It will be a bit of a reunion when twin brother cellists Pei-Sian and Pei-Jee Ng arrive in Brisbane to perform with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra.
The internationally acclaimed orchestra will feature teenage violin sensation Chloe Chua in its highly anticipated Australian debut, performing in the QPAC Concert Hall on February 16.
The concert will be conducted by SSO’s visionary music director Hans Graf, delivering a final flourish before passing the baton next year to incoming music director, Finnish conductor Hannu Lintu.
Also performing as a soloist is Pei-Sian Ng with twin brother Pei-Jee sitting in the orchestra as a guest artist.
“Pei-Jee is principal cellist for the Royal Scottish National Orchestra,” Pei-Sian Ng explains. “He’ll be guest principal cellist on this tour as I’m a soloist. We love playing together and I always thought our careers would be together but I’m in Singapore and he’s in Scotland.”
So the Australian tour of the SSO is a bit of a reunion for the Australian brothers, with the Brisbane concert an opportunity to be back in the city where they both studied. As teenagers, the brothers attended the Queensland Conservatorium, Griffith University, and played with Queensland Youth Orchestras under the late great John Curro.
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“We will stay one more day after the concert,” Pei-Sian Ng says. “We will do a bit of retracing your steps. We’ll walk along South Bank, take a ferry … I can’t wait.”
When we chat by phone it’s early in Singapore and Pei-Sian Ng is a bit bleary.
“Since it is Chinese New Year there are a lot of parties going on and we like to play Mah Jong until late,” he says. “So my brain is a bit slow this morning.”
Staying up late playing Mah Jong sounds like fun. Hardworking musicians need a break now and then. But soon he will be on a plane because the Australian tour starts at the Sydney Opera House on February 12 before heading to Melbourne and finishing with a flourish in Brisbane.
‘I have a seat on the Singapore Airlines flight for my cello …’
The talented 40-year-old is Australian-born but has been living and working in Singapore for 15 years, travelling the world with the SSO. His companion on the flight will be his new cello, which is really a very old cello made about 1720 by Italian master Francesco Goffriller.
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“I have a seat on the Singapore Airlines flight for my cello,” Ng says. “I bought it at auction in London last October. The instruments are transported inside secure boxes, but as a soloist I need to get there and start rehearsing, so I will keep it close.” And make sure it is safe.
Ng is part of an international fraternity of star cellists and is friends with artists such as German cellist Daniel Muller-Schottt (who previously owned the cello Ng recently acquired) and superstar Yo-Yo Ma. Ng played with Ma in Singapore once when his parents, who had come from Australia, were in the audience.
“Yo-Yo Ma was so great because he had this microphone set up and he started talking about my parents and asked them to stand up,” Ng recalls. “He said what a lot they had done to support me and he was wonderful. He is larger than life.”
In Brisbane, the SSO will be playing romantic masterpieces by Tchaikovsky (his Fifth Symphony), Brahms and Koh Cheng Jin, a Singaporean composer. Koh’s piece will feature the Yangqin (Chinese dulcimer) in an evocation of the Singapore Firefly’s golden appearance and mysterious allure.
Ng’s star turn will be the Brahms Concerto for Violin & cello in A minor, Op. 102. He will be joined by 18-year-old sensation Chloe Chua performing what was Brahms’ final orchestral work written in 1887.
“Chloe is amazing,” Ng says. “She’s like an angel of the violin. She has this amazing clarity of mind and instinct.”
The SSO was founded in 1979 and was recognised as one of the world’s best orchestras by the BBC Music Magazine in 2023.
The brothers Ng don’t get to play on stage together as much as they would like or as much as they did when they were young, so this will be rather a special family affair for them.
Keep an eye out for them the day after the concert, as they soak up the sights of Brisbane again.
Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Concert Hall, QPAC, February 16, 3pm.
qpac.com.au