AN EVENING OF DOUBLE HAPPINESS / Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (University of the Arts Singapore)

Judging from the title, I thought this was going to be a Chinese wedding dinner. In a way it was, as the evening marked the union of the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (University of the Arts Singapore) and London's Royal College of Music with the formation of their Bachelor of Music (Honours) degree programme. 

NAFA and RCM have been dating had over a decade of working together, with local music undergraduates spending their last semester in London to complete their basic B.Mus degree. This one goes all the way one step further, a consummation of a joint project to further our musical students' education. The evening also marked the start of a working relationship with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra. Here are photos of the auspicious event, complete with a gong-beating ceremony and a concert to boot.

Guest-of-honour Heng Sweet Keat
and NAFA CEO Tan-Soh Wai Lan
gave mercifully short speeches.

Singapore Symphony Group CEO Kenneth Kwok
receives a gift from NAFA.

All the honoured guests reveal
the inner percussionists in them.

Zechariah Goh conducted the opening work,
Joey Yeo's Retrospect. The composer was also
the guitarist in this performance

NAFA Chinese Ensemble performs
Li Bochan's Ancient Tea-Horse Road.

Close-ups of the exquisite performers.

The piece de resistance was 
Dante Tan performing Henri Tomasi's
Alto Saxophone Concerto with the 
NAFA Orchestra conducted by Lin Juan.

Dante had earlier performed this concerto 
with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra
at the President's Young Performers Concert.

The repeat performance was just as awesome.

And here are some of

the wedding guests:

Esplanade's Christel Hon with
NAFA Head of Vocal Studies Jessica Chen.

SSO's Ong Shu Chen with
Lianhe Zaobao's Zhang Heyang.

Former Ding Yi Music Company's Elvia Goh
with former NAFA CEO
Mr & Mrs Choo Thiam Siew.

British concert pianist Ashley Wass
with Kenneth Kwok and 
NAFA's Nellie Seng

Pianists all:
See Ning Hui, Nicholas Ong & Zhou Yun.

NAFA Dean of Performing Arts Ernest Lim (centre)
made sure everyone had a good time.

ELISO VIRSALADZE Piano Recital / Review

 

ELISO VIRSALADZE Piano Recital

Victoria Concert Hall

Tuesday (18 November 2025)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 20 November 2025 with the title "Legendary pianist Elisa Virsaladze plays Chopin with heart and ebullience".

All thanks to the buzz created by the Frederic Chopin International Piano Competition which concluded in Warsaw about a month ago, music lovers are still debating what constitutes ideal Chopin playing versus what actually wins competitions. Reality lies somewhere in between, no better illustrated by the 83-year-old Georgian pianist Eliso Virsaladze.

Belonging to the venerable generation of pianists that includes Martha Argerich (who no longer performs solo recitals), Vladimir Ashkenazy (now retired) and Daniel Barenboim (diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease), Virsaladze appears unimpeded by age. Belying a slow walk from wing to keyboard, she unleashed torrents of sound and passion on the C.Bechstein grand once she got started.

Photo: Tang Yaoyu

Opening an all-Chopin recital with the Polonaise-Fantasy in A flat major (Op.61) was a most daunting task. There was virtually no warm up, with its declamatory opening statement setting the tone for the evening. Her swift and unsentimental take, eschewing rubato for its own sake, meant there was to be no posturing or virtue-signalling with this music.

She played it straight, and once she had the throbbing polonaise rhythm (based on dances of nobility) going, the constant pulse never flagged. All the accompanying filigree was just that, merely the means to an end as the fantasy elements gradually took over, all the way to the work’s ambiguously heroic and tragic end.

Photo: Tang Yaoyu

Also from Chopin’s late period was his Third Sonata in B minor (Op.58), for which pacing through its four movements was paramount. Virsaladze got it right by not including the first movement’s exposition repeat, instead going headlong into the development’s conflict between martial ideas and pure lyricism.

The mercurial Scherzo was well contrasted with the Largo slow movement’s languorous musings, before the strident octaves and exertions of the imperious Finale. Here, Virsaladze could have momentarily come undone but she held on tenaciously for a heady build-up and thrilling close.

Photo: Tang Yaoyu

Chopin, the creator of exquisite miniatures, occupied the recital’s second half. The pair of Nocturnes (Op.27) are in harmonically related keys of C sharp minor and D flat major respectively. This gave her a chance to showcase the pieces’ varied moods, the former’s smouldering with tension before rapturous release and the latter’s unbroken cantabile spell.

