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Teaching as an Art (and the razzle dazzle of performance)

When I was growing up in the 80s and 90s, the term piano pedagogy was pretty much non-existent in the vernacular and just by virtue of being employed by Yamaha Music School, one was already seen as a legitimate music teacher. Today the term seems to be more foregrounded due to the efforts of one individual backed and endorsed by a prominent piano dealer, to circulate and champion the cause of piano pedagogy in Singapore, by encouraging Grade 8 teachers to “upgrade” themselves. In the Austrian university system, the school teaching, solo performance and instrumental pedagogy tracks are clearly differentiated with several music school systems across the provinces that insist on an applicant having a pedagogy degree as a license to teach. My Chinese friends however, report that the situation there is the reverse, where the performance graduates are perceived as the more desirable and sought-after teachers. My sense is that the perception in Singapore is quite the same as in C
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The Business of Piano Teaching in Singapore (The Economy of Music Education)

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It’s been 2 months since we moved into Toa Payoh and we are absolutely enthralled with our new neighbourhood and its modest, unassuming character. Where I sit at the piano, I see the trees and occasionally, squirrels scurrying up and down, delicate butterflies, and oriole birds doing a pas de deux . Occasionally, I hear the muted sounds of the French horn coming from the adjacent block, someone practicing scales from the opposite block and it is heartwarming to hear music at random moments during the day. I remember one of our first journeys home where the notion of having a new home fully sank in: leaving Changi then driving on the PIE right to the heart of Singapore where we live, instead of the old familiar route passing East Coast Park and the Tanjong Pagar port, turning off the AYE onto Lower Delta road to my mother’s apartment at Redhill where we used to stay on previous trips back. Living in a mature HDB estate also means that there are staggering numbers of outst
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From Austria to Singapore

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Exactly 10 years ago, I arrived in Salzburg. Enamored with old-world Europe and empowered with a deep sense of purpose of wanting to absorb all that was possible from my new cultural environment, I was dizzy with a miraculous disbelief over my newfound status as a music student. My short time in America liberated me from that notion that it was impossible to do a second degree in music and I was doggedly determined to get to and stay in Europe, with the same degree of intensity that I put into getting out of Singapore. Over time, that initial idealism has faded and my former enchantment with Europe has morphed into a less romantic, more sober appreciation—I still love all things ecclesiastical, la dolce vita , the gilded opera houses, leisurely boulevards, cool summer nights and old cafes where the literati philosophise over cake, coffee and crinkled newspapers, the changing of the seasons and their rhythms, the anticipation over the first appearance of seasonal pro
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