Performers(’) Present I N T E RW E AV I N G 2 2 – 2 5 OC T 2026
Symposium Programme
Performers(’) Present 2026 2
The information provided in this booklet is correct at the time of print. Visit performerspresent.com for the latest updates.
Dean’s Message It is a great pleasure to welcome artists, researchers, educators, students and colleagues from Singapore, Southeast Asia and beyond to the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music (YST) for Performers(’) Present 2026: Interweaving, our triennial international artistic research symposium. Interweaving invites us to consider what happens when different practices, perspectives and traditions come into contact with one another. At a time when the boundaries between artistic disciplines, cultures, technologies, and ways of knowing are increasingly fluid, the symposium offers a space to listen, question, experiment and discover what might emerge from these encounters. For YST, this spirit of exchange is central to how we understand the role of a conservatory. Artistic practice and research are not separate worlds; they continually inform, challenge and reshape one another. By bringing together diverse voices and approaches, we hope to create new connections that extend beyond the symposium itself. I am particularly pleased to see this year’s programme bringing together such a rich range of artistic and research practices, with participants from across the region and further afield. My sincere thanks to all our presenters, partners, students, faculty and staff who have contributed to making Interweaving possible. I warmly welcome you to Performers(’) Present 2026, and hope you enjoy the many threads we will weave together over the course of the symposium.
Performers(’) Present 2026
Professor Peter Tornquist Dean, Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music
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Message from the Symposium Convenor Welcome to Performers(’) Present 2026: Interweaving. Now in its sixth edition, Performers(’) Present continues YST’s longstanding exploration of artistic research as a space where performance, research and creative practice meet, question and inform one another. This year, Interweaving takes the act of weaving as a metaphor for these connections: between people and practices, traditions and contemporary perspectives, and ideas that may at first seem to belong to very different worlds. Weaving has deep cultural histories across the world, including in Southeast Asia through traditions such as ikat and songket. Beyond its material form, however, it also offers a way of thinking about creativity itself. Individual threads retain their character even as they become part of something larger; connections develop through an ongoing process of crossing, tension and exchange. In much the same way, artistic research can bring distinct practices and perspectives into dialogue without requiring them to become the same.
Performers(’) Present 2026
Across four days, Interweaving brings together performers, researchers, educators, composers and artists from Singapore, Southeast Asia and beyond. Through performances, keynote presentations, plenary sessions, panel discussions and artistic presentations, we will explore questions of heritage and creative evolution, imagination and reality, interdisciplinary practice, music and community, and the evolving relationship between human creativity and artificial intelligence.
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The breadth of perspectives represented in this year’s programme reflects the diverse ways in which artistic research can unfold. From traditional practices to experimental work, from individual artistic inquiry to collective creation, these contributions remind us of the many forms artistic research can take. Our keynote speakers, guest artists, YST faculty, students, alumni and colleagues from across the region and beyond each bring different experiences and questions to the conversation. It is through the meeting of these perspectives that new possibilities can emerge.
My sincere thanks to all our presenters, partners, faculty, staff, students, alumni and, especially, the Symposium Committee, whose time and commitment have brought this edition of Performers(’) Present to life. I am grateful to everyone who has contributed their work and ideas, and to all who have travelled to Singapore to be part of this gathering. I hope that the coming days will offer not only opportunities to share our work, but also the time and space to listen, question, connect and discover something unexpected along the way. Welcome to Interweaving. I look forward to the conversations, connections and discoveries that will emerge over the coming days.
