SINGAPORE – Tan Yan Chong, 19, is a multi-talented musician who can play close to ten different musical instruments, including the piano, cello, violin, ukulele, guitar, erhu, double bass, and drums.

The teenager composes his own musical arrangements and plays the cello with his six-member band, the Twenty-First Century Mozart, and they perform at wedding gigs occasionally.

Yan Chong, who was among the Temasek Junior College (TJC) graduates who received their GCE A-Level results on Friday (Feb 23), is an example of a young Singaporean student who has chosen a less trodden path by pursuing his love for music.

He was part of TJC’s Music Elective Programme (MEP), and he is currently looking to study music at an overseas university to fulfil his dream of becoming a music teacher.

It will however, come as a surprise that Yan Chong used to “dislike” music and found it a chore.

Like many of his peers, he started playing the piano when he was four after he was “forced” into it by his engineer father and mother, who is a secondary school teacher. In Primary Six, he joined the Chinese orchestra and tried out the cello, but that did little to fire up the young boy’s interest. “I had no direction, I didn’t know why I was practising all this for,” he said.

It was a famous Japanese tune, Ryuichi Sakamoto’s “Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence”, that first ignited the spark in 14-year-old Yan Chong. While performing the piece in his first cello performance as part of the enhanced music programme at Chung Cheng High School (Main), he realised the interesting “possibilities of how I can play around” and perform music.

Inspired, he asked his mother if he could take private cello lessons, and he eventually enrolled in TJC’s Music Elective Programme (MEP), and joined the string orchestra as a co-curricular activity.

That was where he was exposed to different styles of music, while he honed his technique, explored music arrangements, and composed pieces. He represented the school in concerts and events, such as the annual Motif concert for MEP students which was held at the Esplanade last year. The teenager, who idolises improvisational cellist Rushad Eggleston, also performed with community orchestras such as the Braddell Heights Orchestra.

Eager to spread his love for the craft, the bubbly teenager took on the job of a music relief teacher at Punggol View Primary after his A-Levels, where his enthusiasm quickly rubbed off on his young charges.

His goal is to make classical music more accessible to Singaporeans, particularly those who have little or no music knowledge or background, by injecting modern influences like pop music.

For now, he is looking at overseas universities to pursue his music degree as he aims to follow in the footsteps of the teachers who inspired him with their knowledge. He told TODAY that he is lucky as his parents “encourage him to go all out” to achieve his dreams, instead of forcing him to choose a conventional career such as engineering.

Yan Chong is now looking to master yet another musical instrument, the electric cello. His home recording studio in his condominium may be already crammed with equipment, including a condenser microphone and pedal board, but there is always room for one more for this budding young musician.

Despite practising on his cello late till midnight, his neighbours have been accommodating so far. He added with a grin: “There have been no complaints so far from the neighbours.”