Looking Back at AYO ....

The following was actually taken from the 1996 AYO handbook. I would also like to express my sincere appreciation to AYO through my friend's letter below. He had said what I had always wanted to say so much, but didn't know how to put my deep gratitude and feelings for AYO in words. Raymond had done it well in this letter.....
Like him, I am also inspired by AYO to make music with all my heart, with all my life, and will do it when I have the means one day! Watching every AYO performance in Singapore these years always brings back so much memories, and always re-affirms my determination to embark on a music path in future. I guess it is only through music, we have found ourselves, and empower ourselves to touch every audience through music, just like how AYO performances always make people cry!

To AYO: THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING !!!

Singaporean Raymond Lim Lui Wee was a member of AYO in 1992, `93, `94 and `95. When he walked onstage at Victoria Concert Hall for his first AYO audition he played two notes, announced that he "didn't belong here", and walked off the stage. With a little coaxing, he came back and managed to make it through two prepared pieces. In a cut and dried world he was right, he didn't belong. But there was something in his playing that suggested he was special. We invited him to join AYO, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Raymond is now (in 1996) a student at the University of Miami in the United States, majoring in flute performance (Raymond had graduated already. Now in year 2000 he is working in Miami). Knowing that he would not spend his summer with AYO (in 1996) for the first time in four years (Raymond rejoined AYO again in 1997 for the last time), he took time out from his studies and wrote to share his feelings about AYO. With his permission, we have excerpted the following paragraphs from his very kind letter.

"Four glorious summers with AYO. I simply can't begin to describe what they mean to me. I have never experienced anything like AYO, and will probably never forget what it felt like to play so much beautiful music under the direction of some of the most inspiring conductors, and to have performed in the greatest halls and places. I feel all of that surging through me even as I write. I remember the great river Rhine whenever I'm close to waters. I hear Sibelius in my head when I go to bed and Beethoven echoes in my mind. I remember the details, the sights, the sounds and, most importantly, the music I was a part of for many treasured moments.

To be honest with you, after my very first day at AYO in 1992, I wanted to quit. But after barely one week of intense, petrifying experience, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to make music with all my heart. And if I didn't have the facility to do it then, I would get there one day.

My purpose in writing, is to thank you and AYO for all the opportunities you have awarded me, all the things I have been allowed to see and experience, and what I have been guided to achieve. I have benefited from AYO in every way.

I need also to thank people like Mrs Doriot Dowyer. Unbearably strict she was, she none the less taught me to understand something about music that I will treasure for life. Just that one woodwind quintet class she gave in 1993 leaves me in awe of her musical insight. I will also treasure Maestro Sergiu Commissiona's encouraging words at Osaka Airport in 1994. To imagine a conductor as great as the Maestro himself actually advising me! And I will never forget Maestro Eri Klas' "Valse Triste" at the Concertgebous in `93. As we played, I could see tears in the eyes of the audience in the front row. Nor will I forget each and every "Nimrod" we played. Wonderful people like Mr Cooper, Mr. and Mrs. Graves, Mr and Mrs Churchill, Dr Ruggiero sprouting wisdom in every sentence.

I have thoroughly enjoyed moving chairs, packing scores and pushing anything for our stage team. And there is the orchestra itself. I have met such a wide range of people, made friends with so many different minds who share the same goal when we perform as one. Sadly I may never meet many of them again.

I have never felt that I have "graduated" from AYO till now that I am finishing this letter. Perhaps that is why it was difficult to write. However, the lessons at AYO will never leave me. AYO must go on, forever. How important it is to Asia, to the young hearts and minds it will teach and guide in the future. I wish I could help this process. If I can be of any help to AYO at all in the future, given my humble abilities and resources, please let me know. I will do my best, for I am greatly indebted and thankful for AYO."

-- Raymond Lim Lui Wee (Singapore)

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