Becoming a musician

What drives you to become a musician, what inspires you? How do you find the right teachers, study at the right institutions, and develop your individual career? And to what extend has the situation changed for students during the last decades, and what are the reasons? In this first ever pilot interview episode, before even the title „“Decisions““ was born, Paul Cibis talks to pianist & educator Dr. Nellie Seng from the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA) in Singapore.

Dr. Nellie Seng is a prize-winning pianist with an international reputation as a soloist and chamber musician. She started her formal musical education at Chetham’s School of Music in Manchester, England, followed by her undergraduate and postgraduate degrees at The Juilliard School, New York, to finally gain a doctoral degree at The Graduate Center, City University of New York. In her career as a pedagogue she worked as a lecturer at the College of Staten Island and City College of New York, and currently holds the position of head of keyboard studies at Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA) in her home town Singapore.

The conversation was recorded in April 2021.