Sponsored by
Hung Hin Shiu Charitable Foundationå”憲紹慈善基金贊助
​2016 International Conference on
Performance and Creativity
31 October 2016 - 2 November 2016
Hong Kong Baptist University
Professor Robert Blocker
Robert Blocker began his study of piano at the age of five, presenting his first public recital two years later. Today, he concertizes throughout the world. His engagements have included performances in the United States, Europe, Mexico, China, and Korea, Thailand, and several Pacific Rim countries. Recent orchestral engagements include the Beijing Symphony Orchestra, Shanghai Symphony, Houston Symphony, Monterey Philharmonic, Prague Chamber Orchestra, Moscow Chamber Orchestra, Korean Symphony and Daejeon (South Korea) Symphony.
His 2007 performance at the International Great Mountains Festival with the Sejong Artists was broadcast throughout Korea twice on KBS. These appearances have won him critical acclaim as noted in the Los Angeles Times review: “…great skill and accomplishment, a measurable virtuoso bent and considerable musical sensitivity… mesmerizing moments.” This year, Naxos will release a CD of three Mozart concerti performed by Blocker with the Biava Quartet.
Robert Blocker, has been the Henry and Lucy Moses Dean of Music at Yale University, since 1995. In 2006 Blocker was named honorary Professor of Piano at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. In 2000, Steinway and Sons featured Robert Blocker in its film commemorating the tercentennial year of the piano along with Billy Joel, Van Cliburn and others. He appears regularly on national radio and television as both artist and commentator. In 2004 the Yale University Press published The Robert Shaw Reader, edited by Robert Blocker. Now in its third printing, the volume is presently being translated for publication in Korea.
Prof. Gabriel Kwok
Gabriel Kwok was born in Hong Kong and studied at the Royal Academy of Music with Guy Jonson and later with Louis Kentner in London. He has been Head of Keyboard Studies at The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts since 1989. A Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music in London, he is Visiting Professor at the Shenzhen Arts School, Xi’an Conservatory of Music, Xinghai Conservatory of Music, Wuhan Conservatory of Music and China Conservatory of Music in China. He has served on the faculty of the Cliburn Piano Institute (USA), International Institute for Young Musicians (USA), Colburn Academy Festival (USA), Art of the Piano (USA), Chetham’s International Piano Summer School (UK), Beijing International Music Festival and Academy (China), Beijing International Piano Festival (China), Shanghai International Piano Festival (China), Singapore International Piano Institute (Singapore), Asia International Piano Academy and Festival (Korea), Kyungsung International Piano Academy (Korea) and Tel-Hai International Piano Master Classes (Israel).
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He has given masterclasses at the Central Conservatory of Music (Beijing), Shanghai Conservatory of Music, Royal Academy of Music (London), Royal College of Music (London), Royal Northern College of Music, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Hannover Hochschule für Musik und Theater, Rotterdam Conservatorium, Sydney Conservatorium of Music, Queensland Conservatorium of Music, University of Auckland, Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, University of British Columbia, Carnegie Mellon University, Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, Eastman School of Music, University of Kansas, Northwestern University, Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Peabody Institute, Roosevelt University, San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Temple University, Texas Christian University and The Yale School of Music as well as classes in Taiwan, Korea and Portugal.
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Gabriel Kwok has been a jury member of many international competitions including the Asia Mozart Bicentenary, Asia Chopin, China, China Shenzhen International Piano Concerto, Darmstadt Chopin, Geneva, Gina Bachauer, Hilton Head, Hong Kong, James Mottram, Japan PTNA, Minnesota Piano-e, Missouri Southern, Rio de Janerio BNDES, Rome, Singapore Chopin and Vianna da Motta International Piano Competitions.
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He has collaborated with many distinguished artists in concerts, among whom were Pierre Amoyal, Alexander Ballie, Siegfried Behrend, Alan Civil, Eugene Fodor, Albert Markov, Yuri Mazurkevich, Clarence Myerscough, Roberta Peters, Qian Zhou, Jean-Pierre Rampal, Jenny Ren, Aaron Rosand, Nathaniel Rosen, Rohan de Saram, Hansjoerg Schellenberger, Jeffrey Solow, Leon Spierer, Richard Stolzman and Wang Jian. He has also been an Artist-in-Residence for Radio Television Hong Kong. In 2014, Professor Kwok was awarded Medal of Honour from the Hong Kong Government for his contribution to piano education in Hong Kong.
