ABOUT THIS PRESENTATION

“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.

KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Joseph N Straus
Distinguished Professor of Music Theory
City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center

Joseph Straus is Distinguished Professor of Music Theory at the CUNY Graduate Center. With a specialization in music since 1900, he has written numerous technical music-theoretical articles and scholarly monographs on a variety of topics in modernist music, including Remaking the Past: Musical Modernism and the Influence of the Tonal Tradition (Harvard University Press, 1990), The Music of Ruth Crawford Seeger (Cambridge University Press, 1995), Stravinsky’s Late Music (Cambridge University Press, 2001), and Twelve-Tone Music in America (Cambridge University Press, 2009).

He has also written a series of articles and books that engage disability as a cultural practice, including Extraordinary Measures: Music and Disability (Oxford University Press, 2011) and Broken Beauty: Musical Modernism and the Representation of Disability (Oxford University Press, 2018). His most recent book is Cultural Narratives of Old Age in the Lives, Work, and Reception of Old Musicians (Routledge, 2025). He has also written textbooks that have become standard references, including Introduction to Post-Tonal Theory, now in its fourth edition, and Concise Introduction to Tonal Harmony (co-authored with Poundie Burstein). Many of his books and articles have received publication awards from the Society for Music Theory, of which he was President from 1997–99.

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

ZOSHA DI CASTRI
The Dream Feed

SAMANTHA FERNANDO
Balconies

OLIVIA DE PRATO, violin
PAUL COLEMAN, sound

ABOUT OLIVIA DE PRATO

Austro-Italian violinist Olivia De Prato is internationally recognised as a soloist and chamber musician, with a practice centred on contemporary and improvised music. She performs regularly across Europe, South America, China and the United States, expanding the boundaries of traditional violin repertoire.

De Prato is a member of the new music ensemble Signal and co-founder and first violinist of the Mivos Quartet, dedicated to contemporary string quartet repertoire. Her debut solo album, Streya (2018, New Focus Recordings), featured Missy Mazzoli’s Grammy-nominated Vespers. In 2019, she received the Ursula and Dwight Mamlok Prize for the interpretation of contemporary music.

Her album I, A.M. – Artist Mother Project (2022, New World Records) was named among VAN Magazine’s best classical albums of the year. Her latest solo album, Panorama (2024, New Focus Recordings), features works by Samantha Fernando, Miya Masaoka, Angélica Negrón, Missy Mazzoli and Jen Shyu.

Every Step You Tread is a performance installation 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, percussionists

ABOUT THE ARTIST

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 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 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

WAYAN and DEWI RACHMAN
KARST DE JONG
JONATHAN SHIN
STUDENTS FROM YST CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC and PRINCESS GALYANI VADHANI INSTITUTE OF MUSIC
and more

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

JOSEPH N STRAUS, narrator

AARON COPLAND
Night Thoughts

NING AN, piano

RUTH CRAWFORD SEEGER
Suite for Woodwind Quintet

GAOLAT QUINTET
RACHEL HO, flute
GRACE TAN, oboe
STEPHANIE TAN, clarinet
KEE RUIHAN, bassoon
XAVIER TAN, horn

ALBAN BERG
Violin Concerto

QIAN ZHOU, violin
YST ORCHESTRAL INSTITUTE
JASON LAI, conductor

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

Prologue: Video installation by YII KAH HOE

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 composition-improvisation with interactive video

BARTOSZ WOROCH, violin
MEI YI FOO, piano
JOACHIM THEODORE LIM, percussion

ABOUT THE MUSICIANS

Polish-born violinist Bartosz Woroch is a prize winner at major international competitions including the Pablo Sarasate Competition in Spain and Michael Hill Competition in New Zealand. As a soloist, he has performed with orchestras including the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Auckland Philharmonic, Bern Symphony Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and Polish Radio Orchestras, working with conductors such as Michael Tilson Thomas, Libor Pešek and Łukasz Borowicz.

A dedicated chamber musician, Bartosz has collaborated with artists including Pekka Kuusisto, Sting, Uri Caine, Jörg Widmann, Piotr Anderszewski and Tom Morris. His recordings Dancer on a Tightrope and ConNotations, with Britten Sinfonia and pianist Mei Yi Foo, have received critical acclaim.

Winner of the 2013 BBC Music Magazine Best Newcomer Award, Mei Yi Foo is an internationally acclaimed pianist known for her eclectic repertoire and adventurous artistry. She has performed with orchestras including the Philharmonia Orchestra, Helsinki Philharmonic, Seoul Philharmonic and Fort Worth Symphony, and at festivals including Lucerne, Ultraschall Berlin and London’s Southbank Centre. Her recordings on Sony, Naxos and Odradek have received international critical acclaim.

Born in Malaysia and based in the UK, Mei Yi is Professor at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and previously served as Artist-in-Residence at Maynooth University. She received the Setiawan Tuanku Muhriz medal for her contributions to the arts. In 2025, she founded the Nine Arts Festival in Negeri Sembilan, where she serves as Artistic Director.

Joachim Lim is a versatile percussionist known for his adaptability and “razor-sharp” performances (The Straits Times) across multiple genres. A Valedictorian graduate of the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, he holds a Master’s degree from the Peabody Institute and has performed with orchestras, chamber ensembles and pop artists across the region and internationally.

Joachim co-founded Morse Percussion in 2020 and performed at the Percussive Arts Society International Convention in 2025 as part of its 50th anniversary celebrations. He is also a founding member of classical-crossover group Lorong Boys, which performed a Concerto Grosso with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra in 2022, and a percussionist with The TENG Ensemble, which bridges Asian and Western musical traditions through performance and community outreach. He has taught masterclasses internationally, including at The Tianjin Juilliard School. Joachim is a Freer Percussion Artist and currently serves as Artist Faculty at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music.