Dr Adeline Wong Assistant Dean, Academic Affairs, Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music Symposium Convenor, Performers(’) Present 2026
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To interweave is to inhabit the in-between: between what we inherit, what we imagine, and what we become. As performers, researchers, and educators, we are connected through shared sonic traditions, collaborative practices and cross-cultural dialogues. Interweaving invites reflections on how these interconnections evolve and shape artistic possibilities— whether through the generative potential that emerges within intricate networks, or through honouring the distinctiveness of individual traditions. Weaving is a universal practice found across cultures and histories, exemplified in Southeast Asia through traditions such as ikat and songket. Beyond its material form, weaving offers a compelling metaphor for connection and ongoing process— reflecting how creative ideas, traditions and communities continually intertwine and generate new resonances. Interweaving celebrates the convergences of creative practice, research and education. It invites artists, scholars and educators to explore how cultural identities—particularly between Southeast Asian and Western heritages—merge with the fluid boundaries between imagination and reality, the evolving relationship between human creativity and AI, and the ways in which music and artistic practice can foster community. Together, we reflect on how music and creativity can foster understanding, build community, and inspire new forms of expression. Whether your work engages classical repertoire or contemporary composition, traditional forms or experimental practice, solo performance or collective creation, we welcome your voice in this shared exploration of music’s interwoven past, present and future.
Past & Present Engaging with heritage, continuity and creative evolution across diverse musical and artistic traditions.
Dreams & Reality Exploring imagination, perception and transformation in the creative process, and how ideas take form through sound, movement and material.
Weaving Disciplinary Threads Intersecting music, art, technology, science and philosophy to reveal new forms of artistic inquiry.
Interweaving Music, Wellbeing & Community Reflecting on music’s capacity to connect, shape identity, and nurture collective understanding.
Entangling Human Expression with AI investigating collaboration, authorship and creativity in the age of AI.
Symposium Highlights
> Keynotes 23 Oct (Fri), 9:30am | YST Cube
Listening Towards Care: How Place-Led MusicMaking Can Change Practice Vanessa Tomlinson Director, Queensland Conservatorium, Griffith University
24 Oct (Sat), 9:30am | YST Cube
Famous Last Words: “Late Style” Reconsidered Joseph N Straus Distinguished Professor of Music Theory, City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center
25 Oct (Sun), 9:30am | YST Cube
Performers(’) Present 2026
Rethink, Rebuild, Recreate: The Artist as Institutional Architect in Southeast Asian Music Education
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Piyawat Louilarpprasert Dean, College of Music, Mahidol University
Symposium Highlights
> Plenaries & Panels
23 Oct (Fri), 2pm | YST Recital Studio
24 Oct (Sat), 12pm | YST Recital Studio
In Conversation with Dai Fujikura
Artistry and Motherhood
24 Oct (Sat), 4:30pm | YST Cube
25 Oct (Sun), 1pm | YST Recital Studio
Rerejangan Senteng
Music-Making in Later Life Performers(’) Present 2026 09
Symposium Highlights
Performers(’) Present 2026
> Concerts & Installations
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22 Oct (Thu), 1:30pm | YST Cube
22 Oct (Thu), 3pm | YST Seminar Room 3
Opening Ceremony x Music for 18 Musicians
Installation: was wahr bleibt (what truth remains)
22 Oct (Thu), 7:30pm | YST Concert Hall
