Forget Me Not

Howard Ng (Oboe)

Akkra Yeunyonghattaporn (Piano)

Conservatory Concert HallSept 1, 7.30pm

Once in awhile, Yong Siew Toh Conservatory presents its Alumni Series, a platform for distinguished former students to give concerts. In 2025, Vietnamese pianist Khanh Nhi Luong, third prize winner of the 2024 Leeds International Piano Competition returned with a splendid solo recital.

On Sept 1, it was the turn of Singaporean oboist Howard Ng and Bangkok-based Thai pianist Akkra Yeunyonghattaporn, who both graduated in 2011 within the same cohort.

This was more than just an oboe and piano recital. The audience was placed onstage and had a view of the hall from the performers’ perspective. There was also the added dimension of multimedia manned by Tay Shao Hui and Wan Zhong Hao, which included projected visuals and films, taped sounds, lighting and various unexpected props.

The programme consisted of multiple short and varied pieces providing reflections on the lives and longings of a 21st-century classical musician. The opening works, Edvard Grieg’s Solitary Traveller (Op. 43 No. 2) for piano and Edward Elgar’s Soliloquy for oboe and piano had the air of melancholy and intense introspection.

In Frisky, from Thea Musgrave’s Take Two Oboes, Ng humorously partnered an audiovisual projection of himself.

Akkra’s original composition for piano, The Descent Of Ganga, relived splashy water pieces of Franz Liszt, Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel. Accompanied by visuals of surging waves and unstoppable fluid forces, this was dedicated to the memory of local composer Wynne Fung.

Further visual elements figured prominently in Andre Jolivet’s Song ...