| Hakim Hayat |
TEN of Yippy Tune Music School’s students attained outstanding results in regional music competitions held recently.
The school said its students participated in the 7th Annual Singapore Performers’ Festival and Chamber Music Competition (ASPF and CMC) in June and in the Asia Pacific Arts Festival (APAF) in July in Singapore.
Winners from Brunei at the ASPF and CMC included Melodee Goh and Audrey Koh who each attained one platinum award for vocals and one gold award for vocals; Flora Ngu, Freda Ngu, Zoe Chan and Vanessa Tan who each attained two gold awards for vocals; Siena Hoon and Megan Lee who each attained two silver awards for vocals; Megan Lee who attained two silver awards for piano; Fahm Ann Nur binti Syamzul Ariffin who attained two bronze awards for violin; and Vivienne Poh who attained one silver award for violin.
The ASPF and CMC was a week of interactive event with over 640 performances by young musicians from the region. Beyond the competition, the music festival was also a regional gateway for music students at all levels to develop themselves, from beginners to advanced level for their music career preparation.
Learning from a panel of world-class adjudicators, students were exposed to over 175 master classes and 12 workshops specifically tailored to address performance interpretation, teaching matters and practical music schools and e-learning.
During the school’s participation in the recent APAF, three of its students won outstanding awards. Flora Ngu attained one gold award with distinction and was named the Champion Overall Performance under 14 Year Old while Siena Hoon and Melodee Goh each won one gold award.
Brunei’s contestants competed with countries including China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand.
Flora Ngu said, “This is the first time I performed in such a grand stage, it is still surreal to me. And it’s definitely is an experience that I will take away and use for my future endeavour.”
Meanwhile, Yippy Tune Music School Principal Deon Ong was invited to give a lecture entitled ‘The Career of Arts and Music’ to the Asia Pacific Arts students, where she outlined the career path of the music industry, citing opportunities in both the entertainment industry as well as the meaningful career being an educator behind the scene.
Deon Ong said, “This is Yippy Tune’s on-going commitment to expose students to international stages, learning from the best in the world, while getting
inspirations from peers from the region. Simply by witnessing what our neighbours can do, it elevates our desire to dream bigger, strive and improve further.
“We are especially proud of their growing courage and maturity and improvements in techniques at this particular event, and look forward to participating in more regional events with more representatives as part of our on-going effort to raise our standards.”
Adeline Koo, mother of one of the youngest medallists Megan Lee, said it was her daughter’s first experience participating in the festival and that it was very well organised.
“I am very much impressed with the contestants’ quality, it was definitely an eye-opener for my daughter. She enjoyed and particularly benefitted a lot from the master class lessons,” she said.