22 Oct (Thu), 9:30pm | YST Cube
Opening Concert: Living Threads
Late Night Sessions: Uncharted (I)
23 Oct (Fri), 9:30pm | YST Recital Studio
Mivos Quartet: Celebrating Reich at 90
Late Night Sessions: Uncharted (II)
24 Oct (Sat), 1pm | YST Music Library
24 Oct (Sat), 7:30pm | YST Concert Hall
Installation: Every Step You Tread
YST Orchestral Institute: Last Words
24 Oct (Sat), 9:30pm | YST Cube
25 Oct (Sun), 2:30pm | YST Cube
Late Night Sessions: Far East Sounds
Closing Ceremony: Baroque, Blues and Beyond
Performers(’) Present 2026
23 Oct (Fri), 7:30pm | YST Cube
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22 Oct, Thursday
Performers(’) Present 2026
> Day 1
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Time
Event
Venue
12:30–13:30
Registration
Pre-Cube
13:30–14:00
Opening Ceremony Official Launch of YST Cube
Pre-Cube
14:00–15:00
Music for 18 Musicians
Cube
15:00–22:30
Installation: was wahr bleibt (what truth remains)
Seminar Room 3
15:30–17:00
Presentation Session 1A: Composing Together
Ensemble Room 1
Presentation Session 1B: Intercultural Encounters
Ensemble Room 2
17:00–18:30
Dinner
Foyer
18:30–19:00
Pre-Concert Talk: Living Threads
Music Library
19:30–21:00
Opening Concert: Living Threads
Concert Hall
21:30–22:30
Late Night Sessions: Uncharted (I)
Cube
Scan for event details and presentation session line-up
23 Oct, Friday
> Day 2 Time
Event
Venue
9:30–10:30
Keynote: Listening Towards Care — How Place-Led Music-Making Can Change Practice Vanessa Tomlinson
Cube
11:00–13:00
Presentation Session 2A: Rethinking Musical Practice
Ensemble Room 1
Presentation Session 2B: Music, Care & Technology
Ensemble Room 2
Presentation Session 2C: Interweaving Generations
Recital Studio
12:30–14:00
Lunch
Foyer
14:00–15:00
Plenary: In Conversation with Dai Fujikura
Recital Studio
15:00–17:00
Presentation Session 3A: Creative Encounters & Exchange
Ensemble Room 1
Presentation Session 3B: Tradition in Transformation
Ensemble Room 2
17:00–18:30
Dinner
Foyer
18:30–19:00
Pre-Concert Talk: Celebrating Reich at 90
Pre-Cube
19:30–21:00
Mivos Quartet: Celebrating Reich at 90
Cube
21:30–22:30
Late Night Sessions: Uncharted (II)
Recital Studio
Performers(’) Present 2026
Scan for event details and presentation session line-up
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24 Oct, Saturday
Performers(’) Present 2026
> Day 3
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Time
Event
Venue
9:30–10:30
Keynote: Famous Last Words — “Late Style” Reconsidered Joseph N Straus
Cube
10:30–12:00
Presentation Session 4A: Negotiating Musical Identity
Ensemble Room 1
Presentation Session 4B: Sound, Space & Connection
Ensemble Room 2
Presentation Session 4C: Performance Across Boundaries
Recital Studio
12:00–13:00
Plenary: Artistry and Motherhood
Recital Studio
12:30–14:00
Lunch
Foyer
13:00–13:15
Installation: Every Step You Tread
Music Library
14:00–16:00
Presentation Session 5A: Musical Practice in Motion
Ensemble Room 1
Presentation Session 5B: Recontextualising Sound
Ensemble Room 2
16:30–17:30
Plenary: Rerejangan Senteng
Cube
17:00–18:30
Dinner
Foyer
19:30–21:00
YST Orchestral Institute: Last Words
Concert Hall
21:30–22:30
Late Night Sessions: Far East Sounds
Cube
Scan for event details and presentation session line-up
25 Oct, Sunday
> Day 4 Time
Event
Venue
9:30–10:30
Keynote: Rethink, Rebuild, Recreate — The Artist as Institutional Architect in Southeast Asian Music Education Piyawat Louilarpprasert
Cube
10:30–12:00
Presentation Session 6A: Language into Sound
Ensemble Room 1
Presentation Session 6B: Between Past & Present
Recital Studio
11:30–13:00
Lunch
Foyer
13:00–14:15
Plenary & Panel: Music-Making in Later Life Recital Studio
14:30–16:00
Closing Ceremony: Baroque, Blues and Beyond
Cube
Performers(’) Present 2026
Scan for event details and presentation session line-up
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CONCERT
