Archives: Faculty Members

Field(s) of study : Violin

Born : Korea

Degrees : Bachelor of Music with Honours (Merit) in Violin Performance, NUS

Biography : Kim Kyu Ri is currently a violinist in the newly formed Concordia Quartet, a professional string quartet based in Singapore. As an active chamber musician, she has previously performed with various chamber groups in and out of conservatories and has collaborated with members of the T’ang Quartet in Singapore.

Ms. Kyu Ri has freelanced regularly with professional orchestras in Singapore such as the Re:Sound Chamber Orchestra and the Metropolitan Festival Orchestra, and was concertmaster and associate concertmaster with the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Orchestra and Musicians’ Initiative, as well as the Singapore National Youth Orchestra.

In 2017, she was selected from over a thousand musicians across Asia to participate in the Asian Youth Orchestra’s Global Tour under full scholarship, where she performed in highly esteemed festivals such as the Lucerne Festival and the Young Euro Classics, while collaborating with renowned artists and conductors such as Matthias Bamert, Sarah Chang and Vadim Repin. She has also taken masterclasses from various artists and pedagogues – Nam Yun Kim, Midori Goto, Itzhak Rashkovsky, Dennis Kim and Richard Roberts among others.

Ms. Kyu Ri has received her Bachelor of Music (Honours) from the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music where she studied with Igor Yuzefovich, and went on to pursue her Master of Music degree at Mannes School of Music with renowned pedagogue Lucie Robert.

Faculty : Faculty since July 2020

Field(s) of study: Violin

Born : Taiwan

Degrees: Master of Arts (MA) in Music with Magna Cum Laude (Distinction), Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel;

Biography:

Former Guiyang Symphony Orchestra musician (First Violin).

Ms Yu-Rou Li completed her Master’s degree at Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel under Professor Yossif Ivanov who was the second prize winner of the Queen Elisabeth Violin Competition in 2005. During her musical journey, she joined the MuCH Ensemble in Waterloo and performed at the Royal Palace of Brussels and Flagey. She was also invited by the Taipei Representative Office in the EU and Belgium as a guest violinist for prominent events.

Ms Yu-Rou Li has attended many renowned violin and chamber music masterclasses, including those with Marc Danel, Prazak Quartet, Tatsuki Narita, Lucie Robert, and Nai-Yuan Hu. In 2017, she was awarded a scholarship to be an exchange student at the Sibelius Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki (Finland).

With 20 years of experience, Ms Yu-Rou Li has dedicated herself to her music career. She has performed as a concertmaster in numerous concerts, while also devoting her expertise to nurturing students across Belgium, Finland, China, and Taiwan.

Faculty : Faculty since July 2023

Field(s) of study : Piano Group

Born : Taiwan

Degrees : Bachelor of Music, Tainan University (Taiwan), Licentiate Diploma in Piano, London College of Music

Biography : Has more than 20 years of teaching experience in Taiwan and Singapore. Awarded top prizes in the Yamaha Electone Festivals USA. A member of the jury panel for the Taiwan Yamaha Graded examinations.

Faculty : Faculty since 1998

Field(s) of study : Violin

Born : Colombia

Degrees : Technician in Musical Education and Violin, Superior School of Fine Arts (Colombia)

Biography : Ms Ana Maria started her musical journey at the age of 7 in the School of Fine Arts in her hometown Cartagena (Colombia) with her principal instrument being the violin. At the institute, apart from the violin, she studied theory, piano and the guitar and was awarded the scholarship. With her sisters, Ms Ana Maria formed a trio where they represented their school in music festivals and ultimately emerged as champions.

At the end of her music studies, Ms Ana Maria was invited to join the Youth Symphony of Colombia where she had to relocate to the capital of Bogota. Being with the orchestra gained her the opportunity to travel throughout the country and with their extensive performances, they were featured in radio and television programs in Colombia. Her first stint abroad was in Puerto Rico where she participated in the Festival of Orchestras of Americas held in 1983.

Ms Ana Maria chose the vocation to teach in the School of the Symphony and was applauded for her excellence in teaching. After which she joined the prestigious French institute Refous where she taught for 7 years. There, she pioneered the violin program for preschool and primary school students benefitting over 300 children between 4 to 12 years old.

In 1985, Ms Ana Maria travelled to Europe mainly to France and Germany on a month long tour playing chamber music with the chamber orchestra, ‘Promusica’.

With her brothers, Ms Ana Maria created Latin music groups to perform in music schools and music festivals with the main objective of promoting their Colombian and South American culture. Fate brought her to Singapore where one of the groups travelled here to perform Latin music in 2006. She then joined Mandeville in 2008. To date, 90% of her students have achieved Merit and Distinction in the ABRSM examinations.

Through her 50 years of experience with music, she has learnt that we must follow our heart and we need to feel music in order to understand the language. She muses that techniques and training helps to acquire skills but the most important aspect is the need to express our feelings through the arts by projecting it through our body by singing and dancing as this will emulate the musical flow when one is playing a musical instrument. Ms Ana Maria’s teaching style includes playing the percussions to produce the rhythmic facet and lots of singing to further reiterate that music is inside us and that everything is music. She holds firms the belief that love and passion are part of learning and teaching music.

Faculty : Faculty since May 2008