By Dottie Ashley of the Post and Courier
(Reprinted with permission of the Post and Courier)
Siow began her violin studies at age 7, studying with her musician father, Hee-Shun Siow. The
technique she mastered was only partially the famous Suzuki method. "I know that some Asian
children start the Suzuki method at age 2 or 3, but I think that is too young for holding the violin in
the proper way. For certain, it is a very difficult instrument for a young child to learn to play, but it
is so rewarding.
"My father was also a member of the Singapore Symphony,"
says Siow. "When I was 12, I auditioned and was accepted to
play with the symphony. I was so little that when I sat in my
chair, my legs wouldn't reach the floor."
When Siow was 14, she played a concerto for the famous
violinist Aaron Rosand, who was visiting from the Curtis Institute
of Music in Philadelphia and had come to hear the Singapore
Symphony.
"He looked straight at me and asked, 'Would you like to come to
Curtis to study?'"
Siow says with a laugh, "Well I was totally shocked about the
chance to come to America.
"My father was very, very supportive of the idea, but my mother was not as happy about my
leaving home. Then she came around," says Siow. "It was actually highly unusual in a Chinese
family for a daughter to be encouraged to succeed in a challenging profession. Usually, it's the
boys who are given top priority. But my family was different. My father wanted the best for me
and my career. He strongly believed in me."
At 15, Siow said goodbye to her parents, her two brothers and moved to Philadelphia.
She had learned English in school and considers it her first language. "I speak English with my
father and brothers and my friends. But with my mother, I speak Cantonese," she explains.
Although she has traveled all over the world, Siow has never visited China. "Since we are third-
generation Chinese from a family in Hong Kong, I would like to go someday," she says.
"To tell the truth, my mother was afraid I would starve to death in Philadelphia because there was
no cafeteria at the Curtis Institute and no dormitories. The students had to live in apartments and
cook for themselves."
At 15, she was suddenly given many of the responsibilities of an adult. Although she was
assigned a guardian as a roommate, the guardian turned out to be only 18.
"I still had to be the one who got the electricity and gas cut on in the apartment, and I had to buy
food. Believe me, I learned to cook very quickly. In Singapore I never cooked anything because
my mother was a gourmet cook," Siow says.
The two dishes she first mastered were hot dogs
and spaghetti. But after several years, she began
to enjoy cooking for relaxation for her friends. She
often fuses the cuisine of East and West,
concocting rice pilafs and a variety of meat dishes.
"We have great seafood in Singapore, but I'm wild
over steak." she says.
Siow relished studying at Curtis and especially
remembers playing in an orchestra conducted by
Leonard Bernstein. "When he conducted, it was
almost as if he were dancing," she says.
"Bernstein was truly larger than life."
After graduating from Curtis with her bachelor of music degree in 1988, she realized how much
she missed her family and made several trips back to Singapore. There she played with the
orchestra from time to time.
Returning to the United States, she enrolled at Mannes College of Music in New York City on a
scholarship. She made her debut at the Carnegie Hall Recital Hall in 1991 and also won the
Artists International Competition that year. After receiving her master's degree in music in 1992
from Mannes, she stayed on for a couple of years in the Big Apple where she free-lanced with
various orchestras and settled into the rhythm of city life. She found that one of her favorite
things to do is read the New York Times while eating bagels and lox each morning.
"I had a Jewish landlady on West 71st Street, and that's how I got into that kind of food," she
says. Then, it was time for her to leave the city to study for another advanced degree.
Siow received her artist diploma from the Oberlin Conservatory in 1995, and that year was
praised in the Cleveland Plain Dealer with the words: "Siow brought a silvery timbre and
nonpressured approach to Vaughan Williams' haunting scenario. Here was a lark that ascended
with utmost grace and sang in the loveliest of voices ... the fluttering passages sounded clear
and luminous as shaped by Siow, who established a chamber music intimacy."
She then chose to locate in Chicago, where she occasionally taught a class at the Music Institute
of Chicago. She also made frequent trips to perform with the orchestra in Lisbon, where she also
gave master classes.
In 1994, the prime minister of Singapore conferred that country's highest honor on Siow for
excellence in the arts. Also, she was the gold medal winner of the 1994 Henryk Szeryng
International Violin Competition and first prize winner of the 1994 Louise D. McMahon
International Music Competition for Strings.
At the Singapore National Day celebration in 1999, the violinist was dressed in Escada and
leaped out of a giant cake to play her violin for 60,000 members of the audience.
"The newspaper said I 'exploded' onto the stage, and so I guess I did," she says with the wide
smile of someone who loves the show business side of classical music.
Currently, Siow plays on a violin made by J.B. Guadagnini of Milan around 1750. It is provided to
her on special loan, courtesy of the National Arts Council of Singapore. It was the idea of the late
president of Singapore Ong Teng Cheong, who died last winter, to let her use the violin.
"I have to give it back in two years, and I will miss it. I love it so!"
Violins are extraordinarily expensive instruments and must be treated carefully, says Siow, who
makes certain hers doesn't get too damp. That's a chore in the Lowcountry. Siow notes that even
a lower-scale violin, just for a student to practice on, costs $10,000 to $20,000. Top-of-the-line
violins like a Stradivarius can cost from $1 million to $5 million.
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)
Siow, with her parents on graduation
day
)
At the Singapore National Day celebration in 1999,
Siow took centerstage before 60,000 members of
the audience. Photo courtesy of SPH.
© 2011 Siow Lee Chin
MY STORY
She knows how to seduce
listeners, drawing them into
her world with just a few
notes... This is artistry of the
highest level.
- Fanfare Magazine