Opening Ceremony x Music for 18 Musicians 22 Oct (Thu), 1:30pm | YST Cube Performers(’) Present 2026: Interweaving opens by bringing together artists, researchers and educators from across disciplines, cultures and practices for four days of exchange, exploration and artistic discovery. Following the opening addresses, Steve Reich’s landmark Music for 18 Musicians brings the theme of Interweaving into sound. Pulses, patterns, voices and instruments overlap and transform in a constantly evolving musical web, where individual lines remain distinct while contributing to a larger whole—a fitting opening to a symposium centred on the possibilities that emerge through connection. PROGRAMME
Performers(’) Present 2026
Opening Addresses PROF TAN ENG CHYE, President, National University of Singapore PROF PETER TORNQUIST, Dean, Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music DR ADELINE WONG, Symposium Convenor
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STEVE REICH Music for 18 Musicians WILLIAM OVERCASH, violin NATHAN WATTS, cello STEPHANIE TAN and CHUA JAY ROON, clarinet JONATHAN SHIN, KARST DE JONG, FRANCES LEE and NG KYE LIE, piano AKIKO OTAO, ALISON WONG and HUNG RUO-CHING, voice JUNE HAHN, TANASIT SIRIPANICHWATTANA, DEREK KOH, CHEONG KAH YIONG, JOACHIM LIM, KUO YAN-SHIN, ISABEL CHIN and HSU ZIH-CIAO percussion PAUL COLEMAN, sound engineer
INSTALLATION
was wahr bleibt (what truth remains) 22 Oct (Thu), 3pm | YST Seminar Room 3 Everyone leaves behind traces. These traces need not be physical; they also reside in our memories, translating into our thoughts, behaviours, and future interactions with ourselves, others, and the world around us. Does what remain, remain true? Memories are deceptive. They change, fade, and are reshaped by time, emotions, and our own perception. What we believe to be true can be fragile, and what remains is often not what we expected. was wahr bleibt | what truth remains is an installation by Singaporean composer Joan Tan Jing Wen exploring the fallibility of memories and the traces one leaves behind. As visitors pass through the space, their silhouettes are captured and layered onto a looping video projection, distorting its original narrative. With each repetition, residual images of previous viewers accumulate, merging with those of the present. Over time, this continuous layering distorts the visual memory, raising a central question: Can what remains still be considered true?
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CONCERT
Opening Concert: Living Threads 22 Oct (Thu), 7:30pm | YST Concert Hall Two works ask how music can move between cultures and the natural world.Dai Fujikura’s Green Tea Concerto brings the flute into a contemporary setting of strings and harpsichord, allowing old instruments and new sensibilities to breathe together. Lou Harrison’s Piano Concerto brings the solo instrument into vivid dialogue with low brass, percussion, harp and strings, reflecting his singular synthesis of musical traditions. Across the programme, sound becomes a current connecting past and present, human craft and the living environment. PROGRAMME OPUSNOVUS with LIEN BOON HUA, conductor DAI FUJIKURA Green Tea Concerto ERIC LAMB, solo flute INTERLUDE WAYAN RACHMAN, gender wayang
Performers(’) Present 2026
LOU HARRISON Piano Concerto with Selected Orchestra ALBERT TIU, solo piano
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CONCERT
Late Night Sessions: Uncharted Part I: 22 Oct (Thu), 9:30pm | YST Cube Part II: 23 Oct (Fri), 9:30pm | YST Recital Studio Uncharted brings improvisers together for two late-night sessions of spontaneous music-making, collaboration and unexpected encounters. Featuring Karst de Jong, Chris Stover, Richard Barrett, Franziska Schroeder, Gerardo Gozzi, Tim O’Dwyer, Vanessa Tomlinson, Robert Burke, and more.
