We are very proud to present our adjudicators for the Young Persons' Piano Competition. They consist of very experienced and dedicated professionals, musicians, lecturers and teachers who have so graciously agreed to commit their precious time to to come and listen to our young pianists play. They are .... 

Madam Lily Ang, LRSM   Madam Ang is a retired piano teacher from Ipoh. She is Miss Wong Chiew Kin’s first teacher with whom she spent much of her early formative years.   Born in Malaysia, Madam has a musical father who played the violin in the church. And her family was one of some very few who owned a piano in the pre-war days. Madam started her first music lessons with Mrs. Edwell at the age of seven.     She left for Hong Kong in her early teens where she continued her music-learning with a Russian teacher. Madam spent a number of years in Hong Kong and only returned to Malaysia when the World War II began.   After obtaining her LRSM, Madam further pursued her post graduate studies in UK with Professor Reginal Paul.   Since back in Malaysia, Madam had been devoting herself into music education for an impressive 40 years, retired only in her 70s. With her guidance, many of her students are now successful music professionals.

Christopher Chan.  Chris is the Chief Executive Officer of The Media Shoppe Bhd (TMS), and is a recognized leader in the technology-enabling field. He holds a Bachelors Degree in Music (Major in Piano Performance) from the University of Central Arkansas, USA. Chris is  visionary with a keen pioneering spirit that has thrived at the forefront of new fields, he continues to strategically engineer TMS to be a formidable technology partner, guiding and enabling companies in their IT endeavors. Due to his dynamic leadership and active involvement in the industry, Chris was elected President of the Technopreneurs’ Association of Malaysia (TeAM) in March 2003. Formed by a group of Malaysian technopreneurs, TeAM aims to promote and cultivate the interests of technopreneurs in order to assist in the development of the Digital Economy in Malaysia. Chris’ efforts to be at the forefront of the Knowledge Management revolution have won him the ICT Entrepreneur of the Year Award at the PIKOM-Computimes ICT Awards 2001. One of the leading system solutions developed by TMS, tmsPUBLISHER™, also won the coveted awards of the ICT Product of the Year 2001 as well as the Best Software of the Year at COMDEX Asia 2001. TMS' latest solution - tmsEKP™ also won the International Asia Pacific Award 2004 in Hong Kong.

Chew Beng Lin  Chew began piano lessons at the age of seven, and completed her grade 8 level by the age of thirteen.  She continued studying piano under the tutelage of Eric MacDonald and Ricky Oui before leaving for the United States to pursue her Bachelor’s Degree in Piano Pedagogy at the Western Illinois University.  Chew was later granted a full scholarship to complete her Master’s Degree at the same university.  Throughout her studies, she was very much involved in teaching music students ranging from beginner up to college levels, in addition to being an active accompanist.  Chew is now a music lecturer at the University College Sedaya International, and conducting piano classes at her own private studio.

Chee Su-yen began her music studies at the age of five in Ipoh and excelled at the piano and violin. She obtained the Associate, Licentiate and Fellowship diplomas in piano performance from the Trinity College of Music at an early age.   In 1990 she won a scholarship to the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts where she studied with Gabriel Kwok. During her studies there she performed frequently as soloist and accompanist within the Academy. She also performed in the Government House concert series as well as solo recitals at Lunchtime concerts in St. John’s Cathedral. She was the recipient of numerous prizes at the Academy; namely the Exxon Prize, Standard Chartered Prize and the Shatin Lunchtime Concert Prize. She has participated in many masterclasses given by, notably Fou Ts’ong, Vladimir Feltsman, Martin Roscoe, Christopher Elton and Li Ming Qiang. Su-yen graduated with First Class Honours (B.Mus) in 1995 and in the same year performed as soloist with the Academy Symphony Orchestra.   She received her Masters degree from Indiana University, USA in 1997 where her teachers included Michel Block and Karen Shaw. As an accompanist she has also collaborated in a CD and has performed in Hong Kong, America, Singapore, Japan and China.   She currently lectures at University College Sedaya International, Malaysian Institute of Art and UiTM.

Chong Poh Kong  Ipoh-born, Singapore based  Chong Poh Kong started piano lessons at the age of seven firstly with Miss Yim Kam Seong and then with Miss B.M. Remedios, who laid the foundation of his enviable technique and enabled him to perform in numerous concerts. Poh Kong subsequently went to England to further his education. In 1986, he pursued a degree course at Imperial College, University of London but his love and interest in music never allowed him to give it up. He was accepted to learn under the aegis of Mr. Alan Colebourne who was a pupil of the late Louis Kentner. In 1990, Poh Kong obtained a Masters Degree in Chemical Engineering at Imperial College, University of London. In that same year, he was offered a postgraduate place to study piano performing with John Barstow, a senior Professor at London’s most prestigious music conservatoire, the Royal College of Music. He is a recipient of several trust funds notably the Laura Ashley Foundation, the Craxton Trust and the Alper Trust, which enabled him to continue with his postgraduate studies for a further two years.   At the College, he competed with music students from all over the world to win the John Ireland Prize and the Vivien Hamilton (Chopin) Prize. He was specially chosen to perform in the masterclass of Professor Naumov, a distinguished professor at the Moscow Conservatoire of Music. Since coming back, Poh Kong has been leading a busy career in music . In 1995, he gave his Singapore debut at the Victoria Concert Hall. He has also performed at the now defunct Shell ‘s Lunchtime Cultural Programme as well as in NAFA and La Salle Lunchtime Recitals. In 1997, he gave yet another Piano Recital consisting of Chopin’s and Liszt’s works. Poh Kong also contributed in Tan Chan Boon’s ‘Harvest of a Decade’ Concert in 1997 by performing two of Chan Boon’s compositions. In June 2001, he was selected to participate in TCU/Van Cliburn Piano Institute’s Teacher’s programme as a performer, performing Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 6 for Jose Feghali.   Poh Kong is now the Music Director of Classical Heritage Music Centre, which he set up in 2002.  Within a span of just over 4 years, his school has produced over 20 diploma holders, and 4 students obtaining the Hedy King Robinson prize for Grade 8 Theory.  And this year, he has been invited to be part of a panel of judges for the Cristofori Piano Competition 2006, and the Vivace Inter-Junior College Piano Ensemble Competition in Singapore.