Prof. Anna Reid
Professor Anna Reid is the Dean of the Sydney Conservatorium of music. An early career in cello performance has led to a lifetime engagement with creativity theory and practice, pedagogical research, and the exploration of music creation in society. Her practical and research interests in social equity and professional preparation have led to the creation of internship programs, ‘buddy’ relationships with regional conservatoria, freeing up the music curriculum to deliver greater student choice, enhancing student engagement with musical studies, and fostering equity programs for the University’s music faculty.
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Her academic approach is underpinned by a strong research base in higher education theory and practice, which informs her interactions with academic staff and allows her to develop reflective and flexible teaching practices; construct curriculum and units that enable students to prepare well for a changing world; build a scholarly approach to the evaluation of teaching; enhance her and her colleagues’ research capacity; develop quality research programs in various academic departments; and identify, implement and evaluate strategic policy for higher degree research.
Professor Reid has a large group of research students whose interests lie in music pedagogy, social impact of music, creativity in theory and practice, and performance as research.
Prof. John Rink
John Rink is Professor of Musical Performance Studies and Fellow and Director of Studies in Music at St John's College. He studied at Princeton University, King's College London, and the University of Cambridge, where his doctoral research was on the evolution of tonal structure in Chopin's early music and its relation to improvisation. He also holds the Concert Recital Diploma and Premier Prix in piano from the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. He specialises in the fields of performance studies, theory and analysis, and nineteenth-century studies, and has published six books with Cambridge University Press, including The Practice of Performance: Studies in Musical Interpretation (1995), Chopin: The Piano Concertos (1997), Musical Performance: A Guide to Understanding (2002), and Annotated Catalogue of Chopin's First Editions (with Christophe Grabowski; 2010). He is a co-editor of Chopin Studies 2 (with Jim Samson; 2004) and the Cambridge Companion to Recorded Music (with Nicholas Cook, Daniel Leech-Wilkinson and Eric Clarke; 2009); he is also General Editor of the five-book series Studies in Musical Performance as Creative Practice, which Oxford University Press will publish in 2016. He is co-editing one of the books - Musicians in the Making: Pathways to Creative Performance - in collaboration with Helena Gaunt and Aaron Williamon.
John Rink directed the £2.1 million AHRC Research Centre for Musical Performance as Creative Practice, which was based at the University of Cambridge from 2009 to 2015 in partnership with King's College London, the University of Oxford and Royal Holloway, University of London, and in association with the Royal College of Music and the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. He currently directs the Centre for Musical Performance Studies, which was launched at the University of Cambridge in 2015. He is one of four Series Editors of The Complete Chopin – A New Critical Edition, and he directs two other research projects: Chopin's First Editions Online (funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council) and Online Chopin Variorum Edition (funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation). He was also Principal Investigator of the project 'Cross-cultural perspectives on the creative development of choirs and choral conductors', which was pursued in collaboration with the Universidade de São Paulo and funded by the British Academy. He was an Associate Director of the AHRC Research Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music (CHARM), and he chaired the Steering Committees of the AHRC's 'Beyond Text' and 'Landscape and Environment' Strategic Programmes; he also served on the AHRC's Advisory Board and chaired the Science in Culture Advisory Group. He sits on the editorial boards of Music & Letters and Musicae Scientiae; is on the Advisory Panels of Music Analysis, Musica Humana, the 'Academic Book of the Future' project, and the Institute of Musical Research; and has been a member of the AHRC's Peer Review College. He holds several honorary appointments, including Visiting Professor in the Department of Music, Royal Holloway, University of London; Guest Professor at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music; and Visiting Professor in the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science, Queen Mary University of London. In 2012-13 he was Ong Teng Cheong Visiting Professor in Music at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, National University of Singapore. He was a member of the jury of the XVII International Chopin Competition held in October 2015 in Warsaw.