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KEYNOTE
Listening Towards Care — How Place-Led Music Making Can Change Practice Vanessa Tomlinson Director, Queensland Conservatorium, Griffith University 23 Oct (Fri), 9:30am | YST Cube This talk traces the emergence of a compositional, curatorial, and performative practice that seeks to move beyond abstract environmental concepts of “matters of concern” (Latour, 2004) towards “matters of care” (de la Bellacasa, 2017). This shift highlights the distinctive contribution that arts practices can make to environmental communication: the capacity to implicate audiences in relationships of responsibility through shared affective experience. The term Sounding refers to “the activation of a place or space by a musician that is both investigative, information-seeking, and performative” (for example, Sounding the Condamine, Clocked Out, 2012). As Mat Klotz observes, “sounding amounts to a committed and intentional orientation towards the nuances and politics of place” (Klotz, 2024). Such practices generate “new knowledge, new relationships, and new experiences for performers and listeners” while deepening understandings of place (Tomlinson, 2019).
Performers(’) Present 2026
Listening within site-specific environmental sound practices invites deeper engagement with place through cultivating what Anna Tsing describes as the “art of noticing” (Tsing, 2015): a careful and sustained attention to the bodies, relationships, and processes particular to place. Such listening can reveal subtle shifts in ecological dynamics and foster a more responsive environmental awareness (Rose, 2013; Wright, 2016).
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Drawing together matters of care, sounding, and listening, this keynote explores a range of performative approaches that foreground directionality, proximity, time travel, multispecies performance, technologically mediated sound practices, and imagination. The talk will be grounded through three creative projects: P.L.A.C.E. (Tomlinson, 2021, 2026), Imaginary Aviary (Tomlinson, 2023), and Made of Wood: Easter at the Piano Mill (2025), alongside the article “Intersecting Place, Environment, Sound, and Music” (Tomlinson, 2019). Video examples and live participatory sonic happenings will be included.
PLENARY
In Conversation with Dai Fujikura 23 Oct (Fri), 2pm | YST Recital Studio Join internationally acclaimed composer Dai Fujikura in conversation with symposium convenor Dr Adeline Wong as he reflects on his creative practice, compositional approaches and the ideas that shape his work. This session offers insight into Fujikura’s journey as a composer. PANELLISTS DAI FUJIKURA, composer ADELINE WONG, moderator
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CONCERT
Mivos Quartet: Celebrating Reich at 90 23 Oct (Fri), 7:30pm | YST Cube Celebrate the 90th birthday of Steve Reich, one of the most influential composers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, in a programme spanning three landmark works. Different Trains, Eight Lines and Triple Quartet bring together Mivos Quartet, T’ang Quartet, Vértice Quartet, Nomos Quartet and YST musicians, exploring Reich’s distinctive rhythmic language, layered textures and groundbreaking approach to ensemble writing. PROGRAMME STEVE REICH Different Trains MIVOS QUARTET Eight Lines LIEN BOON HUA, conductor ERIC LAMB and SIMEON YAP, flute STEPHANIE TAN and HAYDEN BUTT, clarinet JONATHAN SHIN and ABIGAIL SIN, piano MIVOS QUARTET VÉRTICE QUARTET
Performers(’) Present 2026
Triple Quartet LIEN BOON HUA, conductor MIVOS QUARTET T’ANG QUARTET NOMOS QUARTET
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KEYNOTE
Famous Last Words — “Late Style” Reconsidered Joseph N Straus Distinguished Professor of Music Theory, City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center 24 Oct (Sat), 9:30am | YST Cube “Late style” is a longstanding aesthetic category in all the arts. Late-style music is presumed to have certain internal qualities (such as fragmentation, intimacy, nostalgia, or concision) and to be associated with certain external factors (such as the age of the composer, his or her proximity to and foreknowledge of death). Music composed late in life is better understood in relation to the experience of living in an old body, with its attendant challenges and affordances. In a musical style I call “composing oldly,” composers inscribe their bodily experiences into their music. Close readings of four modernist works serve to illuminate the concept: Stravinsky’s Requiem Canticles; Schoenberg’s String Trio; Bartók’s Third Piano Concerto; and Copland’s Night Thoughts. In each case, I contend that the features of these works generally understood as markers of lateness are better understood in relation to the old bodies of their composers. This perspective invites us to reconsider how age, embodiment, and musical expression intersect, and to attend more closely to the creative possibilities of composing in later life.
