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Dedicated as a musician, educator and performer, Dr. Cheryl Lim currently serves as a full-time Music Faculty member at the School of the Arts, Singapore, where she joined in 2011. Her diverse musical interests have led her to pursue artistically worthy projects in the areas of historical performance, new music and educational outreach.

Recent organized musical projects include an accepted proposal to commission and premiere Singaporean chamber compositions at the 2016 National Flute Association Convention, a project that grew from Cheryl’s 2014 doctoral thesis on founding local composers’ chamber compositions. In the same year, Cheryl also founded and organized the New Epoch Orchestral (NEO) ensemble as a means to explore modern repertoire for a chamber-sized group of musicians. In a smaller-sized group, Cheryl performs contemporary compositions with the newly-formed quintet Wu Xian.

Her passion to interpret early music based on historical treatises also led to the presentation of a French baroque concert performed on the traverso later that year. Currently, she performs regularly with local freelance orchestras including the Metropolitan Festival Orchestra, re:SOUND Collective, Singapore Lyric Opera and the Orchestra of the Music Makers. She has performed concertos in venues including the School of the Arts, Esplanade Concert Hall and Esplanade Recital Studio.

Cheryl graduated from the Peabody Institute of Music with a Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) degree in 2014 and upon graduating was simultaneously awarded the Clinton Lee Arrowood Memorial Prize for excellence in flute performance. Her Masters was earned at the Manhattan School of Music and her undergrad degree with 1st Class Honours from the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory as part of the pioneer batch of students. Her main teachers include Jin Ta, Marina Piccinini and Michael Parloff with additional orchestral and chamber studies with Emily Skala and Marya Martin. Baroque flute studies began with lessons with Gwyn Roberts at Peabody Institute and continued at the Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute with Christopher Krueger and Michael Lynn as well as private lessons with Rachel Brown and Lisa Beznosiuk.

In her younger days, Cheryl competed in and won prizes in the Ohio Young Artist Competition and the Alexander and Buono International Flute Competition. Back then, she also performed in masterclasses for Emmanuel Pahud, James Galway, Maxence Larrieu and Juliette Hurel amongst other musicians. Early musical studies included flute lessons with Wang Tong and Evgueni Brokmiller and piano and composition lessons with Yeo Kian Boon.

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Rachel Ho has been praised by The Straits Times on her “lovely flute solo gliding the melody as an added voice, making the aria especially poignant” during her performance on the baroque flute of J.S Bach’s Cantata BWV 55 under the direction of Masaaki Suzuki, a leading authority on the works of J.S Bach.

During her semester on exchange at Peabody Conservatory in Fall 2016, Rachel had the opportunity to study the baroque flute with Gwyn Roberts, founder of the early music group Tempesta di Mare. Rachel was involved in the Early Music Department, actively performing with the Baltimore Baroque Band and the Peabody Recorder Consort. Upon returning to Singapore in 2017, she led a student-initiated concert, “A New Dawn”, showcasing chamber music of the early 18th Century all played on period instruments, with her colleagues and mentor, Mr Leslie Tan. While pursuing her graduate studies at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague, Netherlands in 2018, Rachel furthered her baroque flute studies with Kate Clark.

Proficient in both baroque and modern flute, Rachel has appeared as a flute soloist with Musicians’ Initiative Orchestra and Red Dot Baroque exploring works by Mozart and Telemann. She is a freelance musician with Metropolitan Festival Orchestra and has performed with Orchestra of the Music Makers, Ricciotti Ensemble (The Netherlands), Sichuan Symphony Orchestra (China) and Hermes Wind Orchestra (Taiwan). She has represented Singapore to be a Festival Artist at the 10th Asia Flutists Congress 2019 in Shanghai and at Music Society of Myanmar’s Festival and Competition 2017-2020, and was a jury member of the 3rd Asia Flute Federation Junior Competition.

After being exposed to the field of community work while participating in the New Audiences and Innovative Programme courses in Europe, Rachel has curated several performances and creative music workshops in Asia, Europe and United States at hospitals, dementia homes, refugee camps and centers for children. She also participated in the “Training Music Leaders with refugees” course by Musician Without Borders in Germany. Rachel was invited to present at the YST Performers(’) Present International Artistic Research Symposium 2019 “Telling Stories”, Princess Galyani Vadhana Institute of Music International Symposium 2020 “Is the Virtual Real” and the 12th Southeast Asian Directors of Music Congress 2021 “Reimagine”. At these symposiums, she presented about her creative music-making community projects with the elderly and children and its implications on intergenerational, musical practices and well-being.

Rachel completed her undergraduate studies at YST with a full scholarship, majoring in Flute Performance. She also holds a Masters in Music Education from Royal Conservatory of The Hague, Netherlands. Rachel is currently a 2021 cohort member of the Global Leaders Programme, an Ivy League-curated executive education for impact-focused Arts Entrepreneurs and is part of the Southeast Asian Music Leaders 30 Under 30 Project. Rachel holds a position as a Teaching Assistant in the Career Orientation and Community Engagement team at YST.

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Leow Rui Qing graduated with a Master of Music from the Conservatorium van Amsterdam in the class of Ms Miriam Pastor Burgos and Mr Ernest Rombout. Prior to her Masters, she obtained her Bachelor of Music (Honours) from the Royal College of Music (London), and Diploma in Music Performance from the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts under the tutelage of Mr Pan Yun. 

During her studies in the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, she picked up the baroque oboe in her final year under the tutelage of Mr Josep Domènech. As a core member of Red Dot Baroque, she performs regularly on the baroque oboe and oboe d’amore, and was recently the soloist in oboe concertos by Marcello and Albinoni.

In her formative years, she performed on tour with the Asian Youth Orchestra as well as the Nationaal Jeugdorkest. Her professional orchestral engagements include the Royal Bangkok Symphony Orchestra, Metropolitan Festival Orchestra and The Philharmonic Orchestra (Singapore).

Rui Qing is currently an oboist of the Singapore Armed Forces Central Band.

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Veda was a Master graduate at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, before she attained a Konzertexamen degree at the Folkwang Universität der Kunst in Essen, Germany. Her teachers included Helena Gaunt, David Walter and Joe Sanders on the modern oboe, as well as Gail Henessy and Michael Niesemann on the baroque oboe.

On the modern oboe, Veda has made concerto appearances with the Duisburger Sinfoniker, Folkwang Hochschulorchester, Guildhall Sinfonia and The Philharmonic Orchestra performing concertos by Richard Strauss, B. A. Zimmermann and Mozart. Veda has also given solo recitals in the Crush Room at Covent Garden, Winchester Festival, and was the Special Prize Winner in the Barbirolli International Oboe Competition in 2009. Orchestra work and chamber music have also been central to her role as an oboist, playing with the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie (Germany), Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra, Orquestra Classica da Madeira (Portugal), Singapore Symphony Orchestra and Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra. With the Singaporean wind quintet EDQ, they were awarded the Tapio Tuomela prize at the 7th Henri Tomasi International Woodwind Quintet Competition 2013 in Marseille.

A passionate teacher at heart, Veda seeks to be an advocate for music not just through her identity as an oboist and performer, but also as an educator. Her role as a mother of three spurred her to pursue in 2020 a Master in Elementary Music Pedagogy at the Hochschule für Musik in Freiburg, where she currently lives with her family.

Veda plays on a Denner copy made by Toshi Hasegawa.