FLAVIA DE SOUZA studied music and trained to be a concert pianist in Paris from 1967-1978 at the Paris Conservatoire and at the Ecole Normale de Musique and was three times recipient of French government scholarships. During her studies in France she trained under emminent French professors, to name a few, Pierre Sancan, Jeanne-Marie Darre, Genevieve Joy, and with international concert pianists, notably  Maurizio Pollini and Stephen Bishop-Kovacevic during summer schools at Siena in Italy, and at Dartington in England. In the Eighties when she returned to Malaysia, she performed extensively both locally as well as abroad and recorded for TV and Radio. Foreign appearances included invitations to perform both solo as well as with orchestras. Being the first Malaysian to have entered the Paris Conservatoire for piano studies, she was invited several times to conduct piano masterclasses and workshops in well-received public seminars, notably under the auspices of the British Council. 1986 saw the start of international invitations as cultural awardee, firstly, to four cities in Australia under a Cultural Award Scheme of the Australian Government, visiting various music institutions and conservatories in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and Perth. In 1991 she was invited to Vienna and Salzburg by the Austrian Ministry of Art and Culture for the Mozart Bi-centennial celebrations. And twice to Norway, in May 1994 to attend the Bergen International Music Festival, and in 1997 to attend both the International Chamber Music Festival in Stavanger and the Millenium celebrations in Trondheim. Since 1988 she has focused more on teaching and opened her own music studio, the 'Atelier de Musique'in Petaling Jaya in the hope of doing “different and varied and interesting things” and has developed her own ideas about music teaching, including a unique basic course for young children. Amongst her diploma students for the LRSM Performing, there have been four who were awarded full music scholarships to the London Royal Academy and the Royal College of Music and one to Paris, Muzaffar Abdullah, who is currently pursuing an international career as a pianist. Besides teaching, Flavia de Souza free-lances as a writer on music articles and reviews for the Press since 1992, and has written for the Singapore Arts Magazine at the Esplanade. In 2002 she was invited to give a series of masterclass-workshop-performances to the students of the Piano Ensemble class and at the Genesis Music camp at the National University of Singapore. In 2005 she presented her ideas on teaching children as a speaker at the 7th Australasian Piano Pedagogy Conference at the University of Adelaide in Australia. (website: flaviadesouza.com)

Lim Pei Sien, a native of Kota Bharu, Kelantan, is a graduate of West Virginia University, U.S.A, with a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Piano Performance, studying piano with Dr. James E. Miltenberger.                 Her achievements include winning the Pittsburgh Concert Society’s 2002 Major Audition, WVU Young Artist Competitions in 1998 and again in 2000, recipient of the Higher Education Resource Fund Top-Off Fellowship, and she was awarded the Outstanding Music Student Award from WVU Music Alumni Association.                 She was the Graduate Assistant for the piano area, where she got the chance to teach class piano to non-keyboard music majors, as well as individual lessons to undergraduate piano majors. Besides teaching, she also assisted the director of WVU opera program in musical coaching, and provided piano accompaniment for staged operas.  During the summer of 2001-2004, she was invited to serve as a staff accompanist for American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, Austria, and Interlochen Arts Camp in Michigan.                 Dr. Lim currently serves as a full-time lecturer at University-College Sedaya International, Kuala Lumpur.

P’ng Tean Hwa earned his Doctor of Musical Arts degree in piano performance and literature at West Virginia University and his Masters and Bachelors degrees in piano performance at Western Illinois University. In addition to the university music degrees, he also holds the FTCL and LTCL diplomas in piano performance and a chemical engineering degree from the Malaya University.                 Tean Hwa has appeared in many public concert performances in various capacities. As a soloist, he has given recitals in Malaysia, the USA as well as in Hungary; performed with the WVU Symphony Orchestra as a winner of its Young Artist Competition; and played in the masterclasses of Christopher O’Riley, Ralph Votapek, Lydia Artimiw, Anton Nel, Claude Frank, and Florence Kirsch. As a collaborative pianist, he has worked with players of almost every standard orchestral instrument and with singers, and has worked with many choral, opera, and musical theater productions over the years.   A music teacher since 1979, Dr. P’ng has taught a wide range of music subjects in Malaysia and in the USA. He has given piano lessons to students of all ages at all levels. As a clinician, he has given a number of talks and workshops, adjudicated competitions, and presented seminars for piano teachers and piano masterclasses in Malaysia, Indonesia and Hungary. Currently, he is Associate Professor and the Head of Classical Music Department at University College Sedaya International (UCSI) in Kuala Lumpur, where he teaches piano and coaches chamber music ensembles, as well as lectures in a number of specialized areas in music such as piano literature and performance practice.

 

	Wong Chiew Kin B.A. (Hons.), LTCL, AMusTCL.  Chiew Kin started her music lessons under the guidance of Madam Lily Ang, a renowned pioneer piano teacher in Ipoh. Under years of strict tutelage from <SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-ansi-language
Composed: 10/28/2006 | Modified: 11/04/2006
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