THANK YOU, PROFESSOR THOMAS HECHT

THANK YOU, 

PROFESSOR THOMAS HECHT

 

On Saturday 16 April, Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Concert Hall was packed to the rafters to witness a moving event, a concert that marked the farewell of Professor Thomas Hecht, Head of Piano Studies, retiring after 19 years of faithful service to the Singapore classical music community. A native of Baltimore, Maryland, he was a former student and teaching assistant of the great American pianist Leon Fleisher. He arrived in Singapore in 2003 as a founding member of the Conservatory faculty and its first head of piano. Later, he also became the National University of Singapore’s first full professor of music.

 

His students, who came from all over the planet to study with him, reads like a Who’s Who of piano performance in Singapore. Names like Abigail Sin, Azariah Tan, Clarence Lee, Jonathan Shin, Mervyn Lee, Khoo Hui Ling and Serene Koh, many of whom became prizewinners in national and international piano competitions. More recently, his Taiwanese student Chang Yun Hua was invited to perform at the 2021 Singapore International Piano Festival. His students remember him for his keen intellect, holistic approach, nurturing spirit, infinite patience and kindness. The archetypal short-tempered and knuckle-rapping pedagogue he was certainly not. One of them, now a well-known musical personality, said, “he did not just teach playing, but imparted musical and life values in the most generous way possible. I would not be a professional musician today if not for him.”  

With his colleagues, 
Qian Zhou and Qin Li-Wei,
heads of violin and cello respectively.

 

Thomas performed concertos regularly, including those of Beethoven, Brahms, Liszt, Mozart and Ravel with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Conservatory Orchestra and Orchestra of the Music Makers. Notably, he also gave the Singapore premieres of Poulenc’s Aubade, Thomas Ades’ Concerto Conciso, Bruch’s Double Piano Concerto (with his colleague Albert Tiu), and piano quintets by Anton Webern and Alfred Schnittke, not to mention works of a host of American composers.

 

For the farewell concert, sporting a Chinese outfit, red scarf and a Bashkirovian goatee, he performed Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.24 in C minor (K.491) with the Conservatory Orchestral Institute conducted by Jason Lai. This was a reading of great poetry and sensitivity, contrasted with the sturm und drang of main theme and orchestral accompaniment. He played his own cadenzas, including a suitably grand and blustery but totally idiomatic one for the first movement. In the romance-like slow movement, his added personal touches in various passages helped enhance the narrative. 

A standing ovation greeted the Theme and Variations finale, and his encore was the poignant central movement of Rachmaninov’s Second Sonata. The video tribute by his colleagues and students was a truly touching one, and one can imagine Thomas staving off the tears for as long as possible after that.

You can view the full concert here:

Orchestral Institute: Thomas Hecht Plays Mozart (16 Apr 2022) | YST Conservatory - YouTube

 

Nineteen years seems like a long time, but it passed like a flash. Imagine the number of music students who have passed through the doors of YST, to become excellent performers and teachers themselves, to create and recreate great music all around the world. The legacy of spreading classical music globally, to make our wretched earth a better place to live in, is the purview of great teachers of music and life. We thank you, Professor Thomas Hecht, for making all this possible. We wish you the best in all your future endeavours.