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| Photo: Jack Yam |
WE REMEMBER CHOO HOEY (1934-2025),
FOUNDING MUSIC DIRECTOR OF THE SINGAPORE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
Maestro CHOO HOEY, the founding Music Director of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra passed away on 11 August 2025 at his home in Athens. He was the Resident Conductor and Music Director of the SSO, Singapore’s first professional symphony orchestra, from 1978 to 1996. Under his leadership, the SSO gave its inaugural concerts in January 1979, made several concert tours in Europe and cities in Asia, as well as the orchestra’s first commercial recordings. He was responsible for the orchestra’s wide repertoire and laying the foundation for the orchestra attaining world class status under his successors Lan Shui and Hans Graf.
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| 24 January 1979, the inaugural concert of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra. |
I attended my first SSO concert under his direction in November 1979 at the Singapore Conference Hall and became hooked for life on classical music. I can never overestimate the impact he had on the classical music scene in Singapore, once described as a “cultural desert”. The Singapore Symphony Orchestra, brainchild of former Deputy Prime Minister Dr Goh Keng Swee, was the first step in that transformation to become a city of the arts. The appointment of Choo Hoey was pivotal to that vision.
Despite his diminutive physical stature, he was a larger-than-life figure who ruled the orchestra like the autocratic conductors of the old school. Needless to say, he was feared and disliked by musicians, but gained the respect of the general public in concerts which covered the classical canon and extended to much 20th century music and Chinese classics. I never got to know him personally until he retired in 1996, when I did my first interview with him for Classical Notes, the newsletter of the Friends of the SSO. That was the forerunner of BraviSSimO!, SSO’s quarterly newsletter.
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| The Singapore Symphony Orchestra figures in Victoria Concert Hall's memory corner. |
Far from being a fearsome tyrant, he was warm and generous, always ready share his time, knowledge and wisdom with anybody who had an interest in classical music. In his black-and-white rented bungalow at 5 Hyderabad Road in Alexandra Park (appropriately, as that was his wife’s name), he shared with me many stories and insights into his much-misunderstood profession.
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| Choo Hoey was awarded the Cultural Medallion in 1979. |
He had a clear vision of what he wanted for the SSO and it was a long term project, not a quick fix. He wanted the SSO to be a serious outfit for the arts, and not some politician’s vanity project. “I do what I know is right. Stick to that policy, and the consequences be damned,” was what he impressed on me at that interview. For him, music came first, and it was not his job to please people. He never cut corners, and was tough on himself as he was with other musical professionals.
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| Choo Hoey (extreme right) as a young violinist. |
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| Choo Hoey (sitting left) was a student of Goh Soon Tioe. |
About work ethic, he emphasised the need for music students to work hard and study hard, and not be caught napping when the big break arrives. For him, that took place in January 1958, when the Spanish conductor Ataulfo Argenta suddenly died, and he was asked at the last minute to fulfil a concert in Belgium. By then, he had been well-prepared and was able to conduct a programme which included Richard Strauss’ Don Juan and Stravinsky’s Petrushka.
Many Singapore premieres of important repertoire works were led by Choo Hoey. He was a specialist in 20th century music, notably works of Stravinsky, and we got to hear the first performances of his Symphony of Psalms, The Rite of Spring, Petrushka, The Song of the Nightingale and Agon, just to name a few.
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| With Alexander "Sasha" Souptel, SSO's second concertmaster. |
Very memorable also were his premieres of Mahler’s First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Ninth Symphonies and Song of the Earth, Michael Tippett’s A Child of Our Time, Messiaen’s Turangalila, Gorecki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs. His repertoire choices were catholic in tastes, and such a programme was typical during the early 1990s: a lesser-known Haydn symphony, James Macmillan’s Veni, Veni, Emmanuel (with Evelyn Glennie) and Tchaikovsky’s Suite No.3. These are precious memories I will always have with me.
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| Choo Hoey remembered on an MRT card / ticket. |
His work was not always popular with critics. He gave an example of a person who sent him musical scores for consideration to be performed by the SSO. When he found these pieces to be deficient and returned the scores, the person who turned out to be a music critic excoriated SSO’s performances in print. Another critic of his became a board member of the SSO, and later its Chairman.
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| Russel Wong's iconic images of Choo Hoey. |
But there were others who thought differently. After SSO’s successful tour to Europe in 1994, one French music critic hailed SSO as “one of the 20 best orchestras of the world”. It was a new high for the young orchestra, and his work had been accomplished, and SSO was ready for change. After the news of his retirement in 1996, a Straits Times article read, “Did he retire, or was he pushed?” This article detailed the difficulties of being SSO music director, and wondered aloud whether a suitable successor be found. Lan Shui, as it turned out, led the SSO to further heights, standing on the shoulders of what Conductor Emeritus Choo Hoey (his new title) had accomplished 17 years earlier.
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| Choo Hoey with Yeh Tsung & Hu Bing Xu with the Singapore Chinese Orchestra. |
After his retirement, he helped build up the Qingdao Symphony Orchestra in China, where he was music director for several years. I got to interview him again for National Library Board’s National Online Repository for the Arts (NORA) project and our friendship was re-established. Choo Hoey conducted sporadically in Singapore (both SSO and Singapore Chinese Orchestra) after his retirement, and sometimes wondered whether he was being forgotten.
Watch the interview which I did with Choo Hoey in 2009: Interview with Choo Hoey
He was not forgotten. By this time, his conducting style had become more relaxed, shedding the convulsive movements which characterised his earlier manner but without diminishing his intensity. The orchestra responded to him well, and he got very good results in concerts which I reviewed for The Straits Times whenever he returned to Singapore.
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| Choo Hoey's last SSO concert in 2019 with young Chinese violinist He Ziyu. |
Here are some of my more recent reviews of SSO and SCO concerts conducted by Choo Hoey:
Choo Hoey's legacy of being Singapore’s musical pioneer will never be forgotten. He was a major reason why Singapore has the vibrant musical scene today.
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