ECHOES BEYOND
Yong Siew Toh Orchestral Institute
Conservatory Concert Hall
Saturday 5 September 2026
This reflection was written by PHAN MING YEN, personal friend of the Tans, in memory of the late Mr Tan Kah Tee.
On the evening of 5th September, a concert honouring the memory of the late Tan Kah Tee was held at the Concert Hall of the Yong Siew Toh (YST) Conservatory of Music. Titled Echoes Beyond, the event was presented by the YST Orchestral Institute under its “Ones to Watch” Series. The institute’s publicity marketed the programme as one of “searching, transformation and renewal, reflecting on the enduring impact of a life well lived.”
In the first half, audiences heard the YST Orchestra under principal conductor Jason Lai in Charles Ives’s The Unanswered Question and Richard Strauss’s Death and Transfiguration. The second half began with YST Head of Piano Studies Albert Tiu and Cello Faculty member Qin Li-Wei in Harry Sdraulig’s Fantasia on Waltzing Matilda and Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Spring Waters before YST Concerto Competition 2026 Prizewinner Jiang Qifan took center stage with Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No.3.
The titles of the works in themselves may already echo the programme, although Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No.3 was more of a practical calling card to seek opportunities than one bearing any visionary message. This was the work with which the composer wrote specially for his debut in the USA, where he eventually settled — perhaps more out of necessity than choice, as he always longed for the Russia he once knew.
At a pre-concert reception, YST Dean Peter Tornquist paid tribute to Tan Kah Tee’s legacy for the conservatory — a donation of three concert grand pianos and the Tan Eng Chin Scholarship.
This preceded a sharing by Tan’s widow, Mrs Catherine Tan, that was memorable for an anecdote which illustrated the depth to which music resonated in his life. One morning, when Tan was already stricken by the illness that would take his life, he still found strength to improvise on the piano, accompanying the crowing of a rooster that had wandered into their house compound. Tan, from all those who remembered him, was always there in the audience at YST concerts.
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| Charles Ives and Richard Strauss |
As for the concert itself, a thought flashed by during the climactic moments of Death and Transfiguration and stuck in the mind for the whole evening — reinforced by the orchestra’s support in the Rachmaninoff. The YST Orchestra reminded me of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra at their best in the mid-1990s: performances delivered with raw conviction and power. It was the kind of conviction that made you want to revisit music you once knew or made you curious about music you were hearing for the first time.
The wistful mood set by Tiu and Qin in the two cello-piano duos after intermission set the stage for the epic that is Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto — famously once described as a work of quicksilver mood shifts that ran the gamut of all human emotions.
Jiang Qifang’s high-spirited drive through of the third movement of the Rachmaninoff and his encore of Rachmaninoff’s Polka de W.R was enthusiastically received by the audience comprising guests and the public. The concert was part of the conservatory’s “Ones to Watch” Series, and the evening certainly piqued one’s curiosity about who to listen out for next.
The writer wishes to thank Dr Kevin YL Tan for valuable suggestions.
