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The Mysterious Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music |
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Written by Varshaa Negi
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"Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music."
- Sergei Rachmaninov
Our university recognizes and encourages the magnificence of music. The
mysterious and hallowed portals that one sees upon entering the campus
are those of the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music.
Many questions
often come to mind. Who are the students? How do you get in? What kind
of modules do they take? How does the interior look like? To answer
these questions, HOOKED presents you with a guided tour of this
enigmatic conservatory.
The National University of Singapore (NUS) and the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University signed an agreement on 26 November 2001, establishing Singapore’s first conservatory of music.
The school was later renamed Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music in recognition of a gift from the family of the late Dr. Yong Loo Lin. Yong Siew Toh, a music teacher, found her greatest joy in giving music to others. The Yong family believes that their contribution is a fitting gift to honour her life and devotion to music.
The Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music offers both Bachelor of Music (Honours) Degree and Graduate Diploma in Music Performance, with majors in Performance (Piano and Orchestral Instruments) and Composition.
Bachelor of Music is a four-year full-time music degree programme with an emphasis on music performance and music academics. Humanities studies and electives allow students to pursue their interests in other disciplines.
The curriculum provides a strong foundation for students to continue their artistic development at outstanding graduate schools or become international artists at the highest professional level. All requirements for the degree must be completed within a maximum of six years of a student’s enrolment.
For admission to the Graduate Diploma in Music Performance, a candidate must have obtained a Bachelor of Music degree or its equivalent from a recognized institution. A candidate may be admitted at the beginning of the first or second semester of an academic year after a successful in-person audition.
Walking through the fully air-conditioned conservatory, one cannot help but feel the harmony in the air. The veins of the place throb with every beat played in this temple of Apollo and Muses. Lessons are held in parquet or carpeted floored studios, which make for a classy and apt condition for honing the talents of the musically-inclined within our midst.
The modern façade of the building, with glass exteriors, indeed makes it “a prestigious centre for the education of musically gifted students”. Before you think that this conservatory is only impressive due to its lovely exterior and facilities, they have an extensive list of faculty members who are more than qualified to groom the gifted students.
The faculty consists of talented individuals in various sections - from strings, piano, percussion, woodwinds, chamber winds, musical composition to, of course, academic studies.
From more widely known T’ang Quartet being the resident quartet of the conservatory, to Mark Suter in the Percussion section who has collaborated with various musicians and ensembles like Yo-Yo Ma and Aretha Franklin, students are definitely in good and talented hands.
The contribution of Yong Siew Toh Conservatory to the field of music not just makes it to the headlines manifold, doing both NUS and Singapore proud, it also displays a rare and extraordinary tribute to music.
Dr Tony Tan, Former Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore described this pride of Singapore most beautifully: “The establishment of the Conservatory is part of a wide-ranging strategy to position Singapore as an Asian renaissance city of the 21st century for the arts and culture.”
We could not have said it better ourselves. Hooked
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