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PLENARY
Artistry and Motherhood 24 Oct (Sat), 12pm | YST Recital Studio Artistry and Motherhood explores the intersection of creative practice, caregiving and identity, asking how motherhood can shape an artist’s work, ambitions and sense of self. Inspired by presenter Olivia De Prato’s own experience of starting a family, the project brings together works by Jen Baker, Zosha Di Castri and Samantha Fernando alongside conversations about the realities of sustaining an artistic life while caring for children. Through music and dialogue, the programme considers the practical challenges of balancing caregiving with creative work, the ways motherhood can influence artistic vision, and the support needed to help artists continue developing their practices. Rather than framing motherhood as a choice between family and artistic ambition, Artistry and Motherhood creates space to consider how these identities can coexist. The programme invites audiences to reflect on the structures, expectations and communities that shape the lives of artist-parents, while celebrating the diverse creative voices of the women at its centre. PROGRAMME OLIVIA DE PRATO, presenter JEN BAKER Fire in the Dark
Performers(’) Present 2026
ZOSHA DI CASTRI The Dream Feed
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SAMANTHA FERNANDO Balconies OLIVIA DE PRATO, violin PAUL COLEMAN, sound
INSTALLATION
Every Step You Tread 24 Oct (Sat), 1pm | YST Music Library Every Step You Tread is a performance installation by Associate Professor Ho Chee Kong (Vice Dean, Academic Affairs, Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music) for two percussionists, situated around the staircase of the Music Library. The work explores the staircase as both a musical instrument and an architectural structure: a series of steps that connects different levels and spaces within the library. Through movement, sound and interaction with the surrounding architecture, the performers draw attention to the physical and sonic qualities of the staircase. Each step becomes a potential point of resonance, gesture and musical response, transforming an everyday passageway into a space for listening and performance. As the performers move through and around the staircase, the installation invites audiences to experience the library from a different perspective—where architecture becomes sound, and the act of moving between spaces becomes part of the music. PERFORMERS JOACHIM THEODORE LIM and LIN YEN-TING, percussion
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PLENARY
Rerejangan Senteng 24 Oct (Sat), 4:30pm | YST Cube The Rejang Sari dance is a sacred Balinese ritual traditionally performed by women during the Piodalan temple ceremony, embodying gratitude, sincerity, and total surrender to the divine. As part of YST’s Bali Regional Resonances programme, students engage in an annual course exploring different facets of Balinese culture through sustained encounters with local artists and communities. Guided by practitioners in Bali, they develop meaningful, reciprocal relationships while reflecting on how these experiences shape their perspectives as developing musicians in the region. This plenary session brings together Wayan Rachman with YST faculty and students involved in the Bali Regional Resonances project. Centred on an original collaborative work inspired by the Rejang Sari tradition, the session explores the interweaving of musical and cultural practices, and the possibilities and challenges of learning through direct engagement with community. Through performance, conversation, and audience participation—including a Kecak interaction—the speakers will reflect on the project’s artistic processes, its collaboration with the Jaladara Foundation, and its impact on both students and hosts in Bali. PRESENTERS
Performers(’) Present 2026
WAYAN and DEWI RACHMAN KARST DE JONG JONATHAN SHIN STUDENTS FROM YONG SIEW TOH CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC and PRINCESS GALYANI VADHANI INSTITUTE OF MUSIC and more
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CONCERT
