FORGET ME NOT
Howard Ng (Oboe)
Akkra Yeunyonghattaporn (Piano)
Conservatory Concert Hall
Tuesday (1 September 2026)
This review was published in The Straits Times on 3 September 2026 with the title "Multimedia, freshly brewed coffee perk up oboist Howard Ng, pianist Akkra Yeunyonghattaporn's recital".
Once in a while, Yong Siew Toh Conservatory presents its Alumni Series, a platform for distinguished former students to give concerts. Last year, Vietnamese pianist Khanh Nhi Luong, 3rd prize winner of the 2024 Leeds International Piano Competition returned with a splendid solo recital. This year was the turn of Malaysia-born Singapore-based oboist Howard Ng and Bangkok-based Thai pianist Akkra Yeunyonghattaporn, who both graduated in 2011 within the same cohort.
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Evidence this was not going
to be an ordinary chamber recital. |
This was more than just an oboe and piano recital. The audience was placed on stage and had a view of the hall from the performers’ perspective. There was also the added dimension of multimedia manned by Tay Shao Hui and Wan Zhong Hao which included projected visuals and films, taped sounds, lighting and various unexpected props.
The programme consisted of multiple short and varied pieces providing reflections on the lives and longings of a 21st century classical musician. The opening works, Edvard Grieg’s Solitary Traveller (Op.43 No.2) for piano and Edward Elgar’s Soliloquy for oboe and piano had the air of melancholy and intense introspection.
In Thea Musgrave’s Frisky from Take Two Oboes, Ng humourously partnered an audiovisual projection of himself. Akkra’s original composition for piano, The Descent of Ganga, relived splashy water pieces of Franz Liszt, Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel. Accompanied by visuals of surging waves and unstoppable fluid forces, this was dedicated to the memory of local composer Wynne Fung. One might also include the victims of the recent Nepal-Tibet floods.
Further visual elements figured prominently in Andre Jolivet’s Song for Canoeists of the Orinoco and Camille Saint-Saens’ The Nightingale and the Rose for oboe, while Akkra’s Above the Stars from Ohne Worte (Without Words) for cor anglais was breathtaking in its astronomical aspirations.
The concert’s title came from Dutch composer Louis Andriessen’s Vergeet Mij Niet (Forget-Me-Not) where Ng juggled between oboe (left hand) and piano (right hand) with increasing complexity. In the same composer’s Memory of Roses, Akkra pitted Schoenhut toy piano (left hand) against Fazioli concert grand (right hand). Far less gimmicky for piano alone were Adagio cantabile from Ludwig van Beethoven’s Pathetique Sonata and J.S.Bach’s Sheep May Safely Graze in Egon Petri’s contrapuntal transcription.
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| How close the audience was to the music. |
The second half included baroque music where the duo was joined by Red Dot Baroque cellist Leslie Tan in works by George Druschetszky and C.P.E.Bach In the time taken to play the latter’s Sonata in G minor in four movements, the multimedia guys had brewed onstage cups of coffee later served to members of the audience. This was a tribute to the old Cafe Zimmermann in Leipzig where the Bach family had held court.
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Have a coffee, ma'am!
Courtesy of Cafe Zimmermann. |
The concert closed with two oboe works by women composers which evoked nostalgia and revived past reminiscences. Marina Dranishnikova’s highly moving Poem was anachronistically Romantic in feel while Madeleine Dring’s Polka was pure fun and games. The audience was encouraged to jog their memories and remember only the favourite things. In the future, this thought-provoking but enjoyable concert would be one of these.
Post-concert photos:
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Trio Phoenix: Akkra with Zoi (Tzu-Jou Yeh)
and Alan Choo of Red Dot Baroque |
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Memories of our chance meeting at
Siam Ratchada Auditorium, Bangkok.
Leslie Howard's recital, January 2020. |
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| Sitting in my fridge today. |
This same review as published in The Straits Times on 2 September 2026:
