Let me tell you a story involving a very special cello.


It was three years back, when I picked that cello out from the shop and said, I want this one; my teacher suggested, and I picked. Three long years ago. And I remember myself, unsure, nervous, in front of everyone, testing the cello with naught but scales and Haydn's Cello Concerto in C, too afraid to try anything else. And playing with that hesitant sound, complete with intonation problems and minor squeaking, characteristic of all beginners.


No, it was not the day destiny was made. That day was further back. But this is the story of the instrument that made me, shaped my life, and remains a part of me even still.


This is not an eulogy. Not a goodbye like the first time I fell in a drain and broke the school's cello. I cried. I remember. But that cello lives again with the school - changed a little, but still there. But mine - mine remains intact, and I know I will always remember it, and it will always carry my sound, and that will be enough.


The cello of an assistant section leader of the Hwa Chong Institution String Orchestra. In that year of 2006, my Secondary 4 year, I remember rushing down to the Strings room every day during recess, lunch, and even the 10 minute toilet break, to further my craft. The cello was mine, undeniably mine, and the school soon came to know that silver case as well as, nay, even better than myself. With the exception of the day we played a little joke on Mr Melvin Chng and passed it off as a class cello. A minor donation to the class, for that one day.


In that music, in that cello, I played out my passions - and I was heard. Maybe the fact that I tried to express them with an etude is the reason I still don't have a significant other until today(insert some laughter here) But well, that was me, and I'm proud of my past.


And at the end, when the First Universe was taken from me, it was that cello that accompanied me through the days of desolation - to Sweden, where we played and impressed the panel of judges in Gothenburg, and further on into the Second Universe. It was in that church in Gothenburg that I had a whole new experience of music - everyone of HCISO '06 will remember me for the solos which I practised day in and day out - and in that echoey church on that morning, the naturally resonant tones of my cello were amplified, and they rung through the church like a voice down from heaven. I was told later that some of our audience cried at our performance of Shostakovich's 8th quartet. I very nearly cried right there and then during the solo. And I knew then, I would never be without a guide in the world, or a worthy cause to turn to. When the fingerboard dropped off after the Sweden trip, I remember the fear that my cello would be irreversibly damaged. Unfounded fear it was, and I remember the feeling of elation also when Szabo returned it to me.


So I entered the Second, leaving the bleakness and ignorance of the First Universe behind. And my cello followed, and with it I scouted out new opportunities. It was once more playing Haydn's Cello Concerto and a Popper etude(I seemed to have quite an affinity for etudes) that my entry into the Singapore National Youth Orchestra was gained. Then for the H2 Music course in JC, and this is what I played:


Beethoven's Cello Sonata No.5 in D, 1st Movement.(Performed: Grade 8)
Debussy's Cello Sonata, which is now my best piece.(Performed: A level exams, 2nd Performers' Festival, Grade 8 exam, MDC audition.)
Halvorsen's Passacaglia for Violin and Cello, from Handel.(Performed: A levels)
Saint-Saens's Cello Concerto in A minor, 1st movement.(Performed: A levels)
Rachmaninov's Cello Sonata, 3rd movement.
Popper's Gavotte.
Haydn's Cello Concerto in C(yes, again! I love this piece.), 1st and 2nd movements.
Shostakovich's Cello Sonata in D minor, 2nd movement.(Performed at the Nanyang HMP concert in 2007, with additional wolf suppressors)
Vivaldi's Cello Concerto in A minor.(Performed: Grade 8)
Paganini's Moses Variations.

I would go through all the details of all those pieces... but there will be more of those days anyway with my new cello, and they will be no different and just as memorable - it is my practice method and ideas here which are the greatest influence.


And then there was SYF 2007. Nothing really special happened.... but I will remember those days spent with my cello practising in LT3 and wherever it was in school. We went to Thailand - another sticker on my cello to boast of - and I remember also, the scratches that I found when we came back - I never trusted airport staff with my cello since Gothenburg, and I probably never will. It sort of makes me sad when I find that I don't have any other choice.


The last memorable event of cello in school was near the A levels... and it was sunset, and it was just me and my cello, and we played to the dying sun till it settled down to rest.

It was a call sent out. Not literally, but I felt it... like there was an emptiness in the world of cellists. And I answered that call. Someone was needed, and one had to go... and I went. And I took up my cello, and my cello went.


There was OMM and re:mix, and my cello took a hand? string? bow? in trying out some new music. We had fun.


And I remember carrying my cello across school, through Orchard Road, and many other places for long distances: and I would be asked one of two common questions. "What's that?" gave them a proud reply of "It's my cello, and I'm a cellist!" , and "Isn't it heavy?" to which I would reply also, that as a musician, weight would never be an issue for me - well not unless it were my piano, which I can't even lift by myself. And add that it was lighter than it looked. I now realise this could represent my biased viewpoint, but it doesn't matter one bit to me.


And I would never trust my cello to anyone inexperienced with them, or that I did not know well enough - this is not to say that those not in the following list are not good friends of mine, it's just that those of my section in HCSE '07, and my dad, are naturally the closest cellists to me (yes, my dad's not a cellist nor even someone who plays an instrument, but which guy wouldn't trust his dad?)


I hope my successor as the keeper of the cello takes good care of it. He's inexperienced, but he will learn. And I hope that he will gain also whatever skill in cello that I have and will have, and perhaps even may never have, and serve those I have served in the name of friendship and music better than I have. As well as experience all those moments when one musician starts a tune, and another enters, to support, to accompany, to play against, to overpower him - and it is then that the melodies and hearts of those two musicians(or more as the case may be, depending on how many join in) soar together. This does not have to be in the romantic sense(most of the time it isn't, just clarifying because it sounds like that), nor am I referring to any specific musicians in particular.


I wish I could hold my cello again, defend it - and here I recall tossing a basketball straight out the window during rehearsal when someone hit my cello with it - and make more music with it, but alas, I must move on.


For now, I will watch him and my cello for as long as I can, offer guidance if any is needed - and perhaps, in the further future, if he does not pass it on to some other promising, aspiring young cellist - that cello containing his sound, his experiences and his blessings as well as my own - I will reclaim my old friend, and we will play the music of the old days together again.....