Scholar and performer on harpsichord, clavichord, and fortepiano, noted for writings on music of the Bach family. CD recordings as harpsichordist and fortepianist in chamber works by C.P.E. Bach, Quantz, and King Frederick "the Great" of Prussia. Recent appearances as recitalist for the Boston Clavichord Society, harpsichord soloist at the Idaho Bach Festival, and performing the complete Well-Tempered Clavier on harpsichord at Taylor House in Boston. Publications include The Keyboard Music of J.S. Bach, The Music of W.F. Bach, The Music of C.P.E. Bach, the textbook and anthology Music of the Baroque, and articles and reviews in Early Music and other major journals on music by Byrd, Froberger, the Bachs, and others. Editions of J.S. Bach's preludes and fugues for organ, keyboard sonatas and concertos by C.P.E. Bach. Grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Andrew Mellon Foundation, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, and American Bach Society. Has served on the faculties of Columbia University and the University of North Carolina, currently professor and chair of the music department at Wagner College on Staten Island, New York. Additional information, recordings, writings, and editions at
Prof. David Schulenberg
Melvyn Tan
Exploration, insight and imagination are vital ingredients in Melvyn Tan’s blend of artistic attributes. He established his international reputation in the 1980s with pioneering performances on fortepiano and continues to cast fresh light on music conceived for the piano’s early and modern forms. Tan possesses a profound understanding of his instrument’s history, its technical evolution and musical development. His performances of piano masterworks, whether on a late eighteenth-century fortepiano or today’s concert grand, penetrate the surface of interpretive traditions and received wisdom to reveal countless expressive nuances and rarely heard tonal contrasts. Acclaimed for the wit and poetry of his playing, Tan has also received ovations for his bold programming and exceptional ability to switch from fortepiano and modern piano, even in the same recital.
Tan’s mature musicianship is informed by extensive knowledge of the piano from the time of its invention three centuries ago and of its historic development. He has reached back in time to perform on everything from copies of early fortepianos to restored instruments associated with Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt and Brahms. In addition he has applied lessons learned on pianos from the past to conjure subtle new colours, fine details of articulation and delicate shadings from the modern concert instrument. Tan’s work as recitalist, chamber musician and concerto soloist has been heard at many of the world’s leading concert halls, from the Amsterdam Concertgebouw and Vienna Konzerthaus to London’s Wigmore Hall and Royal Festival Hall and New York’s Lincoln Center, and at the festivals of Salzburg, Edinburgh, La Roque d’Anthéron, at Bath’s Mozartfest and City of London festival.
In recent seasons Tan has connected with audiences across China and South East Asia, introducing many to their first experience of fortepiano and attracting young people to attend recitals on early and modern pianos. Others have discovered his work through his large discography, complete with ground-breaking fortepiano recordings of concertos by Mozart and Beethoven and Schubert’s Impromptus for EMI Classics, and releases on the Archiv, Deux-Elles, Harmonia Mundi, NMC and Virgin Classics labels.
Melvyn Tan was born in Singapore in 1956. He showed prodigious musical talent during childhood and, at the age of twelve, came to England to study at the Yehudi Menuhin School. Tan’s piano teachers – Nadia Boulanger, Vlado Perlemuter and Marcel Ciampi – sparked his lifelong passion for French music in general and the works of Debussy, Ravel and Messiaen in particular. He was encouraged to think about the nature of music during his time at the Menuhin School, to consider its structure and shaping forces, and ask questions of the score. After Tan enrolled at the Royal College of Music in 1978, he broadened his scope of enquiry to include the sounds of early pianos and the playing styles that conditioned them.
Tan’s decision in 1980 to specialise in fortepiano, brave and forward-looking at the time, was rewarded by rapid professional progress over the following decade. He forged an enlightened artistic partnership with Roger Norrington and the London Classical Players, intensified in 1987 during the course of a landmark tour of Europe, America, Canada, Australia and Japan. Capacity audiences attended their Beethoven Experience weekend at London’s South Bank Centre and subsequent international tour, during which Tan performed on Beethoven’s Broadwood fortepiano of 1817.
Not content to rest in the box reserved for early music practitioners, Tan began exploring works on the modern concert grand piano. He launched this new phase in his career on Christmas Day 1996 with a performance of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.9 ‘Jeunehomme’, given in Cologne in company with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie. The following year he gave a recital of Chopin’s Préludes and Schumann’s Kreisleriana at Wigmore Hall. Tan’s refreshing interpretations of everything from Bach and Rameau to Chopin and Debussy are directly informed by his knowledge of historical playing styles and intuitive feeling for the modern piano’s timbres and textures.
Tan has performed as concerto soloist with such prestigious ensembles as the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Academy of St Martin’s in the Fields, the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, Salzburg’s Camerata and Mozarteum orchestras, Melbourne Symphony and on tour with the Australian Chamber Orchestra. More recently, Tan has made regular appearances with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra and with the London Chamber Orchestra, recording Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 12 and Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 2 on the orchestra’s LCO Live label.
After an absence of two decades, Melvyn Tan made a triumphant return to Singapore. He played to a full Esplanade Hall in January 2011 and has since returned regularly to Singapore for orchestral and recital performances and to teach young musicians. Since September 2012 he has shared his knowledge of pianos old and new and of the art of interpretation as Artist in Residence at Singapore’s Yong Siew Toh Conservatory.