Back to Basics (Part I)
The Introduction to the Art of Piano Playing — a special pedagogy workshop exploring piano tone production, touch, musical sound, and expressive playing.
Workshop Overview
This special two-part workshop explores the foundations of piano tone production and the many touches that form a pianist’s expressive “toolbox”.
Participants will learn how different touches create different colours and characters of sound, and how these sounds may be applied meaningfully within musical interpretation.
Toh Chee Hung
Join Toh Chee Hung — concert pianist, highly respected teacher-mentor, and adjudicator — for a rare pedagogy workshop sharing profound insights into the art of producing a truly musical tone at the piano.
Back to Basics: The Introduction to the Art of Piano Playing (Part 1 & Part 2)
This special two-part workshop explores the foundations of piano tone production and the many touches that form a pianist’s expressive “toolbox”. Participants will learn how different touches produce different colours and characters of sound, and how these sounds may be applied meaningfully within musical interpretation.
Join Toh Chee Hung — concert pianist, highly respected teacher-mentor, and adjudicator — for a rare pedagogy workshop sharing profound insights into the art of producing a truly musical tone at the piano.
How It Began…
Many years ago, during a summer visit to Budapest, Chee Hung and Dennis traced their pedagogical roots back to the Liszt Academy, where their teacher had once studied under an assistant to Ernő Dohnányi.
The Academy was quiet after the academic term had ended. Yet from the concert hall came the sound of a single beautiful piano tone… then another… and another.
Peering through the doorway, she saw a young boy — perhaps twelve years old — slowly walking alongside the keyboard, dropping the full weight of his arm into one key at a time.
In that simple action lay a profound revelation: the beginning of a truly musical piano sound.
From this understanding of tone production and physical freedom at the instrument, Chee Hung explores how sound can become eloquent, cantabile, heroic, stirring, multi-layered, and deeply expressive — capable of conveying the full emotional spectrum demanded by the piano repertoire.
This is not merely technical training, but a lifelong artistic journey requiring patience, openness, humility, and deep listening.
Workshop Contents Include
- Making a musical tone at the piano — the fundamental touch
- Enjoying the physical forces of nature
- Explanation and demonstration of the various possible touches that make up a pianist’s “toolbox”
- Hands-on participation and exploration
- Mindful listening and awakening the inner ear
- Clinic on touches
- Applying what has been discussed to repertoire that is “work in progress”
- Relevant, musically informed considerations for interpretation of style, phrase-structure, form, texture, rhythm and harmony.
About Toh Chee Hung
Toh Chee Hung left her native Singapore to pursue advanced studies at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where she was awarded the Gold Medal in Piano Performance together with postgraduate scholarships.
She later studied European pedagogical traditions with disciples of Alfred Cortot and Ernő Dohnányi, and has performed internationally across Europe, the United States, and Asia, including France, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Denmark, Malta, Turkey, and Southeast Asia.
Widely respected as a pedagogue, adjudicator, and mentor, she has conducted masterclasses and workshops extensively, inspiring generations of pianists and teachers through her deep musical insight and artistic integrity.
Registration Fees
Teachers who entered students for the 9th Singapore Performers’ Festival 2026, as well as students, enjoy 50% off regular fees.
TEACHERS OF 9TH PF STUDENTS
SMTA MEMBERS
NON-MEMBERS / PUBLIC
Early bird fees till 1 June 2026. Limited seats available.
Venue
Music Salon @ Yamaha Thomson Plaza
301 Upper Thomson Road #03-24
Thomson Plaza Singapore 574408
MRT: Upper Thomson