THE NUS MEDICINE CLASS OF '89 REUNION DINNER @ IPOH, PERAK

The 37th anniversary dinner of the NUS (National University of Singapore) Medicine Class of 1989 took place on Saturday, 11 July 2026 at the Weil Hotel, Ipoh. For me, it was a time to reminisce about the five years spent at Kent Ridge, attending unintelligible lectures, sweating over cadavers, fumbling around in laboratory classes, looking blur at tutorials, later "spotting" questions at the Provisional and Professional exam papers, "hunting" for signs at the hospital wards. 

With Chu Siu Kong, Rajesh Shah,
Loo Choo Woon & Kenny Ee.

It was during the first two years (1984-1986) when the class of 205 was united, a time we saw everybody at lectures in Anatomy, Physiology and Biochemistry, and smelling of formaldehyde in the dissection hall. From 1987, we were split into clinical groups of eight and then packed to the hospitals for clinical postings - Internal Medicine, General Surgery, Orthopaedic Surgery, Obstetrics & Gynaecology, Paediatrics and all the miscellaneous short postings - Psychiatry, Ophthalmology, Otorhinolaryngology (Ear-Nose-Throat), Dermatology, Anaesthesiology and more. But we returned to attend lectures in Pharmacology, Pathology, Microbiology (Infectious Diseases), Immunology, Community, Occupational and Family Medicine et cetera, some of which were conveniently missed to spend more time in hospital.

With Teoh Mei Lin, Vanessa Ng (Mrs Loo),
Chu Siu Kong and his missus.

Before long, it was April 1989 and the Final Professional Exams and the final reckoning. By May, the more conscientious and cannier ones would be let loose in the public hospitals as house officers. Somehow, I got myself retained for another six months before passing in September. This afforded me a month-long vacation in London to attend all the concerts I wanted before actually beginning work in November. I eventually graduated in 1990, but the class of 1984-1989 represents my fellow passengers in the rite of passage that is medical school. 

Table 3 of Weil Hotel Ballroom

It was a short but highly eventful five years, which I only began to treasure as the years flew past. The antics will not be forgotten although some would rather forget those in a hurry. Whatever it is, the memories of old friends and colleagues will linger on, and we should meet again as soon as we can.   

 

Solid Gold Dancers.
They really put in much practice for this.

The same foursome 1989 and now:
Lim Woan Huah, Janet Lee,
Yong Sze Tein & Juliana Tan.

The Way We Were: 1984 and 1990.

This foursome made it to Buckingham Palace:
Lim Boon Ang, Janet Lee,
Philip Koh & Lim Woan Huah.

Does this remind you of someone?
(one of the physiology lecturers!)

Getting ready for the big photo.

Here it is!
Credit: Jett Fynn

"Datuk" Leong Seng Keen serenades
with Yue Liang Dai Biao Wo De Xin.

This silly game involves catching of balls.

The big question is, "Do What?"

With Koong Heng Nung, Nelson Chua,
Erik Ang & Karen Yap (Mrs Ang).

With Nelson Chua, Kam Leng (Mrs Chua)
and Datuk Rajesh Shah of Pulau Pinang.

We're not gangsters,
just ex-NUS medical students!
Photo: Jett Fynn

P.S. Sometimes I wonder what my ex-classmates thought of me then. I would probably be remembered as the strange fellow who loved classical music, played the piano, binge-watched Professional Wrestling, and could never get a girlfriend. Not for the want of trying. Which was just as well, because that might have meant retention for one more year, possibly more.

Finally, here's to my long-suffering buddy
in the 35th Medical Officer Cadet Course,
the anaesthetist Nelson Chua Ping Ping,
who was also part of our HQ Medical Services
winning team at the 1992 SPH VisQuiz.

Yep, I had a bit more follicles then.

See what the class of '89 did on the town in Ipoh:

pianomania: THE NUS MEDICINE CLASS OF '89 DESCENDS ON IPOH, PERAK... AND SPENDS LOTS

THE NUS MEDICINE CLASS OF '89 DESCENDS ON IPOH, PERAK... AND SPENDS LOTS

Taken at Weil Hotel on Friday 10 July.
Among the people are Chen Lin Han,
Nelson Chua, Leong Seng Keen, Janet Lee,
Lai Yeow Choy, Lee Hung Meng and their spouses.

I've attended class reunions in the past, but this was the first one overseas - in Perak, Ipoh. The National University of Singapore (NUS) Medicine class of 1984-1989 made its 37th anniversary by having the reunion in Ipoh, Perak. The 35th anniversary reunion was held in Penang two years ago, which I had missed much to my regret, so I was sure to make it up this time around. 

Assembling to take that group photo
in front of Ipoh Town Hall.

This was also a Raffles Junior College
pioneers' (1982-83) reunion.
With my piano playing friends,
Janelene Leong & Mabel Cheng.

