Europe, International, My Concert Experience

New city, new start at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam

In one of the many many many practice rooms at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam

Creative Performance Lab experimenting with movement and music

Creative Performance Lab experimenting with film both live and recorded

CvA-Sax performance at Thomaskerk, Amsterdam

Team Creative Performance Lab 2017

CvA-Sax performance at Oosterkerk, Amsterdam

Creative Performance Lab colleagues, Amsterdam

Symphonic Winds Chamber Series at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, Bernard Haitinkzaal

It’s the last day of my first semester of Masters here at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, Amsterdam University of the Arts. What a journey! From struggling to find accomodation to trying out dutch cheese/cuisine to the many performances with the CvA-Sax ensemble and Creative Performance Lab (CPL) team. I’ve enjoyed every step of the way – especially thankful for the weekly lessons with Arno 🙂 Taking a small festive holiday, then I cannot wait to jump back into practice again!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all🎄 xx

A little peek into our CPL end of semester performance:

What an adventure with the creative performance lab subject this semester! Learnt the difference between multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary. Can you tell what I'm doing here? Co-featuring Eva's voice 🙂 and the rest of team CPL moving hands @vivpiano ❤️💃🏻🎷 #creative #saxophone #improvisation #classical #altosaxophone #yolo #music #musician #sax #selmer #instamusic #instavideo #video #videos #instagood #instagram #musicvideo #interdisciplinary #multidisciplinary #beautiful #pretty #dance #instadance #girl #conservatoriumvanamsterdam

A post shared by Michellina Chan (@michwichy) on Dec 13, 2017 at 10:10pm PST

Singapore Saxophone Symposium 2017

Gained so much from the annual Singapore Saxophone Symposium. I can’t believe the symposium is in its 7th edition. An enormous thankyou to Dr Zechariah Goh and NAFA team (Lu Heng & Yiangshan) for the organization! It was my first time playing in a masterclass at this symposium and it was for none other than Maestro Alain Crepin.

Opening the symposium with Xin Saxophone Quartet was an amazing opportunity. We performed the world premiere of Sea Scenes by our resident composer, Jay Ong (who sportingly agreed to emcee for us the night before!)

Our program for the recital:

Pierre Vellones (1889 – 1939) – Prélude et rondo français, Op. 89 (1937)
Jay Ong (1995) – Sea Scenes (2017) *World Premiere*
Gabriel Pierné (1863 – 1937) – Introduction et variations sur une ronde populaire (1936)
Philippe Geiss (1961) – Patchwork (1996)

Bravo also to all the other musicians! I am already looking forward to the 2018 edition of the symposium! Enjoy the photos!

Xin Saxophone Quartet

Xin Saxophone Quartet’s performance

Xin Saxophone Quartet and our resident composer Jay Ong

After the masterclass with Maestro Alain Crepin (Belgium)

With Maestro Lars Mlekusch (Switzerland)

With good friend and now colleague, Joseph Lallo (Australia)

With Keuris Quartet (Netherlands)

Team Singapore!

Chili Crab supper!

Competition, International

5th Jean-Marie Londeix Competition 2017

An unimaginable journey to the 5th Jean-Marie Londeix International Saxophone Competition 2017. Through it all, it was an assortment of feelings! Definitely a nice way to make many new friends, have interesting conversations about music/life/another culture and explore another city. Of course – an exposure to a diverse range of music.

Here are some photos, followed by my videos below, enjoy! x

Arrival at the Mahidol College of Music

With my fellow Bordelaise

Cultural visit to the Wat Pho (Temple of Reclining Buddha)

With jury, Susan Fancher

With the president of jury, Monsieur Jean-Marie Londeix

With jury, Lin Chien-Kwan

With jury, Masataka Hirano

With jury, Dr. Chen Yi

Getting feedback from the jury session

Hang out with the fellow competitors

To the floating market with fellow competitors

With the artistic director of the competition, Shyen Lee

My Concert Experience

Xin Saxophone Duo in Concert

xin sax duo concert horizontal-1

Our Story: Xin Saxophone Duo, a subset of Xin Saxophone Quartet, was formed in 2016 by two leading professional saxophonists in Singapore. Xin Saxophone Duo had their debut on Singapore’s influential Mediacorp Channel 8 television program, Star Awards 2016. Notable performances includes performances at the 6th Singapore Saxophone Symposium and at a lecture-recital, at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, entitled Paganini Lost and Found. As a duo, they have travelled to Thailand to take part in the Asia Pacific Saxophone Academy 2016. They hope to share their passion for chamber music by making it accessible to all.

Xin Saxophone Duo comprises of saxophonists Michellina Chan and Alexis Seah.

