pianomania: Photos from DOCTORS WITH A CAUSE Concert / A Causeway ExChange event

Here's a shameless bit of self-promotion. I was recently invited to perform a 15-minute mini piano recital in a concert Doctors With A Cause at Alexandra Hospital on Tuesday (13 September 2016). This was part of the Causeway EXChange programme of events which has been promoting bilateral ties through the arts between Singapore and Malaysia since 2010.

This was the first time that medical doctors have been involved, with the idea that good music can also be therapeutic, even when delivered by people who are more often viewed as pill-pushers and MC-issuers. Doctors from both Singapore and Malaysia performed in this concert, playing on one of the "Lang Lang" grand pianos designed by Steinway that have been donated to various schools and organisations in Singapore last year.

It is customary to get the least spectacular person
to perform first! And I played all slow pieces:
the Bach-Siloti Prelude in B minor,
the Bach-Siloti Air in D major and
Rachmaninov's Vocalise in Alan Richardson's
transcription. Wonder how many people kept awake.

Dr Thevi Thanigasalam, an ophthalmologist
in Malacca performed the 1st movement from
Beethoven's Pathetique Sonata and
Chopin's Scherzo No.2 completely from memory.

Dr Au Kah Kay, another one of the usual suspects,
played the Schumann-Liszt Widmung
and Chopin's Barcarolle.

And here are the doctor-pianists!

Doctor turned stand-up comedian Dr Jason Leong
from Kuala Lumpur showed how
laughter is the best medicine
by regaling the audience with stories about his
Proton Wira and how MY is "different" from SG.

Like Saturday Night Live, there was a wonderful
world music band At Adau from Kuching, Sarawak
which performed a selection of updated indigenous
songs on traditional and modern instruments.