Singaporean piano music in the limelight during Piano Extravaganza

SINGAPORE – Young pianists will take centre stage at Piano Extravaganza 2024.

The yearly showcase, which aims to highlight home-grown piano talent, will feature four pianists – Lin Xiangning, Jonathan Shin, Geoffrey Lim and Natalie Ng – at the School of the Arts Singapore Concert Hall on July 13. 

The evening will feature piano works for one, two, four and eight hands, including pieces by Schubert and Chopin, as well as the world premiere of Shin’s Three City Ballads. 

Three City Ballads is based on three poems – Funan: A Traveller’s Guide by Singaporean Theophilus Kwek, Just Once by American Anne Sexton and Highway by American Billy Collins. 

Shin, a 32-year-old professional composer-pianist, says: “I’m always excited for projects that marry my two loves: music and literature. This concert is the perfect platform to share this particular joy.” 

Piano Extravaganza began as the Young Virtuoso Recital in 2004, organised by then-artistic director of the Singapore International Piano Festival and The Straits Times classical music reviewer Chang Tou Liang, who is also a family physician. 

The 58-year-old says he saw a need to provide young pianists with a platform to showcase their work. “Presenters are often sceptical of local talent. People are more willing to pay for a name rather than someone who they think may not be good, especially when the performers are local.”

Hence, Piano Extravaganza gives pianists an opportunity to demonstrate their talent. They perform a repertoire of their choice and receive a cut of the profit from ticket sales.

Dr Chang also places an emphasis on including local composers because “nobody knows what Singaporean piano music sounds like”. 

He observes there are more pianists in Singapore of better calibre who play a wider repertoire. Interestingly, a significant proportion do not start off as students in conservatories, but go on to play at a professional level later in life. 

“Many people who are not in the performing industry or professionally trained are as good as concert pianists,” he says. 

Dr Chang finds new musicians for each edition of Piano Extravaganza by “being a musical kaypoh” – constantly attending concerts held by conservatories and music schools, as well as obtaining leads from trusted piano teachers.

In 2024’s line-up of pianists, Shin is the only composer and musician by trade. Ng, 36, works as an arts administrator, while Lim, 38, is the head of corporate development at music technology company BandLab Technologies. Ng and Lim, both of whom occasionally review classical concerts for ST, make up the piano duo 2heads.4hands.

Since they met in 2022, they have performed together multiple times and won the Lugano International Music Competition held in Switzerland in February 2023.

They will perform Schubert’s Fantasie In F Minor, which Ng says is the pinnacle of four-hand piano music “because it encapsulates so much: joy, sadness, tragedy, and at its core, humanity”.

Lin, 27, believes the classical music scene in Singapore will grow.

The Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music faculty member sees Piano Extravaganza as a “celebration of the multitude of personalities, styles, programming ideas and niches of the pianists in the local community”.

She says: “The appetite for experimentation leads to fresh productions that are bold in their own ways, with more personal or communal stories blended into the musical storytelling.” 

Dr Chang thinks appetite for classical music will also increase. He says: “As many young people are engaged with classical music because of their musical training, they will know what quality in arts is all about.”

Book It/Piano Extravaganza 2024

Where: School of The Arts Singapore Concert Hall, 1 Zubir Said Drive
When: July 13, 7.30pm
Admission: $38 from BookMyShow (

str.sg/oDRpB

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