FIRST PIANO TEACHER TO STAND IN THE GENERAL ELECTIONS 2025

This is not a blog on political matters, but I thought it interesting that a piano teacher has decided to stand for election at this year's General Elections on 3 May 2025. The would-be politician name is Emily Woo Chia Ying, who is on the slate of Red Dot United as it contests the Holland-Bukit Timah Group Representation Constituency. 

I have known Chia Ying since 1982, when she was a music elective student at Raffles Junior College. She was a student of the late Ong Lip Tat, as were many other aspiring professional musicians and pianists. She performed Chopin's Fantaisie-Impromptu at the inaugural RJC Arts Festival at my invitation, and I also remembered her playing Rachmaninov's Prelude in A minor (Op.32 No.8) at an Ong Lip Tat student concert, and she was quite brilliant in the prestidigitation. She later studied and graduated from the Catholic University in Paris. 

She is presently active in music education, including writing several books on piano playing and regularly attending concerts. One supposes that seeking political office is the next step. Interestingly, she is the minority candidate in Red Dot United's four-member group standing for election. Red Dot United has absolutely nothing to do with Red Dot Baroque although Chia Ying could qualify to be one of its keyboardists.

Update: RDU garnered 20.71% of the valid votes on 3 May 2025, and was able to keep its deposit. 

A TRIBUTE TO ONG LIP TAT (1955-2013), Great Singaporean Pianist and Teacher

A TRIBUTE TO ONG LIP TAT (1955-2013)

It is with much sadness that we report the passing of ONG LIP TAT, one of Singapore’s finest pianists and renowned piano pedagogue, on 27 February 2013 at Khoo Teck Puat Hospital after a prolonged illness. He was a child prodigy and former student of Lucien Wang, who herself was a student of the great Alfred Cortot. He furthered his musical studies at London’s Royal Academy of Music and in Germany, before returning to Singapore where he became one of the nation’s most respected and well-loved piano teachers.

The list of his students reads like a Who’s Who of the Singaporean classical music scene (below), including conductor Wang Ya-Hui, composer Zechariah Goh Toh Chai, pianists Paul Liang, Timothy Ku, Soon Liok Kee, Elaine Chew, Albert Lin, Lee Pei Ming, Emily Wu Chia Ying, Xu Wei Chao and violinist Lee Shi Mei. He was also on the piano faculty of the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts.

In January 1979, he was bestowed the honour of being the first soloist to appear with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, giving three performances of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No.5 at its inaugural concerts conducted by Choo Hoey. More recently, he has also performed the Yellow River Concerto with the Singapore Chinese Orchestra led by Tsung Yeh.

Although he had a reputation of being a “formidable virtuoso” (The Singapore Encyclopaedia), his solo recitals were a relative rarity. He more often performed with other pianists in 4-hand piano concerts, accompanying violinists and singers, and making cameo appearances at the end of his students’ recitals where he would perform short but extremely virtuosic showpieces and then close the keyboard lid, much to the amusement of the audience.

Over the years: Ong Lip Tat with his teacher Lucien Wang,
who was taught by Cortot himself.
It was in her memory that he founded the
Lucien Wang Piano Competition at NAFA
(Photos: NUS Wiki)

He was known to be a very demanding but caring teacher, who was loved by his students. He was also extremely generous in praise and kind words. I remembered accompanying a singer and violinist in a Singapore Lyric Opera fundraising concert at Victoria Concert Hall, in which he also appeared as an accompanist for several sopranos. To appear on the same programme as Ong Lip Tat was an unnerving experience, but he was very encouraging and offered me reassuring words which calmed my jitters and enabled me not to make a complete fool of myself on stage.

It has been well-documented that he suffered from depression, which led to concert appearances and students’ lessons being cancelled at very short notice. In a rare interview with The Straits Times several years ago, he admitted to his ongoing struggles against depression and an attempt on his own life. It was also known that he was deeply affected by the recent death of his close friend and NAFA colleague, the Singaporean tenor Lim Shieh Yih.

What is less well known was his original piano compositions, which he would perform in recitals using plausible titles by established and obscure composers. It was perhaps his modest and retiring personality conflicting with his exuberant stage persona which led him to play these pieces without revealing their true origins. These were very well received judging by the audience applause, but was he afraid of rejection?

Back in the 1980s, I remembered hearing a radio broadcast of an Ong Lip Tat recital which concluded with an extremely virtuosic work – full of Lisztian fire and Busoni-like sonorities – revealed by the announcer to be a Sonata by Bouliaze. Over the years, I tried to find a recording and score of it but in vain. It certainly was too tonal and Romantic to be by Boulez. In the 1990s, he launched a CD of piano solos on the Pavane label, an eclectic programme with works by J.S.Bach, Liszt, Schubert, Zemlinsky and A.Dupré among the composers. Checking against compositional lists and catalogues of those composers on the Internet also failed to match those works with confirmed titles. In addition, a piece that came up in his recitals was Funeral Introduction by Max Reger.

The Ong Lip Tat Piano Solos recording
on the Pavane label (1993),
courtesy of record producer Gao Yang,
another of Lip Tat's former students

The last time I heard him perform was several years ago at The Arts House, when he unveiled a Suite by Hans Poser, a Schubert Klavierstück Op. Posth and a A.Dupré Caprice Espagnol. An Internet search carried out the evening before revealed neither recordings nor documentation of these works in existence. It turns out that Hans Poser was no poseur, but a real composer who had been a WWII prisoner-of-war, but no suite for solo piano of his existed.

