joined by
two international performers – Chinese pianist Lang Lang and
Apl.de.ap from US pop band The Black Eyed Peas. The public can
have a say in which songs will be on the set list. Go to
www.sing50concert.sg for details.
Mapletree Investments, Resorts World Sentosa and Zurich
Insurance are the main sponsors. The show is produced by The
Rice Company and supported by Steinway Gallery Singapore.
Where: National Stadium
When: Aug 7
Admission: $20 tickets at the Singapore Indoor Stadium’s Box
Office or any SingPost outlets. Go to www.sportshubtix.sg or call
3158-7888
Info: www.sing50concert.sg/
tively, one can now obtain a complete musical
education up to degree level in Singapore – an
option not available two decades ago.
More symphony orchestras, including semiprofessional ones from secondary schools and
junior colleges, have also sprung up over the years.
“You could name just a handful of school ensembles in the 1980s, but now, there are probably 35 to
40 of them. There are more opportunities out there
for people to play,” Chan says.
He and Lim also contributed to the growth of
the local chamber music scene, which took off in
2007. They initiated their own piano quintet
concert series Take 5, together with violinists Foo
Say Ming and Lim Shue Churn and cellist Chan Wei
Shing, who is Chan’s uncle.
They were the first group in Singapore to start a
series of chamber concerts dedicated to featuring
pieces from the niche quintet repertoire, which are
written for a piano and four other instruments.
Before them, the only well-known chamber
music group on the scene was the T’ang Quartet.
Chan says: “We realised there were hundreds of
piano quintets not being played often enough. It
was our duty to explore them and bring them to the
public. We are here to let music come to life.”
Back in the 1990s when the scene was almost
barren, Chan estimates that only one to two chamber concerts took place a month. The number went
up to about six to seven a month in the late 2000s,
as more chamber music groups such as the Chamber Opera Society and I-Sis Trio popped up alongside Take 5.
With classical music having earned greater
public recognition through the years, the pair are
naturally optimistic about the future of their
younger counterparts, many of whom have already
started to make a name for themselves on the big
stage.
Chan, heartened by the high level of involvement, says: “We need to have some form of continuity for the younger generation to come up and
take over us when we grow old.”
Agreeing, Lim adds: “Because of this emerging
community, I think classical music is going to be
very relevant in Singapore for a long time to
come.”
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Billy Koh made JJ Lin a big Mandopop star
Paige Lim
Not many people can say they had a hand in
grooming one of the most successful Singaporean Mandopop stars of the 2000s – JJ Lin.
Billy Koh, co-founder of iconic homegrown company Ocean Butterflies Music, has
those bragging rights. His company launched
the then 22-year-old Lin’s debut album in
2003.
Having also produced more than 100
albums and groomed other regional stars
such as Kit Chan, A-do and BY2, it is no
wonder Koh remains one of the most influential music industry players today.
He quit as chief executive officer of Ocean
Butterflies last year to set up Amusic Rights
Management, an international music
company. It was reported by Lianhe Zaobao
last month that Ocean Butterflies has been
sold to a China business group.
One of the pioneers of the blossoming
xinyao scene in the 1980s, Koh started off in
a band called The Straws with classmates
Koh Nam Seng and the late Sunkist Ng.
Together with two other xinyao writers Colin
Goh and Teo Kay Kiong, they set up Ocean
Butterflies Music in 1986.
In an e-mail interview with Life!, Koh, 52,
credits the xinyao movement in the 1980s for
launching the careers of local music industry
players such as himself, Tan Kah Beng and
twins Lee Wei Song and Lee Si Song. The
Lees went on to mentor Singapore’s top
Mandopop export Stefanie Sun, who shot to
fame in the 2000s.
He says: “The success behind Singapore
artists does not lie solely with the artist. Be it
music producers, arrangers or songwriters,
there’s a very strong team of Singapore
musicians behind many successful Mandopop acts.”
Did Koh expect Lin and Chan – she was
launched by Ocean Butterflies in 1994 – to
be so successful?
He says: “When I do music, I don’t
expect. I work hard to lift expectations.”
It is this philosophy that has pushed the
veteran to keep going in spite of the odds
local artists face.
He recalls when he first met former construction foreman A-do and Lin, who was
then a 17-year-old student, at Ocean
Butterflies’ Extraordinary Singer’s Course in
1998, the Mandopop market was dominated
by Taiwanese idols such as Jolin Tsai, Elva
Hsiao & F4.
“The idea was to study the market well
but work against the existing one. Making a
hit may be by luck. Continuing to make stars
is an art,” says Koh.
In 2002, Ocean Butterflies had become a
full-fledged recording label managing its
own artists.
According to Koh, a decline in the
popularity of Taiwan and Hong Kong music
in the new millennium provided the golden
opportunity for Singapore musicians to break
into the competitive Taiwan market as they
were more “multicultural”.
“With the exception of Jay Chou, most of
the Taiwanese pop acts were mainly idols
who lacked interesting musicality,” he says.
Indeed, when A-do’s debut album – fea-
turing the distinct Singaporean sound of mixing English and Mandarin hits – was released
under Ocean Butterflies in 2002, it sold two
million copies across Asia in six months.
Lin entered the scene a year later. None of
the artists under Ocean Butterflies who
entered the market after him, such as Hong
Junyang and Sing Chew Sin Huey from
Mandopop Channel U singing contest Project
SuperStar, has come close to creating the
impact Lin did in the 2000s.
Koh has a practical explanation: “Science
experiments do fail at times. We all live in a
world that has competition. We have been
beaten up simply because the opponents are
stronger.”
But he is not one to be deterred by failure.
“All we need to do is get up and fight – not
just with muscle but also with mind,” he
says.
A judge on Project SuperStar for two
seasons, he acknowledges that Singapore
Mandopop talent contests have not produced
any stars to rival the big three in the 2000s:
Stefanie Sun, JJ Lin and Tanya Chua.
Well-attuned to the workings of the entertainment industry, he says: “The fundamental business model of a television station is
that viewership numbers equal advertising
income, so it has to be an entertainment
show first. Whether or not it can be a successful talent hunt is secondary.”
He adds: “A television show in Singapore
is just a tiny part of the entire entertainment
world out there. Someone may have won on
Singapore television, but he may have zero
impact in the much more competitive entertainment world outside.”