Orchestra of the Music Makers & Tzelaw Chan
Biographie Orchestra of the Music Makers & Tzelaw Chan
The Orchestra of the Music Makers (OMM)
is a Singapore-based symphony orchestra established in 2008. OMM comprises over 140 highly-trained volunteer musicians and although many have chosen careers outside of music, our musicians are dedicated to the high standards of music-making and community work which OMM stands for. Under the mentorship of Tzelaw Chan, a leading Singaporean conductor and Vice-Dean of the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, OMM has become an integral part of Singapore’s classical music scene and gained international repute.
OMM is an orchestra like no other. Beyond our musical ambitions, community work is an integral aspect of our identity, and we have consistently structured our activities around giving back to the public. To this day, OMM has assisted in the fundraising of over S$7 million for various charitable causes, but our impact extends beyond that. The bulk of our efforts are invested in community engagement, and one of our most well-attended initiatives is playwithOMM, which gives members of the public an opportunity to read standard repertoire with an orchestra. Much of our work also centres around youth, and a cornerstone of that is our annual Orchestra Camp in collaboration with the School of the Arts Singapore, which develops musical and leadership potential in youth by providing them both a stage to perform on and a platform to learn organisational skills.
OMM enjoys strong audience support at our performances, which are regularly held in Singapore’s leading concert venues. In recognition of our musical standards, we were honoured with the HSBC Youth Excellence Award for Musical Excellence in 2009, and have been a regular recipient of the National Arts Council’s support since our founding. Our orchestra’s ingenuity lies in our versatility, as we perform a wide repertoire of musical styles, from classical works to film music and beyond.
Travelling widely, we have played alongside the world’s finest at the Cheltenham Music Festival and Lichfield Festival in the UK. We made our Taiwan debut at the 2017 Taipei International Choral Festival, and travelled to Perth in 2018 to stage Mahler’s 2nd Symphony with the Western Australian Youth Orchestra.
OMM has also released several live performance recordings to critical acclaim, and many have been featured on numerous platforms, including Singapore Airlines’ KrisWorld in-flight classical music selection. In particular, our performance of Mahler’s 2nd Symphony in 2010 garnered international recognition in notable international publications.
Following our successful performances of Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel and Bernstein’s Mass in 2017 and 2018 respectively, we pushed boundaries once again with the critically acclaimed Singapore Premiere of Wagner’s Die Walküre in early 2020 – 7 years after we first performed extracts from Wagner’s Ring cycle at our 5th anniversary concert.
Straits Times classical music reviewer Chang Tou Liang remarked this of the Orchestra in 2010: "Tonight they have conquered the world. Goodness only knows what our sonic youth will accomplish in ten years' time." Ten years on, we continue to push boundaries as we kick off a new decade of music-making, with our passion burning brighter than ever.
Tzelaw Chan
is Music Director of Singapore's Metropolitan Festival Orchestra and the award-winning Orchestra of the Music Makers. In 2018 he received the Composers and Authors Society of Singapore’s Artistic Excellence Award for his numerous contributions to the Singapore music community.
Chan's performances of Mahler's 8th symphony with the Orchestra of the Music Makers and Sing50 concerts with the Metropolitan Festival Orchestra and Lang Lang were named “Best Concerts of 2015” by Singapore's Sunday Times. Germany's Der neue Merker observed that in Chan's Mahler 8, “listeners felt they have concluded a great journey of time and spirit". Fanfare Magazine states “Chan paces the climaxes so adroitly that, the listener is nearly swept out of the room on tidal waves of sound”. The West Australian lavished praise on his performance of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring “Tze Law (Chan) did wonders from the podium. It was a tour de force.” American Record Guide remarked that that in Mahler's Resurrection symphony he led “with a full understanding of the Mahler idiom”. More recently, Chan's performance of Elgar’s The Music Makers was described by Classical Voice America as having “breathtaking walls of sound and intimate moments of haunting beauty”.
Chan has appeared with major orchestras in the Asia Pacific region and with soloists including Joshua Bloom, Fiona Campbell, Warwick Fyfe, Deborah Humble, Lee Hyon, Caitlin Hulcup, Lang Lang, Ng Pei-Sian, Melvyn Tan, Albert Tiu, Qin Li-Wei, Virgillio Marino, Daniel Sumegi and Igor Yuzefovich. Concerts and CD recordings conducted by Chan have been broadcast on Australia's ABC Classic FM, UK's BBC Radio 3 and featured on Singapore Airlines’ Krisworld In-flight Classical Music selection.
As a pedagogue, Chan is Vice-Dean and Associate Professor of the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, National University of Singapore, and is widely credited for his founding role of the conservatory orchestra and New Music Ensemble. Chan was also the founding chief conductor of the Australian International Summer Orchestral Institute. He has given masterclasses in conducting at the Peabody Institute, USA, and the Royal Academy of Music, London as well as lectures on leadership in conducting at the Senior Management Programme of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. In 2019, he served on the selection committee of the Oxford Conducting Institute International Conducting Studies Conference.
Chan's teachers included conducting luminaries Christopher Adey and Norman Del Mar, and he made his Singapore conducting debut with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra in 2001.
