Within, Across and Beyond

YST STORIES

Charting Pathways 2020: Within, Across and Beyond

Our students develop rich artistic identities not only through their Major and studies within YST, but also across fields of activity and beyond the Conservatory. Here’s a look at what went on for this issue’s graduates, from music supervision, licensing and production to early music, pop music, collaborative piano and dance.

Catch up on our past issues of Charting Pathways as well:

Forging Paths of Their Own – on our first graduating batch of MS/MCP students, and graduates from our Joint Degree Programme and Artist Diploma
From Concert to Community – on students who have used their skills to build, impact and lead communities
A Bold Resonance – on Wind and Brass students’ journeys

SHUBHANGI DAS

“Perseverance. Patience and persistence.”

What has been a significant experience from the past four years?

Rather than a single project or experience, my aim over the four years has been to explore which aspect of the music industry I’m most interested in. When I first came into YST, I had a very stubborn mindset and fixed ideals on what my future as a singer should look like. Then, I started attending lectures, talking to professors and engaging in healthy debate with peers. I attended the Bali Excursion and Study Tour during my first summer (read about the 2019 edition here) and spent two weeks with amazing peers, professors and Gamelan professionals who made me realise that my career and life options do not have to be limited to what is conventional in a music conservatory. To that end, I have delved into different projects: be it participating in roles or doing internships in music supervision and licensing.

Who helped you along the way?

The first people that pop up in my head are my professors: be it Prof Alan Bennett and him teaching me life lessons via singing technique, or Dr Marc Rochester and our extremely poignant conversations, or Assoc Prof Chan Tze Law and our discussions on creating pathways for music and entrepreneurship in Singapore, all my professors have helped me through my four years. Also, all the janitor aunties who work to keep YST clean. We often overlook them, but they have ALWAYS been there to greet me with a smile. Their hugs always give me joy and hope for a fresh new start!

Next steps after graduation?

I want to focus on building purpose for music and myself, and work to spread joy and love through the medium of music through all my future endeavours!

Favourite class at YST?

Hands down, voice lessons with my major study teacher: Prof Alan Bennett. Always were, always will be! He taught me to learn to be happy for the health of my voice. Will never forget that. Apart from that, a particular favourite of mine was the Music Criticism class taught by Dr Marc Rochester!

MERVYN LEE

“Progress is never exponential; it will keep fluctuating and that is normal. Keep persevering, have an open mind, practice smart, and do not be afraid to venture out of school once in a while.”

What have been some significant experiences from your time at YST?

One of the most significant things was my increased involvement in the early music scene in Singapore, especially with the establishment of Red Dot Baroque (founded by Alan Choo ’12), Singapore’s only professional early music ensemble. My passion for early music goes back to my childhood; I have always longed to be able to play or experience it here in Singapore, and I picked up the Baroque guitar and viola da gamba during National Service, which added to my prior experience with piano and harpsichord. RDB presented an exciting opportunity to collaborate with like-minded individuals, and we hope to increase awareness and interest regarding early music especially within the local music scene.

Last year, I attended the three-week Bowdoin International Festival of Music (USA). It was fun bonding and working with fellow musicians from all over the world especially with a focus on chamber music, and the environment of passionate music-making helped re-energise my love for music after being away from YST and serving National Service for two years.

In 2015, during Year 1, I was invited to perform and participate in the Tnjre International Festival of Young Musicians held in the Republic of Artsakh, an unrecognised state in the Caucasus to the south of Armenia. It was my first-ever music festival and travelling to such an obscure part of the world was honestly quite scary at first. Despite the initial language barriers and massive culture shock, I enjoyed my time there immensely and performed Mendelssohn’s D Minor Piano Concerto with the Artsakh State Chamber Orchestra. The people there were very hospitable and friendly, and many were quite curious about Singapore and our school. It was truly an unforgettable, once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Who helped you along the way?

I am immensely grateful to my lifelong mentor Prof Thomas Hecht who has constantly been pushing me to take on such opportunities, to keep striving and to never give up. I am also grateful to my composition mentor Dr John Sharpley for his knowledge and constant guidance in all things music, as well as beyond. I would also like to mention the numerous friends, seniors, and juniors who helped me through the years, listened to me and gave advice. I am also very grateful towards Alan Choo (’12) and the Red Dot Baroque crew for their huge support in my early music endeavours, amongst other things.

Next steps after graduation?

I will be continuing my piano studies as a Master of Music student at the Manhattan School of Music under Prof. Andre-Michel Schub, whilst taking private harpsichord lessons under Arthur Haas.

LIM JING JIE

“Expected the unexpected and go with the flow. Life is in constant flux and sometimes the best musical happenings can come in the form of happy accidents.”

