Keeping up to date with the career of a harpsichordist of renown is hard enough. What more a Malaysian-born who’s made contributions to something as reputable as the Groves Dictionary of Music? Dr Ng Kah-Ming has been touring the breadth of Europe and America with his own early music ensenble Charivari Agreable. JASON CHEAH catches up with the PJ boy.

HAVING just returned from a concert appearance in nearby Cambridge when contacted by e-mail for this interview, Oxford University lecturer Dr Ng Kah-Ming appears to be as busy as ever.

Not that he’s ever been laidback. For the past 14 years, the Malaysian-born harpsichordist has worked hard to advance his music career.

British magazine Early Music Review regards him and his early music consort Charivari Agreable as “highly recommended”, while the esteemed BBC Music considers the consort “outstanding in every respect”.

Ng Kah-Ming is considered a specialist among specialists, with a doctorate in the study of figured bass accompaniment or basso continuo.

They have been hailed as “thinking musicians (who) treat music of the past more creatively via their arrangements of music based on a greater knowledge of the historical and social contexts for the music,” by classical music magazine Gramophone.

While the accolades are co-shared with his two co-founders of the consort – his German wife Susanne Heinrich, and fellow music specialist Lynda Sayce from England – it is the Oxford University lecturer/conductor/harpsichordist and music director that we concentrate on here.

Born in Malaysia of Cantonese-Hakka descent, Ng’s harpsichord teachers hail from Australia, Germany and Britain, since his years have taken him to all these places.

In the early 90s, Ng became a winner of the Guildhall School’s Early Music Competition and a Fellow (in harpsichord) of the Trinity College of Music London.

A strong measure of his expertise would be the fact that 40-year-old Ng regularly contributes reviews and articles to leading specialist music journals, having written entries on English and French baroque ornamentation in the revised New Grove Dictionary of Music & Musicians. He is now the course co-ordinator for Early Music Studies at Oxford University’s Faculty of Music.

It took him some time to get this far but Ng isn’t exactly complaining about the hard work he had to put in over the years.

“Generally I’ve had it easy, (having been) supported musically, socially, and sometimes administratively, by my wife and by Lynda, whose careers have also blossomed remarkably,” he explains.

After studying in Australia in the early 1980s, Ng returned to Malaysia and up until 1989 when he left for Germany to study at the Frankfurt State Academy of Music on DAAD scholarship, he was best known in the local classical music scene as the founder of a cappella choir the Choristers (known then as the Baroque Choristers).

By 1991 he moved to London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama for post-graduate studies. He went on to read for M. Phil degree at St Anne’s College at Oxford University in 1992, majoring in historical keyboards and performance practice and by the end of 2001 had been awarded a PhD on continuo realisation at Keble College, Oxford University.

Nevertheless, it was with the trio Charivari Agreable, formed in 1993, that Ng was to carve a niche in the Western classical music scene.

“I was invited to conduct a concert for the Early Music Society of Oxford University on the occasion of the 350th anniversary of (baroque composer) Monteverdi’s death,” he reminisces.

“After the first rehearsal, I sacked the choir. It had taken two hours to work on eight bars! Lynda (Sayce) was so impressed with the act of musical authority and quality control that we decided to meet after the concert was over.

“Then followed many months of discovering, of rehearsing, getting acquainted with the way (my wife) Susi and I understood and interpreted French baroque music, and of eating my curries.

“It’s worked pretty well so far. Each of us has his or her specialty so that we cover pretty much the entire gamut of the available repertory – English, French, German, Italian and Spanish.”

Ng is considered a specialist among specialists, with a doctorate in the study of figured bass accompaniment, something more advanced music students would know as basso continuo.

Both his postgraduate degrees are on the subject of harpsichord accompaniment or basso continuo performance practice, with the M. Phil. on the French aspects, and the D. Phil. with a much wider remit of the social and artistic aspects of accompaniment, areas which (from his personal experience) were not sufficiently researched.

For Ng, finally obtaining his post-graduate qualifications was in some ways, mystifying.

