“Classical Music comes to….” is an initiative to bring classical music to new areas, through performance and education, starting with my home country: Indonesia.

This project started in 2013 and has run since annually (apart from 2020, during the pandemic) with the support of local schools/charities and individuals in Lombok, Surabaya, Tangerang and Jakarta. With Prof. Nigel Clayton from the RCM, we have delivered workshops and concerts for special needs children, school children, university students, local charity causes and general public alike.

During  my postgraduate years at the RCM, I played regularly with the ‘Pacific Trio’, a violin/clarinet/piano trio. The first members were Selena Choi (violin) and Adrian Poon (clarinet). When Selena had to return to her home country, Michael Foyle joined us as violinist.

The violin – clarinet – piano is a very unique combination. ‘London Tales’ is a collection newly written of miniature pieces, inspired by the different scenes of London. This project was our initiative to increase the repertoire available for this instrumentation.

https://www.rcm.ac.uk/about/news/all/londontales.aspx

Music is all embracing: there is a hint of poetry, colours, architecture and theatre within music.

I began to explore Cross-Arts collaboration during my DMus years. I was investigating and reflecting on my own performance practice as a pianist through the lenses of other arts, as well as trying to create new concert experiences for performers and audience alike.

Since then, I have been involved with several Cross-Arts collaborations:

– Debussy Explosion in 2015 (with visual artist)

– Deal Festival 2015 (with painter, potter, and dancers)

– DMus recital in 2016 (with two visual artists and actors)

– Trinity Laban Music and Arts Festival 2017 (with visual projection)

– Deal Festival 2018 (with two dancers and film makers)

– Charity concerts of music and poetry for ‘Aid to the Church in Need’ in 2019 and 2020

– Anthology of Music and Words video for Music Links/Everyone Matters Charity in 2021