Abigail Sin

Audio|en-abigailsin.ogg|Abigail Sin Si Ern (born 1992) is a Singaporean pianist. She was hailed by TIME Magazine as one of Asia's "small wonders" and a "bona fide prodigy" when she was ten years old. By the age of eleven, she attained her Licentiate of the Royal School of Music (LRSM) in Piano Performance.

Career

Early performances

At the age of nine, Abigail Sin gave her debut solo recital at CHIJMES in Singapore. Her second solo recital at the Victoria Theatre and Concert Hall was sold out within weeks and she received rave reviews from "The Straits Times" as well as "The Arts" magazine. She has given subsequent solo piano recitals in Manchester, Bangkok, Hamburg, Richmond and the renowned Peabody Conservatory of Music in the United States.

Professional career

In 2002, she made her debut as a concerto soloist playing Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 12, and later performed Mendelssohn's Piano Concerto No. 1 in G minor with the Braddell Heights Symphony Orchestra. The following year, Sin made her London debut, performing Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 13 with the London Soloists Chamber Orchestra at the Purcell Room in the South Bank Centre. Soon after, she became the youngest soloist to perform with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra in the new Esplanade Concert Hall as part of the President’s Young Performer Series in 2003. The concert was broadcast on local television. She was featured in BBC Radio’s "East Asia Today" in 2003.

Sin was a scholarship student at The Chetham's International Festival and Summer School for Pianists in 2001. She also attended The International Transylvania Music Summer Academy in Braşov, Romania in 2004, where she was one of the five pianists selected to perform in the Gala concert recorded for live broadcast by Romanian Broadcasting Corporation. In summer 2005, Sin was given a scholarship to attend the Gold Country Piano Institute at Nevada City, California.

Sin was presented with the HSBC Youth Excellence Award in 2003 in recognition of her rare talent and relentless pursuit of excellence in piano performance, making her the youngest recipient to benefit from funding under the HSBC Youth Excellence Initiative. She also won the top prize for a higher age group in the 2004 ASEAN Chopin Piano Competition in Kuala Lumpur. Sin was also a prize winner in the Pinault International Piano Competition in 2003, and in 2004 she was invited to participate in The Gina Bachauer Junior Piano Competition at Salt Lake City.

In January 2005, Sin won first prize at the Virginia Waring International Junior Piano Competition in Palm Desert, California. Later in the year, she won another prize at the 17th Ibiza International Piano Competition in Spain in the Young Pianist category for contestants 16 years old and under. In 2006, she recorded "Abigail Sin Plays The Music of Frank Zappa" and was accepted into the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music (Singapore). Sin is the youngest student there.

Charity performances

In 2004, Sin performed again at the Esplanade with her own solo recital followed by Saint-Saëns’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra — both in the same evening — to a full house of nearly two thousand. This gala concert rose over S$200,000 for the The Straits Times School Pocket Money Fund.

Academic

Sin is more than just an accomplished pianist, she also excels in her academic studies in the Methodist Girls' School (MGS) in Singapore. She has won scholarships, awards, and prizes in various competitions in mathematics and creative writing. She was the top Primary School Leaving Examination student in MGS in 2004 (276), when she was awarded the MGS Scholar Award.

External links

* [http://www.abigailsin.com Abigail Sin's Website]