JONATHAN SHIN

ABOUT

Jonathan Shin (b. 1992) performs extensively as a soloist and chamber musician, and composes across multiple genres. He is currently pursuing his Master of Music Degree in Composition (Classical) at the Longy School of Music of Bard College. He is a graduate (Bachelor with Honors) of the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, under the tutelage of Prof Thomas Hecht and Prof Ho Chee Kong.

A prizewinner of Singaporean and international piano competitions, Shin was awarded top prizes in all four age categories of the National Piano and Violin Competition. In 2008 he clinched 3rd prize in the Young Pianists Division of the 18th Ibiza International Piano Competition (Spain). For his performance of Franck’s Symphonic Variations he was awarded the Special Prize in the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music’s 2009 Concerto Competition, before he appeared as soloist in the same work with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra as winner of the coveted President’s Young Performers Concert. At the age of 18, Shin won 1st prize in the Conservatory’s 2010 Piano Concerto Competition (its youngest winner ever) and performed the Mozart Piano Concerto No. 20 in D Minor as soloist with the YSTCM Orchestra in the Gala Winner’s Concert, where The Straits Times lauded him as “a supremely confident young man, whose perfect conception of ‘Sturm und Drang’ was only matched by the elegance and crispness of the playing... every note was well judged and delivered with conviction.”

Shin has performed internationally at the 27th European Piano Teachers Conference in Manchester, 2nd World Piano Pedagogy Conference in Slovenia, Kirishima International Music Festival, in addition to recitals in Bangkok, Medan (Indonesia) and in the 2007 National Day's joint Singapore Symphony Orchestra-Singapore Chinese Orchestra festivities. Eminent artists with whom Shin has worked with include Vladimir Viardo, Luis de Moura Castro, Eliso Virsaladze, and the late Mark Ray.

At 22, he began composing. In 2015, his musical Viva! la Singapura, in which he was book-writer, lyricist and composer, was produced. The following year, he premiered his song cycle The Other Merlion and Friends, where it was critically reviewed as “probably the most compelling and worthwhile new work from any Singaporean composer in recent years.” (The Straits Times) In his first year at Longy School of Music, Shin won both the Orchestral Composition Competition and the Concerto Competition.  His orchestral work Heloise and Abelard premiered in February 2018, and he will perform Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto this coming May.

Shin is a founding member of the Lorong Boys, a Singaporean multi-genre quintet consisting two violins, flute, percussion and piano. In January 2018, the quintet took centre-stage as soloists in  Shin’s Siginnah!, a concerto for solo quintet and orchestra commissioned by the Orchestra of the Music Makers.