YST Orchestral Institute: Last Words 24 Oct (Sat), 7:30pm | YST Concert Hall What does an artist leave behind? A final work is rarely just an ending; it can be a summation, a question, or the beginning of another conversation. In this evening, we explore how artistic voices become interwoven across time, as composers’ final reflections continue to speak long after they were first heard. Aaron Copland’s Night Thoughts, one of the composer’s final works, opens the evening in a world of introspection and quiet contemplation in homage to fellow American composer Charles Ives. This follows with Ruth Crawford Seeger’s Suite for Woodwind Quintet, her penultimate composition before her death, revealing the inventive spirit of one of America’s most original modernist voices. At the heart of the programme is Alban Berg’s Violin Concerto, his final completed orchestral work, written in memory of Manon Gropius and dedicated to “the memory of an angel”—a work that transforms grief into profound beauty. Presented by the YST Orchestral Institute under the baton of Principal Conductor Jason Lai, and featuring YST Head of Strings Professor Qian Zhou on violin, Associate Professor Ning An on piano, guest musicians Gaolat Quintet and narrator Joseph N Straus, Last Words offers a rare opportunity to experience these deeply personal final statements in one single evening. PROGRAMME YST ORCHESTRAL INSTITUTE with JASON LAI, conductor and JOSEPH N STRAUS, narrator
ALBAN BERG Violin Concerto QIAN ZHOU, violin
Performers(’) Present 2026
AARON COPLAND Night Thoughts NING AN, piano
RUTH CRAWFORD SEEGER Suite for Woodwind Quintet GAOLAT QUINTET
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CONCERT
Late Night Sessions: Far East Sounds 24 Oct (Sat), 9:30pm | YST Cube Far East Sounds is an interdisciplinary performance project exploring the meeting point and dialogue between different cultural, sonic, and environmental worlds. Centred on the encounter between Western contemporary music and the sound worlds of Southeast Asia—particularly Balinese gamelan—the project examines how performers, technology, environment, and audience interact within the present moment of performance. An interactive video installation draws on the rich and biodiverse sounds of Sungai Renggang Sinderut in Pahang, recorded by soundscape artist Yii Kah Hoe. The installation transports listeners into the sonic and visual landscapes of Southeast Asia, bringing the environment into the performance space. Rather than functioning as a backdrop, it participates alongside the performers, prompting musical responses, improvisation, and dialogue. Through works by composers from Asia, Oceania, Europe, and the United States, Far East Sounds explores a shared space of play and encounter—one that is organic yet focused, and not confined by cultural or geographical difference. The project seeks to create new relationships between human and environmental sound, and to consider how different musical languages and histories might coexist, interact, and transform one another. Ultimately, Far East Sounds asks how the present of performance can become a space in which disparate musical languages, places, and histories are brought into renewed dialogue, continually reshaping how we listen, perceive, and narrate our relationship with the world around us. PROGRAMME
Performers(’) Present 2026
Prologue: Video installation by YII KAH HOE
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EVAN ZIPORYN Pondok (2000) DAI FUJIKURA Samarasa (2010) UNSUK CHIN Piano Étude No. 1, “In C” (2003)
JACK BODY & WAYAN YUDANE Paradise Regained (2004) LOU HARRISON Varied Trio (1987) Epilogue: Collective compositionimprovisation with interactive video BARTOSZ WOROCH, violin MEI YI FOO, piano JOACHIM THEODORE LIM, percussion
KEYNOTE
Rethink, Rebuild, Recreate — The Artist as Institutional Architect in Southeast Asian Music Education Piyawat Louilarpprasert Dean, College of Music, Mahidol University 25 Oct (Sun), 9:30am | YST Cube What does it mean to lead a music institution as an artist? At thirty-two, I became a dean while continuing to work as a composer, performer, curator, and educator. This transition has challenged the conventional separation between artistic practice and institutional leadership. Rather than leaving composition behind, I have increasingly understood leadership itself as a form of artistic practice: a process of listening, experimenting, connecting, editing, taking risks, and creating conditions for others to make new work. This keynote introduces “Rethink, Rebuild, Recreate” as a framework for understanding my approach to institutional leadership at the College of Music, Mahidol University, and its wider role within Southeast Asia. To rethink is to question inherited assumptions about what a music school should teach, whom it should serve, and how artistic research can respond to a rapidly changing world. To rebuild is to develop new structures, curricula, international networks, artistic platforms, and interdisciplinary collaborations. To recreate is to imagine music education not simply as the preservation of established traditions, but as an active site for producing new artistic identities, cultural relationships, and futures.