Beautiful as the nocturnes were, a well-selected suite of six Mazurkas (from Op.30, 33 and 59) displaying Chopin’s patriotism and aching nostalgia also showcased Virsaladze’s disarming empathy with this idiom. Poles and Georgians shared similar struggles and tribulations in their centuries-long histories. The trio of late Mazurkas from Op.59 was particularly poignant.

Photo: Tang Yaoyu

The enthralling recital closed with two vastly contrasting Waltzes, the diminutive but graceful G flat major (Op.70 No.1) and the vertiginously swirling A flat major (Op.42) which brought down the house. Virsaladze’s encores were a loving reprise of the earlier dance tandem, the melancholic Mazurka in A minor (Op.68 No.2) followed by the brilliant Waltz in A flat major (Op.34 No.1). Performed with heart, warmth and an ebullience unafraid to take risks, that was what Chopin was all about.

Photo: Tang Yaoyu

SUTD LUNCHTIME PERFORMANCES: PIANO FIESTA November 2025 Edition

The Lang Lang grand piano, gifted to 50 public institutions in 2015 as part of the SG50 celebrations, has been particularly busy at the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD). It is an omnipresent fixture at SUTD's Lunchtime Performances, which takes places on Wednesday afternoons during term time. Piano Fiesta is the mini-piano festival organised by Professor Lim Seh Chun featuring faculty performers as well as guest players. This month's edition on 19 November 2025 was graced by two former artistic directors of the Singapore International Piano Festival, no less. Here are the photos of another hour of piano classics.

Professor Lim Seh Chun introduces the
lunchtime performance series.

Lim Yan performed three Rachmaninov Preludes,
Op.23 Nos.1,3 & 5.

SUTD lecturer Jer-Ming Chen
explains his performance.

Arvo Part's Fur Alina followed by
Jer-Ming own response and improvisation.

There are two Scriabin Etudes being performed
this afternoon, and I'm playing the easier one.

Scriabin's Etude Op.2 No.1 followed by
Mozart's Fantasy in D minor K.397.

SUTD Lecturer Melissa Tu
waxes lyrical about Chopin's Ballades.

The other Scriabin Etude
in C sharp minor, Op.42 No.5

Chopin's Ballade No.2 in F major Op.38

We get to take home some fine tea.

Kee Kirk Chin makes up the original TBM
(Three Bald Men), soon to make their debut.

Now its FBM or 3 and 1/2 BM.
Lim Yan, you'll soon get there!

AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS / New Opera Singapore Gala Dinner 2025

The New Opera Singapore (NOS) annual gala dinner was held on Sunday 16 November 2025, and having missed the previous years' events, there was no chance we would be missing it this year. The Grand Ballroom of the Fullerton Hotel played host to an evening of good music and fine dining by the only opera company in Singapore that receives a major annual grant by the National Arts Council. 

Founded by Korean soprano Jeong AeRee and her husband the cellist-conductor Chan Wei Shing in 2022, NOS celebrates its 14th anniversary this year. Known for its edgy productions that break all rules and pre-conceptions, NOS has been responsible for some of the most memorable opera productions in recent years. Here are some pictures from a scintillating evening.

The NOS Chorus performs the
Bell Chorus from Leoncavallo's I Pagliacci.

NOS Chairman Michael Tay greets one and all.

Appetiser: Sliced scallops.

And the concert begins:
Soprano Kezia Robson and tenor Edward Kim
in the Papa-Papageno duet from Mozart's Magic Flute.
Baritone Martin Ng in Charles Ives' Circus Band.

Tenor Shaun Lee in Licino Refice's Ombra di nube
and Sim Wei Ying in Nicholas Ho's Chicken Rice.

Soprano Lydia Li in Zhai Shui Di Fang
and Kezia Robson in the Drinking Song 
from Offenbach's La Perichole.

Main courses:
Salmon or beef cheek?

Edward Kim's sung Korean is impeccable
while Shaun Lee & Sim Wei Ying
ham it up in the Watch Duet 
from Strauss' Die Fledermaus.

Chan Wei Shing plays a Shepherd Song
while master calligrapher does his work.

The final Champagne Chorus from Die Fledermaus.

Chan Wei Shing plays the
garang (aggressive) auctioneer.

Finally, dessert!

Hobnobbing with the celebs:
Ever the promiscuous chorister, Patricia Teng
sings in every opera chorus.

With Chan Wei Shing and Martin Ng, who has
his own opera company Lirica Arts.

NOS Chairman Michael Tay

NOS Founder & Artistic Director Jeong AeRee.

All the beautiful people
take a final photo for the road.