Music to our ears

March 2008

Yong Loo Lin Trust’s generous gift of $25 million will enable the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music to help raise Singapore’s profile as a city of the arts.

Students at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music at NUS have a great reason to do a big song and dance – their school has received a new $25 million gift from the Yong Loo Lin Trust, which means that they will continue to enjoy full scholarships.

Apart from scholarships, the generous gift, which will attract a dollar-for-dollar matching grant from the Singapore Government, will also go towards the support of special projects at the Conservatory. In effect, the new gift will help take the five-year-old Conservatory to a new stage of development, said Mr Goh Yew Lin, Chairman of the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music’s Governing Board.

This is the second $25 million gift that the Trust has made to the Conservatory. The first gift from the Trust was received in 2003, the year of the Conservatory’s official opening.

Said Mr Goh: “We are extremely grateful to the Yong Loo Lin Trust for its generous support to the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music since its inception. The first $25 million gift we received from the Trust in 2003 supported our mission to establish a state-of-the-art Conservatory in Singapore. The Yong Siew Toh Conservatory now offers a four-year, full-time undergraduate degree programme, with a curriculum that provides a strong foundation for students to pursue their artistic development.”

He added: “This second $25 million gift from the Trust will enable the Conservatory to continue to offer full scholarships to its students, joining a very small number of similarly-endowed institutions in the world. This will enable us to continue to attract students of the highest calibre. The new gift, which is also designated for the support of special projects to be announced later, will further enable the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music to help raise Singapore’s profile as a city of the arts.”

Said a statement from the Yong Loo Lin Trust: “The Trust chose to make a second gift to the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music at NUS because we believe that it will help bring the Conservatory, in partnership with the Peabody Institute, one step closer towards its aim of becoming a centre of international standing in music education. The Trust sees its continued support for the Conservatory as a strategic contribution to Singapore, by enabling the Conservatory to continue to attract high quality intakes of students.”

Mr Bernard Lanskey, Director of Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, said: “We recognise and value the sense of responsibility incumbent with such a generous gift. Not only does it provide a unique opportunity to establish a conservatory of genuinely global standing; it also assists in providing additional supporting resource to reach out and make a difference in our surrounding communities, particularly through interacting with Singaporean youth and involving them actively in music-making.”

He added: “In a sense, after the first five years, this gift offers endorsement that the Conservatory is ready for the next stage in its development. We believe that, through close collaboration with Peabody, we can now build a distinctive identity, appropriate to our immediate context but competitive in standard with the world’s most established institutions.”

Expressing the University's appreciation, NUS President Professor Shih Choon Fong said: "We are deeply grateful to the Yong Loo Lin Trust and the Yong family for their steadfast support for NUS over the years. This gift to the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music is another instance of their philanthropy that will touch countless lives. Not only will the Yongs' generosity enable more musical talents to be nurtured at NUS, it will also help us continue contributing to Singapore's development as an international arts hub.”