The concert was a success, and the virtuosic and modern-sounding Poser Suite in three movements, which resembled something by Hindemith, took many by surprise. The Schubert Klavierstück had several un-Schubert-like harmonic turns, while the A.Dupré Caprice was a different piece from the one on his CD recording. Post concert, I congratulated him on being a fine composer, while Peabody professor Marian Hahn added that there were very few pieces in the recital she was familiar with. Lip Tat looked surprised at my compliment, and when asked about the Dupré, he said that what he performed was Caprice Espagnol No.2, while the CD was a recording of Caprice Espagnol No.1. Needless to say, both pieces do not exist, and neither does A.Dupré. The better known Marcel Dupré was mostly a composer for the organ.               

I will conclude this tribute by declaring that Ong Lip Tat was not only a great Singaporean pianist, and also our most important pianist-composer, a figure akin to Rachmaninov, Busoni and Godowsky. One wonders whether he notated these extremely personable works. And if the scores do indeed exist, they represent a treasure trove in which Singaporean pianists, present and future, can certainly learn and revel in. His music and spirit lives on in our memories.   

      

PIANIST ALBERT LIN'S TRIBUTE TO HIS TEACHER ONG LIP TAT

HERE IS PIANIST ALBERT LIN’S TRIBUTE 

TO HIS TEACHER ONG LIP TAT

I first met Mr Ong at age 15 at his apartment in Telok Kurau when I went to audition for him. Although I was full of nerves while waiting due to the many horror stories I had heard, I found him to be extremely warm and personable.

My lessons with him were always filled with tremendous insight into the music I played, and watching him demonstrate on the piano was really inspiring. He never failed to bring the best out of me, even qualities I never knew I had. I always looked forward to my weekly lessons, and would be upset whenever lessons had to be cancelled. I also remember the freezing conditions under which he made us play in his weekly studio classes, which was great training for me as I later studied in sub-zero temperatures at Michigan! After only a year of lessons, I successfully auditioned for a place at Peabody.

Despite his many critics and detractors, I've always found him to be full of joy and warmth and love for his friends and family. Even after I graduated, I would meet up with him regularly for meals with other ex-students of his. He was always supportive and took a great interest in our lives and careers, and always made himself available to us.

His passing is a great loss to the music circle in Singapore, and he will be missed by all.

Rest In Peace, my dear teacher and friend.

CONDUCTOR WANG YA-HUI'S TRIBUTE TO HER TEACHER ONG LIP TAT

The maestra with her maestro: Conductor Wang Ya-Hui
with former piano teacher Ong Lip Tat.
Photo taken in 2007 at Jan Vogler's cello recital,
Mercedes Benz showroom @ Alexandra Road. 

HERE IS CONDUCTOR WANG YA-HUI’S

TRIBUTE TO HER TEACHER ONG LIP TAT

Mr Ong Lip Tat was indeed a great teacher. He transformed me from a student/kid into a performer. We always marvelled at his performances, full of passion and huge musicianship. The incredible thing was that he could articulate and describe how to achieve showmanship through technique and music. This was something that would become very helpful later for me in crafting conducting gestures.

I still have the copy of Haydn’s Piano Sonatas which he pulled out from his library just for me. He probably got fed up of waiting for my folks to purchase it (scores were very expensive then!) and signed "TO WANG YA HUI" in Chinese and his autograph on the cover. I still have it and will (more than ever) treasure it for life.

Jin Li & Ong Lip Tat Recital: Review

DUO RECITAL

JIN LI, Violin

ONG LIP TAT, Piano

Victoria Concert Hall

Sunday (2 November 2008)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 4 November 2008

It was fascinating to wonder how two of Singapore's most talented and enigmatic musicians -violinist Jin Li and pianist Ong Lip Tat - would fare together in concert. The reality was not a marriage made in heaven. Plainly put, the partnership was less than the sum of both parts.

Mozart's violin sonatas were designated as "sonatas for piano with violin accompaniment". Thus the Sonata in C major (K.296) saw pianist in the dominant role, relishing the obviously more interesting part. Ong (pictured left)was a most tasteful protagonist, colouring the score with felicitous touches and savouring the bulk of the melodic lines. Meanwhile Jin was happy playing the bridesmaid, his small sound barely registering despite being more forwardly placed.

Some parity was restored in Cesar Franck's Sonata in A major, where Jin's violin began to soar without apology. It is no secret that the piano has the lion's share of the thrills and spills. Ong gratefully lapped up the opportunities, but was dogged with inaccuracies, some of which threatened to pull the ensemble apart. It was a credit that the duo finished together.

The second half of the recital belonged almost entirely to Jin Li, whose technical adroitness was never in doubt. In the hair-raising Paganini Moto Perpetuo and Tchaikovsky's joyous Waltz-Scherzo, his unerring control was breathtaking. On the more lyrical front, the transcription of a favourite Chopin Nocturne (Op.9 No.2) has some moments of wavering intonation but generally showcased a gorgeous legato line and a vertiginous little cadenza.

The World Premiere of Goh Toh Chai's Singapore Suite (composer pictured left), comprising three local songs, sounded under-rehearsed. These are not strictly transcriptions, but rather creative relooks at tunes like Lenggang Kangkong and Ikan Kekek, subjected to subtle harmonic and contrapuntal twists. These repay further listening, but in better performances.

The best outing was reserved for a rhapsodic Chinese showpiece by Chen Gang, one half of the combo that composed the Butterfly Lovers Concerto. Here the duo was happily in sync throughout, and one longed for this consistency. There were three encores, by Toselli (Serenata), Rimsky-Korsakov (Flight of the Bumble Bee) and Tchaikovsky (Melodie), which were vociferously received.

A few words about the audience: ail the worst traits of concert-going are returning. Latecoming, noisy children, a family that changes seats between pieces, people who rest their bare feet on the seats in front of them, and clapping inappropriately between movements, you name it. Don't people ever learn to be gracious? Perhaps it is time for yet another campaign on concert etiquette.

This concert was presented by Zechariah Music.