What has been a significant experience from the past four years?

I’ve been privileged to have had more than one significant experience over the past four years in YST because the school has been so generous and kind supporting my growth in so many areas. Launching a pop music ‘alter ego’ (KEAT) really kickstarted my drive to go out and try new things. Since then, I’ve grown confident in my songwriting skills and begun learning how to produce music on my own on Logic Pro! I never thought I’d end up doing these things; frankly, I entered YST thinking I would go on to graduate school in operatic performance but I realised life is a lot more than just doing one genre or one form of music. It really became one of those passion projects that I’m glad I can take to a professional level right now. Beyond building good foundations in classical voice techniques, I’ve also had various opportunities to head overseas for summer programmes and festivals, run social media engagement for the Voyage Festival in 2018, and also perform in my first musical and my first major operatic role in the Conservatory’s production of Handel’s Acis and Galatea. Life has been so exciting!

Who helped you along the way?

Loads of people – Ms Jenny Ang and Prof Bernard Lanskey for always encouraging me to go out and try more new things; the Voice studio (past and present) for supporting my endeavours as both a stage performer and a pop musician; my Voice major teacher Prof Alan Bennett for seeing me through all my weird vocal experimentations; honestly… so many more friends and classmates that I might take forever to name!

Plenty of them out in the community as well! When I was at interning at Musiio (a music tech startup in Singapore), I made friends with a then-colleague, Amelia Amari who was really in tune with the local music industry and helped me kickstart everything you see that is KEAT now (e.g. social media management, branding, marketing and all the other nitty-gritty things about putting a song out there). It’s a friendship that I deeply treasure and have also learned a lot from. Of course, I can’t forget my supportive community of musician friends whom I’ve collaborated and worked with in one way or another since then – special shoutouts to Darren & the HE1ST kids, Rangga, Bryan, Vincent & Marcus – y’all amaze.

Favourite class at YST?

Jenny Ang‘s Music Programming and Production class! Very fun class to bounce around event production ideas and get hands-on experience through YST productions as well. Also a fantastic class to work on your presentation skills and clarity and concision of ideas! 15/10 recommend!

What is a piece of music that represents your last four years?

Being Alive from Sondheim’s Company.

(Editor’s note: Watch Jing Jie’s circuit breaker performance of it here!)

JOEY TAN

“Take risks and explore what interests you; have the courage to try new, even unpopular things, to experiment, and to fail. Create the music that you need to create. Stay curious, keep learning, keep working.”

What has been a significant experience from the past four years?

In the second semester of Year 3, I participated in Trabant, organised by Ensemble Phoenix Basel. It is a competition in which eight young composers, over the course of three workshops, work with musicians to write a piece for the ensemble, revolving around another composer’s work – in my year, it was Lutosławski’s Chain I. The workshops culminate in a performance of the finished pieces by the composers, and two composers receive a commission from the ensemble. I was able to attend Trabant with support from YST’s Student Artistic Development Fund.

I have also been active as a dancer and am in the Singapore Dance Theatre Scholars programme. I’ve brought my dance background to music-making in YST, more recently in a performance of John Cage’s Three Dances for Two Prepared Pianos, and also in The Enchanted Garden, an original interactive music show designed to engage children, particularly those who are vulnerable or have special needs.

Next steps after graduation?

I would like to pursue further studies in Germany. I am interested in studying both music and dance, and creating a closer, more meaningful relationship between the two art forms. This might have to wait due to the uncertainty of the COVID-19 situation, but it’s definitely something I want to do.

Favourite class at YST?

My favourite class was major study. I spent my first three years studying with Assoc Prof Peter Edwards and my last year with Martin Jaggi. Both Prof Edwards and Martin are supportive, honest with their feedback, and inspiring figures for me. Although major study was the toughest class for me, I like a challenge, and it was also the most enriching. I learned how music works and how we listen to it, and also shaped my beliefs about what music is and what music can be.

Another class which I loved and looked forward to was applied secondary lessons. As part of the composition programme, I took piano lessons with Ms Jongah Yoon, playing contemporary classical music in addition the usual Bach and Beethoven. By spending entire semesters with pieces by Feldman, Stockhausen, and Ligeti, to name a few, I looked at the pieces from the perspective of the performer, which was thought-provoking for me. I also learnt to listen to every single note I produced – its energy, its shape, its presence.

JOHANN TAN KAY ANN

“Explore as much as possible during these four years. Your future path may gradually change as you discover your own strengths.”

What has been a significant experience from the past four years?