Our Concert:

28 July 2017 / 7:30pm / $10 /

Sinfonietta Hall, Forte Musicademy
51 Waterloo Street
#03-05
Singapore 187969

Program: Rossé, Morosco, Dubois, Mincek, Telemann, Galente and more

To reserve tickets at the door, CLICK HERE: https://goo.gl/forms/HmLgxULAmcPMalIV2 orr scan the QR code in our poster above!

Europe, International

It’s a wrap! … for now

What an experience in Bordeaux, France. Always good to be home in Singapore! For a change, I thought I would compile my favourite panoramic photos of my 2017 travels in Europe! Enjoy xx

C’était une expérience incroyable dans à Bordeaux, en France. Il est toujours bon de rentrer à la maison à Singapour! Pour changer, j’ai décidé de faire une compilation de mes photos panoramiques favorites de mes voyages en 2017 en Europe! xx

Sainte-Chapelle, Paris, France

Barceloneta Beach, Barcelona, Spain

Royal Palace of Madrid, Madrid, Spain

Praça do Comércio, Lisbon, Portugal

Lisbon, Portugal

São Jorge Castle, Lisbon, Portugal

Jerónimos Monastery, Lisbon, Portugal

Sacré-Cœur, Paris, France

Musée du Louvre, Paris, France

Paris, France

Panthéon, Paris, France

Paris, France

Copenhagen, Denmark

Rundetaarn, Copenhagen, Denmark

Malmö Castle, Malmö, Sweden

Malmö, Sweden

Opernhaus Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland

Uetliberg, Switzerland

Zürich, Switzerland

Place des Quinconces, Bordeaux, France

Miroir d’eau, Bordeaux, France

Bordeaux, France

Paris, France

Musée du Louvre, Paris, France

Amsterdam, Netherlands

Miroir d’eau, Bordeaux, France

Arcachon, France

Dune of Pilat, France

Europe, International, My Concert Experience

Performances in Bordeaux, France

It is my 5th month living in Bordeaux and it has been an amazing time. I have a weekly incredible lesson with my teacher, Marie-Bernadette Charrier. Also a weekly sonate lesson with our amazing accompanist Hilomi Sakaguchi with Marie-Bernadette. For my weekly classical chamber music class, I play with a pretty international saxophone quartet with two French, one Argentinian and me (Singaporean). We have been working on Florent Schmitt’s Quatuor de saxophones, op. 102. As for the contemporary chamber music class, I play with a mixed ensemble of two violins, clarinet, flute and soprano saxophone, we’re preparing a Bulgarian piece for the end of year exam. Together with the Orchestre d’Harmonie (Wind Symphony), we presented an interesting program:
I also had an opportunity to share Singaporean music with my class in a conference. I presented the music of Dr Zechariah Goh and had to speak about him in French!

Three weekends back we had two visiting guests, Allison Balcetis and Masanori Oishi. It was three intense days of masterclasses, conferences and performances. In the concert on the last night, our class presented french composer, Benjamin Attahir’s Nouvelle Sous Esctasy for 12 soprano saxophones, 1 soprano and 2 percussionists.

It has been interesting being in Bordeaux, I have picked up phrases of Spanish (owing to the fact that almost half my class are Spanish!) and of course my french is getting a lot better. It was a cold cold winter (-6 degrees) but now it is beautiful in spring! The food here is incredible, good red wine, cheese and bread. I am sure that the friends I have made here will be friends for life. I am so fortunate to have this experience!

Saxophone Quartet de CRR Bordeaux

Performance with Pianist Hilomi Sakaguchi

Conference about Dr Zechariah Goh

Masterclass with Masanori Oishi

After a master class with Dr Allison Balcetis

After a concert at the Conservatoire de Bordeaux

Sonate class performance with pianist Hilomi Sakaguchi

Quartet concert at the Musée d’Aquitaine

Our saxophone room (310) at the Conservatoire de Bordeaux

Contemporary Chamber Music concert

Saxophone ensemble at the DRAC

Publicity of our concert in Le Bouscat

International, My Concert Experience

1st Asian Saxophone Congress in Chiayi, Taiwan

As a part of the NAFA Saxophone Quartet, I spent a week in Taiwan (Chiayi and Taipei). We performed a one hour recital at the 1st Asian Saxophone Congress in Chiayi. Our recital comprised of music by local Singaporean composers including Zechariah Goh, Lee Kah Hong Bernard, Jeremiah Li, Alexander Oon and Oh Jin Yong. It was nice to catch up with old friends and make new ones at the congress. After the congress, we headed back to Taipei City and had an exchange with the Taipei National University of the Arts Saxophone Studio.