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Conductors
SYO welcomes two new co-conductors for the 2009-10 season: Arianne Abela and Tian Hui Ng! Get ready for an exciting year!
Arianne Abela, Co-Conductor
Arianne G. Abela is originally from the San Francisco Bay Area. She is currently receiving a Masters of Music degree in conducting from the Yale Institute of Scared Music/Yale School of Music under the instruction of Simon Carrington, Jeffrey Douma, and Marguerite L. Brooks. Arianne was a member of Yale University's renowned Schola Cantorum, which toured to China and Korea in May 2009 to perform Bach, Mass in B Minor. From 2009-2010, Arianne will act as Assistant Conductor of the Yale Glee Club under Jeffrey Douma, as well as conductor of the Yale Chamber Singers. She is currently co-conductor of SYO and a founding member of Etherea vocal ensemble of New Haven. Arianne is a choir member and frequent soloist for Christ Church, New Haven. In July 2009 she conducted the Bach, Mass in B Minor in Northampton, MA for a fundraising event benefiting the Northampton Community Music Center.
Arianne received most of her musical training during her many years in the San Francisco Girls Chorus where she participated in SF Opera and SF Symphony productions and worked with Michael Tilson Thomas, Vance George, Joseph Jennings, Helmuth Rilling, and many other prestigious conductors and teachers. Arianne was the conductor of the SF Girls Chorus Summer Alumnae Chorus in 2008 and 2009.
Arianne graduated from Smith College in May 2008 where she studied voice with Jane Bryden. She was named the 2008 Judith Raskin Memorial Prize recipient awarded to "the most outstanding student in vocal performance". Arianne was also named the 2008 Earnst Wallfisch Prize recipient for "outstanding commitment, ability and diligence in music". A four-year member of the Smith College Glee Club and Chamber Singers, Arianne acted as the assistant conductor for Jonathan Hirsh and deanna Joseph. In her final year at Smith, she organized and conducted There Always Ssomething Sings, a women's choral program that featured works by Noble, Howells, Mendelssohn, Rautuvaara, and the Porpora Magnificat for string orchestra, continuo, and women's chorus. In the spring of 2007, Arianne conducted movements of the Durufle Requiem and Shostakovich Symphony No. 3 with the Smith College Orchestra and choirs. That same year, Arianne acted as Musical Director for the Smith Theater Department production of Cinders, which featured her original instrumental and vocal compositions.
In 2006, Arianne performed as Le Feu in the 5-College Consortium Opera Production of Ravel's L'enfant et les Sortileges. She has also appeared as a soloist for the South Hadley Chorale in performances of Elijah and the Mozart Requiem. She has also performed for the Wistariahurst Museum concert series and has sung with the professional choir Arcadia under the baton of Ian Watson. She is the winner of the 2008 Smith College Orchestra Concerto Competition and performed Mozart's Exsultate Jubilate at the 2008 Spring Orchestra concert.
As a conductor, Arianne participated in the 2006 International Varna Conducting Workshop in Bulgaria where she conducted the Verdi Requieum featuring the Vidin State Philharmonic Orchestra. In the summers of 2006 and 2007 she was a Conducting and Vocal apprentice at the Berkshire Choral Festival where she worked and performed in masterclasses with many renowned conductors and soloists such as Phyllis Curtin, Bob Page, Jane Glover, Grant Gershon, Maria Guinand, Malcolm Bilson, and Kathy S. Romey.
Arianne's favorite composer is Gustav Mahler.
Read more about Arianne at her website: http://arianneabela.com.
Tian Hui Ng, Co-Conductor
Conductor, composer and singer Tian Hui Ng is a Master of Music candidate at Yale University (MM '10) in choral conducting, where he currently studies with Marguerite L. Brooks, Simon Carrington and Jeffrey Douma. At Yale, he is Principal Assistant Conductor of the Yale Camerata, Co-Conductor of the Yale Recital Chorus and the Saybrook College Orchestra and is Ensemble Manager of the Yale Schola Cantorum. He has participated in conducting master classes with Paul Hillier, Nicholas McGegan, Kathy Saltzman Romey, and Helmuth Rilling, among others.
Tian received the Bachelor of Music from the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom in 2001 where he studied Composition with Vic Hoyland and Jonty Harrison, and Orchestral Conducting with Andrew Constantine. During this time, he was Conductor of the Chamber Choir, the Chamber Orchestra, Sinfonia, Recital Chorus and Summer Festival New Music Ensemble at the university. His music direction of Stravinsky's The Rake Progress with the University of Birmingham Summer Festival Opera was well received by the local press. As music director of the Keele University (UK) Wind Band, he was instrumental in a concert tour of Austria and South-East England.
An avid educator, Tian was awarded the Silver Award at the National Arts Education Awards in 2006 for his work in crafting an integrated arts programme which embraced Music, Dance, Theatre and the Visual Arts. He has taught at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University of Singapore and has made numerous presentations at conferences and workshops. In addition, he has served on the committees of the Singapore Art and Music Education Conference 2009, the Composers Association of Singapore and the A Cappella Society of Singapore.
Tian's interest in interdisciplinary work has led to compositions for digital animation artist Yang Tien for EpSite@Wheelock, Singapore; movie soundtracks including two award-winning films, Crammed (2004) and Jia Fu (2005) by Ellery Ngiam; music for theatre and dance with Apsara Asia and other Singaporean companies. Notable arrangements include Southeast Asian regional folksongs and popular music for Cantonese pop star William So.
Looking ahead, the summer of 2009 will see a premiere of Siehe! a new commission by the Philharmonic Chamber Choir in Singapore, a conducting fellowship at the Oregon Bach Festival studying with Helmuth Rilling and studies in Gregorian Chant at Abbaye de Solesmes in France.
Read more about Tian at his website: http://www.ngtianhui.com.