Family & Life Magazine Issue 2 | Page 12

FOCus

A Prodigy’s
risk Pays off
By Farhan Shah

© Suran Photography

The key to success is by not forcing
the children to pursue any interest,
as this will possibly take away
the joy of learning.

Prodigious talents will
amount to nothing without
hard work. Helena Dawn
Yah can attest to that.

Her long flowing locks and demure
demeanour hides a fiery passion
and immense talent for one of the
hardest instruments to play in the
world – the violin.
Helena Dawn Yah first hit the
headlines in 2009 when she was
merely 14. She flew to London on
her own to audition for a place in the
Yehudi Menuhin School, a worldrenowned music institute. It was
quite a gamble as all the places for
the school had already been filled.
However, her flawless rendition of
Autumn from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons
and Mazurka in G Major, Op. 26
impressed the board of selectors to
such an extent that they lobbied for
additional funding so that they could
grant her a place in the school.
Unfortunately, the appeal failed. As
fate would have it, a student dropped
out. Helena was finally in the school.
It was the culmination of
12 years of hard
work and sweat
for the prodigious
Helena, who first
picked up the
violin at the age
of two. When she
put the bow to the
strings, her aunt
and music teacher
at that time, Yah
Wen Har, realised
that Helena had
a good sense
of rhythm and
musicality despite
her tender age.
You could say it runs
in the family.
Helena’s late
grandmother was a
music teacher who

12

Family & Life • Oct 2013

had composed many songs in the
1970s. Helena’s father, Yah Chin
Keong, also played the violin when
he was younger. In fact, it was Chin
Keong’s prior experience with the
violin that shaped his and his wife’s
future attitude.
“I had, you could say, ‘too much
encouragement’ from my Mum,”
Chin Keong says, laughing. He
grew to hate the violin and stopped
learning it.
“When I became a parent, I told
myself I would never force my child
to learn music.” So, when the Yahs
discovered their daughter’s aptitude
for the violin, they decided to take it
slow and easy, letting her enjoy and
appreciate the music.
The both of them even gave Helena
the freedom to stop playing the
violin if she ever got tired of it. Of
course, Helena never did put down
that fiddle and is now studying at the
prestigious Royal College of Music
(RCM) in South Kensington, London,
where the inimitable composer
Andrew Lloyd Webber studied at.
Helena’s deep interest for music
at such a young age, guided by the
able hand of a good music teacher
and truly supportive parents,
meant that she avoided the large
pit that some of her prodigious
musical compatriots fell into —
burning out before they can fully
realise their talents.
Chin Keong extols, “I believe
that it is important for a child to
actually enjoy what he or she is
doing, in order to be able to learn
more and do well. As a parent, I
feel that it is imperative to first
find out what your child’s talent
and interests are before deciding
which area to develop.”
This level-headed attitude that
the Yahs adopted has paid off

handsomely, allowing Helena to
progress at her own pace and letting
her burgeoning talent blossom.
Indeed, Chin Keong advocates
giving precocious children, and
kids in general, the space and
time to discover what they truly
enjoy, with the occasional words of
encouragement.
“The key to success is by not
forcing the children to pursue any
interest, as this will possibly take
away the joy of learning. Instead,
if your child is good at something
and you have the means, just give
them the space to do it. If the child
has the aptitude for that particular
interest, he or she will naturally
fall in love with it and even excel,”
Chin Keong says enthusiastically.
When Helena is not excelling on the
violin, she leads a normal life like
other teenagers, gushing over the
latest K-pop stars and starlets and,
as her father says with a wry smile,
listening to loud Western or Chinese
pop music. “My wife and I grew up in
the era of ABBA and The Carpenters,
so we occasionally playfully rebuke
her music choices and ask, ‘What
kind of music is that!!’” Chin Keong
says with a laugh.
Helena will be graduating from
RCM in 2017 and hopes to return
to Singapore to be a full-time
classical musician while helping
to contribute and build the local
music scene at the same time.
According to Chin Keong, she is
truly appreciative that Singapore
was the first to discover her talent
and she hopes to give back to the
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