DOCTORS IN RECITAL @ Steinway Gallery Singapore / Just Photographs, No Review

So it finally happened, when the doctors descended upon Steinway Gallery Singapore on a Saturday afternoon and early evening, turning the area around Orchard Towers into a cultural zone, as opposed to a vice zone. 

To our shock, the event was oversubscribed, and bus-loads of people (OK I jest, BMW-loads of people) had to be turned away for fear of overcrowding and turning Steinway's pristine showroom into the black hole of Calcutta. It was standing room only, and the pressure was on. There were several music critics (from The Flying Inkpot) in the audience, so the pressure was really on.

The chief pleasure was to get to play on a Steinway B model, which plays like a dream. Whoever can afford a BMW (current COE prices and all) should be able to take one of these babies home.

The lovely programme booklet produced by Steinway,
which helpfully included the Russian composers'
patryonomic names when most people don't bother.

Dr Lin Xiumin opened the programme with
George Winston's transcription of Pachelbel's Canon.

Dr Ronald Ling, a health-industry advisor and investor, who
regularly plays chamber music in France and Switzerland,
contributed Brahms's Scherzo in C minor,
accompanied by Dr Lin on the piano.

Yours truly rehashed some oldies, including the
Bach-Siloti Air on D string (the decent version of the G string),
Gershwin's Promenade and Mayerl's Shallow Waters.

Arguably the highlight, a professional cellist joined in.
Brandon Voo Esq., former student of the great Nella Hunkins,
performed the Andante from Rachmaninov's Cello Sonata,
and One Thousand Years, made famous by The Piano Guys.
From now, Voo and Lin will be known as The Cello Guys.

The evening concluded with the inimitable Dr Au Kah Kay
(aka I Could Have Played All Night) in Chopin's Barcarolle and
Granados's Allegro di Concierto. As the audience demanded
an encore, he obliged with the Schumann-Liszt Widmung.

All the Piano, Violin and Cello Guys,
from the shortest to the tallest.

Posing with Ms Celine Goh, manager of Steinway Gallery
Singapore, herself a pianist who could outplay the best of us.

The official Steinway poster with our autographs.
Does that make us Steinway artists?

With our guests the Cheong Family.
Little Benjamin already plays on a Steinway piano.

All photographs strictly by the permission of Steinway Gallery Singapore, the Piano, Violin and Cello Guys, and the management of Palais Renaissance, Orchard Towers and the Royal Thai Embassy. Violators of copyright will be subject to worse than legal action, that is being forced to sit through multiple sessions of Pianomaniac practising.