Ultimately, I propose the artist as institutional architect: a practitioner who applies the sensibilities of artistic research to building institutions themselves. In this sense, leading a music school becomes another form of composition—and the institution itself becomes an unfinished work.
Performers(’) Present 2026
Drawing on projects in composition, performance, curation, international collaboration, curriculum development, and cultural leadership, I consider the conservatory as a creative ecosystem—one that can be composed, rather than merely administered. Situated within Southeast Asia, this perspective asks whether the region can move beyond adopting established Western models and instead develop institutional paradigms grounded in its own cultural plurality, artistic traditions, technological realities, and transnational networks.
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PLENARY & PANEL
Music-Making in Later Life 25 Oct (Sun), 1pm | YST Recital Studio MUSIC-MAKING IN LATER LIFE Presentation What does it mean to make music in later life? In this presentation, Joseph N. Straus approaches old age not as a biological status or medical condition, but as a cultural formation and identity with its own distinctive ways of being and creating. Rather than viewing later-life musical practices through an ageist lens—as diminished, exceptional, or valuable only despite the composer’s or performer’s age—Straus asks what becomes possible when we recognise later life itself as a source of creativity, agency, and flourishing. The presentation considers how we might listen to and understand music created in later life on its own terms, and what such practices can reveal about identity, creativity, and the experience of ageing. THE IMPACT OF MUSIC-MAKING IN LATER LIFE ON WELLBEING Panel Discussion Following Straus’s presentation, the discussion turns more explicitly to the relationship between music-making, ageing, health, and wellbeing. The panel brings together perspectives from artistic research, music and health, and the public understanding of risk, considering how sustained musical engagement in later life may contribute to wellbeing, social connection, and quality of life.
Performers(’) Present 2026
PANELLISTS
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JOSEPH N STRAUS Distinguished Professor of Music Theory City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center
LEONARD LEE Professor and Director, Lloyd’s Register Foundation Institute for the Public Understanding of Risk (IPUR)
KAT AGRES Director, Centre for Music and Health Assistant Professor, Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music
RACHEL HO Flautist and Instructor, Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music
CONCERT
Closing Ceremony: Baroque, Blues and Beyond 25 Oct (Sun), 2:30pm | YST Cube YST Ensembles-in-Residence Red Dot Baroque and The Lorong Boys join forces in a tapestry of musical styles, interweaving elements of baroque, jazz, folk and pop in this programme of original arrangements and compositions. By reimagining baroque classics by Purcell and Vivaldi alongside Nature Boy (made famous by Nat King Cole in 1948) and the traditional folk ballad Scarborough Fair, one discovers new expressive possibilities that arise from celebrating this unique confluence of musical genres through the ages.
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Symposium Team SYMPOSIUM COMMITTEE
PRODUCTIONS
Symposium Convenor Adeline Wong
Artistic Coordinator & Strategic Project Manager Kenny Ooi
Symposium Coordinator Toh Yan Ee Committee Members Brett Stemple Karst de Jong Eric Lamb Abigail Sin
DEAN’S OFFICE Communications Office Faezah Zulkifli Toh Yan Ee Development Office Kelsey Tan Executive Assistant to the Dean Lim Yang Zhi
Production Coordinators Benny Lim Wei Cheah Christopher Ong Yadao Technical & Operations Managers Tee Zhang Feng William Yee Sound & Video YST Audio Arts & Sciences
Venue Guide
NOTES
The information provided in this booklet is correct at the time of print. Visit performerspresent.com for the latest updates.
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