It would be working on the podcast Home on the Dot, which will go on to its third season next year. I’ve learnt a lot about podcast production from the perspective of a sound engineer and designer (as well as conducting some interviews), and also from the episode topics which mainly explore the meaning and power of home in Singapore.

Next steps after graduation?

My future plans after graduation would be joining a NUS Architecture SDE research team to conduct acoustics research on sustainable city design for Singapore, I think it will be a good next step for me to learn more, especially in the area of acoustics, and contribute back in research to improve the city – specifically in environmental noise management.

Favourite class at YST?

My favourite class in YST would be Music Production and Marketing because we gain deep insights on music production, and also got to write and produce our own songs.

What is a piece of music that represents your last four years?

I captured a day in my life at YST in sounds in this original track here.

TENG WYE SHIN

“Be open to new experiences and do not be afraid to challenge yourself. Have confidence but stay humble.”

What has been a significant experience from the past four years?

One significant experience for me was when I was working on a pop recording session with my classmates in Year 2. We had finished setting up and were almost ready to record when the band told us that they could not hear anything from the monitoring system. We spent a lot of time troubleshooting to find the root cause. Just when we thought we had to cancel the session, we managed to find the cause of the problem and fixed it very quickly. This experience was very memorable for me as I realised that I have learnt more than I thought. For someone with almost zero experience in recording, it meant that I was ready to handle a recording session by myself, with little to no help from my peers or major teacher.

One other significant project I worked on was composing and arranging close to 50 minutes of music to accompany silent films for Alliance Française de Singapour’s Ciné Concert in June 2019. I chose to take on this project because I wanted to push myself past my boundaries, as I have always felt that I wasn’t good at composing or arranging. This experience helped me gain more confidence, and it was a pleasure working with my senior Sulwyn Lok who had taken a similar role before in this event.

Who helped you along the way?

I’ve received help from countless people. One of them would of course be my major teacher, Assoc Prof Zhou Xiaodong, who helped me out a lot and gave me the freedom to explore my interests. My AAS classmates who lent me a helping hand and answered my never-ending questions graciously, my seniors who always encouraged me, my juniors who helped us out during concerts and recording sessions, the YST Programming & Productions team, my internship bosses Eric Wong and Careen Tham – these are just some of the people who have helped me a great deal through my four years in YST.

What was a memorable quote from your studies at YST?

“No comparison is fair; everyone has experienced different things and come from different backgrounds.” – Assoc Prof Chan Tze Law

Prof Chan said this to me at the beginning of my third year and it is something I constantly remind myself of. Coming into YST with a science background, I always felt inferior to my peers and often thought that I didn’t deserve to be in YST. This quote reminds me that my experiences and background make me who I am.

What is a piece of music that represents your last four years?

The freshman creative project my batch performed at the end of our orientation, where we worked together to create a piece of music by bringing together our ideas. Entering YST with almost no clue what kind of person I would become at the end of the four years was like when we were writing the music as freshmen, unsure of what the final piece would be. Experiencing different things and meeting different people was like coming up with the main motifs and orchestration. In the end, I have this amazing adventure filled with stories and experiences, much like the piece of music we ended up with.

YANG TING-TING

“Just make music and live out loud! You never know what will happen, so don’t think too much. Enjoy the time you spend with music!”

What has been a significant experience from your time at YST?

I won the 2018 North Carolina New Music Initiative Orchestra Composition Competition which gave me a chance to travel to the US and not only premiere my piece, but also speak in a composition colloquium about my music. It was really incredible being there with this added role, and I had a chance to promote my identity and exchange thoughts with people there.

Who helped you along the way?

I would first like to thank Assoc Prof Ho Chee Kong, who always offered suggestions and guided me through the composition process. I also want to thank my performers who always spent time discussing music with me – as a composer, the fun part is always when the rehearsals begin as I learned technical things and found inspiration from people around me.

I would also like to thank Ms. Jongah Yoon, my piano teacher in YST. Over the past four years, the most important thing I learned from her is listening to the notes and music, so that we can adjust our fingers and the touch based on those experiences. This thought resonates with me in my composition, where sound is fundamental. By listening to the music, I always find answers.

Next steps after graduation?

I will pursue a Master’s in collaborative piano at Rice University. It was definitely a hard decision for me to switch my major study area, but I’ve gained more and more interest in collaborative performance over the years. I would like to thank my friends who asked me to accompany them or play music, because the huge amount of pieces and rehearsals helped me discovered that I LOVE doing this!

What was a memorable quote from your studies at YST?

“Just make music!”, which I heard from Trombone faculty Marques Young. We always practice hard and are picky on details, but ultimately we are all individuals who portray stories through performances, and we need to remember to just make music rather than thinking too much!

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