DOCTORS IN RECITAL @ Steinway Gallery Singapore / Just Photographs, No Review

So it finally happened, when the doctors descended upon Steinway Gallery Singapore on a Saturday afternoon and early evening, turning the area around Orchard Towers into a cultural zone, as opposed to a vice zone. 

To our shock, the event was oversubscribed, and bus-loads of people (OK I jest, BMW-loads of people) had to be turned away for fear of overcrowding and turning Steinway's pristine showroom into the black hole of Calcutta. It was standing room only, and the pressure was on. There were several music critics (from The Flying Inkpot) in the audience, so the pressure was really on.

The chief pleasure was to get to play on a Steinway B model, which plays like a dream. Whoever can afford a BMW (current COE prices and all) should be able to take one of these babies home.

The lovely programme booklet produced by Steinway,
which helpfully included the Russian composers'
patryonomic names when most people don't bother.

Dr Lin Xiumin opened the programme with
George Winston's transcription of Pachelbel's Canon.

Dr Ronald Ling, a health-industry advisor and investor, who
regularly plays chamber music in France and Switzerland,
contributed Brahms's Scherzo in C minor,
accompanied by Dr Lin on the piano.

Yours truly rehashed some oldies, including the
Bach-Siloti Air on D string (the decent version of the G string),
Gershwin's Promenade and Mayerl's Shallow Waters.

Arguably the highlight, a professional cellist joined in.
Brandon Voo Esq., former student of the great Nella Hunkins,
performed the Andante from Rachmaninov's Cello Sonata,
and One Thousand Years, made famous by The Piano Guys.
From now, Voo and Lin will be known as The Cello Guys.

The evening concluded with the inimitable Dr Au Kah Kay
(aka I Could Have Played All Night) in Chopin's Barcarolle and
Granados's Allegro di Concierto. As the audience demanded
an encore, he obliged with the Schumann-Liszt Widmung.

All the Piano, Violin and Cello Guys,
from the shortest to the tallest.

Posing with Ms Celine Goh, manager of Steinway Gallery
Singapore, herself a pianist who could outplay the best of us.

The official Steinway poster with our autographs.
Does that make us Steinway artists?

With our guests the Cheong Family.
Little Benjamin already plays on a Steinway piano.

All photographs strictly by the permission of Steinway Gallery Singapore, the Piano, Violin and Cello Guys, and the management of Palais Renaissance, Orchard Towers and the Royal Thai Embassy. Violators of copyright will be subject to worse than legal action, that is being forced to sit through multiple sessions of Pianomaniac practising.

DOCTORS IN RECITAL: Come and get your MC!

And here's an awful bit of shameless self-promotion.

If you happen to have nothing better to do on Saturday afternoon, and also happen to be in the vicinity of Orchard Towers or the Royal Thai Embassy, you might like to make a visit to Steinway Gallery Singapore @ Palais Renaissance for some music.

Three doctors (the kind you get MCs from) will be performing a short recital on a Steinway grand. They will be joined by a doctor of radiology on violin, and a doctor of cello in a couple of chamber works.

Place: Steinway Gallery, 

  Palais Renaissance, 

  Orchard Road (next to Breitling)

Date: Saturday 

   22 February 2014 (Tomorrow!) 

Time: 4-6 pm 

(I've been told the playing starts at 4.00 pm)

The programme goes something like this:

PACHELBEL-WINSTON Canon in D

BRAHMS Scherzo in C minor (FAE Sonata)

BACH-SILOTI Aria in D

GERSHWIN Promenade

MAYERL Shallow Waters

RACHMANINOV Andante from Cello Sonata
Theme from Twilight (Piano Guys cover)

CHOPIN Barcarolle

GRANADOS Allegro de Concierto

Dr Lin Xiumin will be doing the chamber pieces (with Dr Ronald Ling, violinist and Brandon Voo Esq.), Dr Au Kah Kay will take on the virtuoso works, while yours truly the slower and simpler pieces. 

To register, please call or e-mail as in the notice below. I heard that places have been filling up faster than the Accident and Emergency Department of Tan Tock Seng Hospital.

We don't know who Brandon Ang is, but there's only one Brandon Voo Esq.

LIVING WITH... DOCTOR CHOPIN

LIVING WITH... DOCTOR CHOPIN

The Living Room, The Arts House

Monday (3 May 2010)

So it finally took place, the "doctor's prescription" of Frédéric Chopin's music by three Singaporean doctors. The recital was Xiumin's idea, and it was he who galvanised all concerned into our diabolical doctor's plot. The recital was very well attended (to our pleasant surprise), including members of Singapore's Polish community, more doctors and several real pianists.

Xiumin performed the Barcarolle (Op.60) and Polonaise in F sharp minor (Op.44), playing low-seated like a certain Glenn Gould.

With Chopin's bust for good luck, yours truly played a 20-minute suite centred around the Funeral March (from Op.35), dedicated in memory of the lives lost in the April 10 Smolensk air tragedy and the 1940 Katyn massacre.

Kah Kay closed the evening with a Mazurka, Nocturne and the Fantasy in F minor (Op.49). As an encore, he added the Ballade No.4 in F minor (Op.52)

A photo with the Polish Ambassador to Singapore, HE Mr Waldemar Dubaniowski, who was proud that Singaporeans share the same passion for Chopin as Poles themselves.

LIVING WITH... DOCTOR CHOPIN

FREDERIC CHOPIN (1810-1849)

Happy 200th Birthday!

Here's a spot of shameless self-promotion:

IF YOU HAVE 

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ELSE TO DO

NEXT MONDAY EVENING 

(3 MAY 2010),

Why not spend an hour with

LIVING WITH... DOCTOR CHOPIN

A Chopin Recital 

by Three Singapore Doctors

8 pm, The Arts House @ Old Parliament House

Tickets at $12

DR LIN XIUMIN will perform:

Barcarolle in F sharp major, Op.60

Polonaise in F# minor, Op.44

YOURS TRULY will perform:

Valse in C# minor, Op.64 No.2

Prélude in D flat major, 

Op.28 No.15 "Raindrop"

Funeral March from 

Sonata No.2 in B flat minor, Op.35

Mazurka in A minor, Op.17 No.4

Contredanse in G flat major

DR AU KAH KAY will perform:

Mazurka in D flat major, Op.30 No.3

Nocturne in B major, Op.9 No.3

Fantasy in F minor, Op.49

A SOIRÉE WITH BRYCE MORRISON / Part 1

The invitation to an evening 

of musical enchantment!

Three Young Virtuosi of Singapore PianoFest:
Lee Pei Ming (2006), Nicholas Loh (2009)
& Albert Lin (2007, from L)

Bryce Morrison celebrates the life 

of Australian diva of the piano Eileen Joyce 

with an illuminating illustrated talk, 

and finishing with a cautionary message.

Yao Xiaoyun, Young Virtuoso (2009) 

and 1st prizewinner of Piano Open category 2005, 

opened the evening with the
1st movement from Chopin's Sonata No.3.

Khoo Hui Ling, 1st prize winner of the 

YST Piano Concerto Competition 2009, 

performed Tchaikovsky's Dumka.

14-year-old Aileen Gozali 

gave a rare performance of Liszt's unfamiliar 

Hungarian Rhapsody No.4.

Au Kah Kay, a doctor in private practice,

polished off the Schubert-Liszt 

Soirées de Vienne No.6.

11-year-old Jonathan Chua did not find

Copland's Three Moods a great technical challenge.

Kelvin Chan, a scientist with A-Star, 

raised the roof with

Ravel's Scarbo from Gaspard de la nuit. 

BM looks more than

satisfied with his former student's work.