We found ourselves again at Charlton House on our way to business, and we stopped for the lunchtime concert, part of a series given every Tuesday.
This time, the concert was given by a mother-and-daughter team hailing from Malaysia. The official program wasn’t quite the one that was followed; indeed, the concert organiser noted that it was increasingly common for him to receive a program only to find it altered at the last minute by the performers. Here, then, is the programme as heard, with my wife’s annotations.
Two musicians whose work bridges performance and education across continents are pianist Mitra Alice Tham and her mother, educator and author Alice Chua. Malaysian-born and internationally active, they represent a partnership in which artistic achievement and pedagogical commitment reinforce one another.
Mitra Alice Tham established her reputation early, making her international debut as a child and developing a career as a pianist, composer, and arranger. Her studies at leading institutions in London and New York helped shape a cosmopolitan musical outlook, and she has performed in a wide range of prominent settings, including for distinguished audiences. Alongside recital work, her compositional activity has extended to commissioned pieces connected with major cultural and development initiatives in Malaysia, reflecting an engagement with music that is both artistic and civic.
Alice Chua, long active as a music educator, has built an influential career devoted to teaching and curriculum development. Her work with Yamaha Music Asia contributed to the expansion of structured music-education programmes across Southeast Asia, particularly at the early-learning level. As an author, she has produced widely used instructional materials, notably the Playing Piano is Fun series, along with further pedagogical publications addressing teaching method and learning theory. Based in London, she continues to serve as an examiner and adjudicator, maintaining an international presence in educational and competitive musical circles.
Together, their activities illustrate two complementary strands of musical life: performance at a high professional level and the patient cultivation of musical understanding in others. Their shared trajectory—spanning Southeast Asia, Europe, and beyond—highlights how musical culture circulates globally through both concert platforms and classrooms, sustained by individuals committed to artistic excellence and education alike.
The daughter’s performance was beautifully assured. I loved the way she played Bach’s Keyboard Partita No. 1, a piece that inspired me so many years ago to fall in love with classical music, particularly in the legendary performance by Dinu Lipatti. The Liszt transcription of Schumann’s Widmung, his love letter to his wife-to-be, showcased the pianist’s virtuosic grasp, and she pointed out the subtle allusions to Schubert’s Ave Maria towards the end of the piece.
The second half of the recital was lighter in mood and full of charm. Duos with the mother joining the daughter brought warmth and energy to the programme. Highlights included the brio of Brahms’ Hungarian Dances and the zest of Gershwin’s I Got Rhythm, alongside a delightful little piece in the pentatonic Chinese scale—the daughter’s own juvenile composition, which she arranged as a duo with her mother. It was perfectly timed for that Tuesday’s Chinese New Year, the year of the horse, beginning to unfurl itself with dragon dances and ceremonial processions.
All in all, it was a truly entertaining concert, immaculately performed by two virtuosi. The audience seemed to shed years during the hour, thoroughly carried along by the music.
