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FACULTY

Dr Koo Siaw Sing

Senior Lecturer, Contextual Studies

muskss@nus.edu.sg

At the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, Siaw Sing teaches the popular module, Social History of the Piano, and various Keyboard Studies modules. Prior to Singapore, he resided in the United States, holding an Assistant Professor position in piano at Augustana College in Illinois and the Graduate Teaching Fellow position at the University of Oregon. At these institutions, he taught piano, piano pedagogy, keyboard skills and music theory.

Siaw Sing has lectured and performed at major cities in North America, Asia, and Australia. Since his performance of the Yellow River Piano Concerto, he has researched and presented a series of lecture-performances related to the solo repertoire of Chinese piano music, ranging from the traditional Chinese piano masterpieces to the current modern compositions. Other notable lecture-performances include The Language of Sounds: Debussy’s Piano Music, Album for the Young: The Piano Education of Robert Schumann, and A Comprehensive Study of the Performance of Chopin’s Mazurkas. His presentations have been widely recognized at international music conferences including the Australasia Piano Pedagogy Conference, Western Australia Piano Pedagogy Convention, Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) Conference, Music Teachers’ Association of California Convention, World Piano Pedagogy Conference, Performers’ Present Festival and Symposium, Singapore International Piano Pedagogy Symposium, University of Malaya International Music Conference, and UCSI Piano Pedagogy Conference.

A native of Penang, Malaysia, Siaw Sing received his early performer’s diploma, Licentiate (L.T.C.L.) from Trinity College of Music. In 1990, he was offered a piano scholarship to study at the Cleveland Institute of Music where he received his Bachelor of Music degree. He continued his graduate studies with full scholarships at the Northern Illinois University, where he earned his Master of Music degree and Performer’s Certificate, and the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Oregon.

Siaw Sing studied piano with renowned pianists such as Dean Kramer, Claire Wachter, Thomas Hecht, Sandra Shapiro, Donald Walker, Vitya-Vronsky Babin, and Sergei Babayan. He studied chamber music with Greg Mason, Vivian Weilerstein, Anita Pontremoli, Anne Epperson, and members of the Vermeer Quartet and the Oregon Quartet. He has performed in piano masterclasses by eminent concert artists such as John Browning, Karl Ulrich Schnable, Stephen Hough, Claude Frank, Lorin Hollander, John Owings, and Eunice Podis. Besides piano, Siaw Sing also studied violin with David Russell at the Cleveland Institute of Music and music technology with Jeffrey Stolet at the University of Oregon where he performed several electronic music compositions.

While residing in the United States, Siaw Sing received the Freeman Foundation Grant that brought him to Asia for lectures and performances. He was an exchange music faculty scholar with the Central China Normal University, and guest artist at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. During his studies, he won first prizes in the Wanda K. Eastwood Music Competition and the Mu Phi Epsilon State Competition. He was recognized as the “Outstanding Performer in Keyboard” from the University of Oregon. His musical talents also earned him the Sadie Zellen Piano Prize from the Cleveland Institute of Music, Yean Boon Tan Piano Prize from the Northern Illinois University, and the piano teaching fellowship from the University of Oregon. He also received the Kenneth S. Ghent International Scholarship for his academic excellence during his doctoral studies at the University of Oregon.

Siaw Sing was the former president of the Singapore Music Teachers’ Association. During his presidency, he expanded the Seventh Singapore Performers’ Festival, which had over 650 young musicians who came from nineteen different nationalities, participating in the adjudicated performances in the areas of piano, strings, voice, chamber music and composition. The festival also included masterclasses and workshops conducted by twenty internationally acclaimed artists and university professors.

Siaw Sing’s other professional commitments include adjudicating local and international music competitions, acting as an external music examiner and an association advisory panel, and conducting piano masterclasses at music colleges.

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