Of a class of 205 people, just under a quarter (43 to be exact) took the trouble and expense to turn up, most of them with their spouses and family members in tow. I was one of the few exceptions, but that did not dampen the spirits as the class was let loose on Ipoh. For Singaporeans, most places in Malaysia are a shopping and foodie paradise, so we let our wallets do the talking. Many restaurants, food stalls and snack shops, durian dealers, a posh hotel and a record shop got to be beneficiaries. 

The Jalan Panglima steps leading to the
Birch Memorial Clock Tower.

Going down to the basement bank vault
of Book Xcess, Ipoh's iconic bookshop.

Getting one's fill at
Restoran Thean Chun.

Outside the Kung Fu Cafe & Huay Kuan.

More importantly, it was time to reunite and reminisce, to rake up old stories and antics which young people in the 1980s got up to - which was not very much (especially med students). Most of the time was spent studying, attending lectures and tutorials, lab sessions and later hours in the hospital wards. At least I had some time to attend concerts, and in those days, it was mostly the SSO. With few distractions, all we had to do was to pass exams over five rather quick years. 

The lot descend on Durbar at FMS
to keep Aunty Susan busy.

Sampling of durians at Weil Hotel.

Rambutans & Mangosteens.

It's time to go back home.
With the Au Eongs, Kah Guan and Denise.
Leong Seng Keen, Chan Kay Heem & wife,
and Lee Cheng Chuan.

Before long, we were let loose on the hospitals, and many did not get to see each other again, except for class reunions. Which is why, such events are important. The next one is set for the 40th anniversary of passing, to be held in July 2029. God willing, I will be there again to cause some trouble.

Here are the "official" class photos:

Ipoh Railway Station

Ipoh Town Hall

Birch Memorial Clock Tower

Official photos from the 

camera of Chan Kay Heem.

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.

CANONIC OFFERINGS / Mathemusical Conversations / Review

CANONIC OFFERINGS

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Concert Hall

Saturday (14 February 2014)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 16 February 2015 with the title "Having fun with mathematics and music".

Canonic Offerings was a concert and part of Mathemusical Conversations, an international workshop on music and mathematics organised by the National University of Singapore's Institute of Mathematical Sciences and Yong Siew Toh Conservatory. For centuries, mankind has pondered on and celebrated the intimate relationship between the two subjects, and this concert provided a brief glimpse of what happens when both are united in harmony and time.

Music is essentially a sequence of notes, frequencies and silences conducted over the passage of time. It is the variables of these parameters which give music its meaning, making it interesting for listeners, the end-users of seemingly complex formulae. The canon, with notes played over a repeated rhythmic pattern of fixed durations, is one of the foundations of musical form. Anyone who has sung Three Blind Mice or Row Your Boat will understand how it works.

  

American composer Clifton Callender's Canonic Offerings presented a series of ten short canons each of different time signatures for string quartet, which was an ideal medium as the four voices could operate in unison or independently while staying perfectly in time.

Being fiendishly difficult to coordinate was part of the equation, and the members of T'ang Quartet were aided with ear pieces which provided the beats which sometimes accelerated wildly or slowed down to stasis as called for in the score. Although mathematical in conception, the tonal idiom and skilful employment of counterpoint made it a quite pleasant listen.  

The quartet was joined by Australian pianist Jacob Abela for the World Premiere of American Dmitri Tymoczko's S Sensation Something which took on a more visceral approach to the subject. The slow opening with two violins gradually joined by other voices was canonic, almost resembled Pachelbel's ubiquitous Canon but soon took on a life of its own by shifting and playing around with the rules.

Its fast central section ambled from lively to violent but the underlying pulse was never lost in the process, before winding down for a fairy-tale world of glimmering textures and a quiet close. Was there a programme or story to the music's fantastical imagery? This was where mathematics could be made to resound with palpably human emotions.   

Johann Sebastian Bach might be considered as the grandfather of mathematics in music. His Goldberg Variations, originally composed for one keyboard, comprised an Aria, 30 variations (on the left hand sequence of the theme rather than its melody) and bookended by a reprise of the Aria. Every third variation is a canon based on different intervals.

Australian don Stephen Emmerson's transcription of the variations spreads the work between two performers on two pianos in a neat division of labour. With each pianist having less to play, there is scope for enhancing the harmonies and discreetly adding counter-melodies. The basic architecture being kept intact, there was little fear of blowing the work out of proportion in this fun experiment.

Pianists Emmerson and Bernard Lanskey, Head of the Conservatory, clearly enjoyed their tasks at hand, and there was much humour in their interplay and exchanges in leading the melodies. Even if some of the variations did not go neatly as planned, it was the keen musicianship that won the day. By Variation No.30, a cheeky Quodlibet that mashes up trite Teutonic tunes of the day, and the Aria's return, a breezy voyage of harmonic exploration had transpired. Cerebral or otherwise, it was not a bad way to spend an evening with a loved one on  Valentine's Day.