“I often wondered myself – it seemed I hardly did any work for them. My justification was that I was incubating the ideas in my head before they all came out in one frantic year of writing up. I had to apply for an extension, which was granted without problems as I had many (good) excuses, including the many CDs necessary for establishing a performing career, two massive entries on French and English baroque ornamentation in the New Grove Dictionary (close to 10,000 words – a dissertation in their own right!), two kids, and moving house four times.

“In the end, the doctoral viva (interview) went without a hitch, and I received notification to hard-bind the thesis within two days of the viva – a faculty record for processing thesis corrections!”

Another success story for Ng and his partners has been the aforementioned CD recordings and performing career.

The consort’s official website (
www.chari vari.co.uk) already slates concert schedules for the whole of 2004 in various parts of England and Europe.

Within a year of the consort being formed at Oxford University, it became prize-winners of an international Early Music Network (Britain) competition, made its debut at London Wigmore Hall, and recorded the first of many live concerts for the BBC. It has since recorded for other European radio stations, including the European Broadcasting Union.

The consort also runs its own annual festival. The Oxford Summer Festival began in 1995 and is now fast becoming a major fixture in the British calendar of classical events.

In addition to the festival, the ensemble also forms the continuo core of Oxford’s resident period-instrument orchestra, Charivari Agréable Simfonie.

In the area of recording, the consort’s output has been phenomenal by any musical standard with 11 CD releases (the latest one Modus Phantasticus only released earlier this year) in the space of eight years.

All the releases have achieved critical acclaim by many of Europe’s most highly regarded classical music magazine, including Britain’s Early Music Review, BBC Music, Gramophone and Classic and France’s Diapason.

How difficult then was it to convince recording companies to release or even record such niche music in a period of declining sales in the music industry?

“We did a demo for the ASV label, who liked it so much they asked for two albums,” Ng explains of the consorts first CDs.

“Then we moved on to the Signum label for a better deal – financially and artistically. Now, after 11 discs we can record anything we like as they trust our artistic instincts. Unlike many labels, Signum does not try to force you to do single-composer albums, although they would be easier to market.”

And 11 CDs (what pop star can claim to have that much creativity) is large enough a discography that many shops allocate Charivari releases its own shelf.

“I now no longer have the need to have my picture taken next to our shelf in Tower Records at Piccadilly Circus (London),” he jokes. “Apart from the King’s Singers, we’re Signum’s best selling artistes.”

With so much performing and recording, mind you, Ng does occasionally have a hard time keeping up with the scheduling.

“However, my daily grind is never routine, which is why I love the business. On days when I’m not preparing for a concert – which involves loading up the chamber organ and harpsichord into our van, and driving many miles – there’s either programme research or administrative work to do.

“Over the past month I’ve had to research three recording projects for next year – a task made less confusing by virtue of the programmes being so distinct from each other.”

The three CDs are already planned for and titled. Flights of Fancy will be a collection of virtuosic chamber music from 17th Century Italy for baroque violin, cornett and viol.

“It will contain some of my ‘compositions’ – pastiches of 17th Century Ciacconas and Bergamascas,” Ng reveals.

Esperar, sentir, morir, meanwhile, will feature Spanish and Latin American baroque music with a Chilean high tenor and a Catalan soprano, while the third CD will feature music from the age of Catherine de’Medici.

In the years of carving his niche, though, has it been difficult for the music experts and practitioners to accept his involvement and highly innovative approach?

“Having an Oxon degree helps on the credibility front. There are one or two out there from the authenticity police who over-react to what we do. Fortunately, most reviewers are not purists and love our stuff. They often give us credit for the ground-breaking work we do in challenging current orthodoxy within the boundaries of historically-informed practice.

“We always get good marks for our sound and the rich sonority of the ensemble. Getting the instruments right is crucial: Susi has half a dozen viols of different sizes, and Lynda has over a dozen-and-a-half (lutes, theorbos and baroque guitars) – one for each period and nationality of music.”

Concert contracts for Ng stem from the contacts he’s developed over the years.

“Many calls are return invitations, from choirs we have worked with or from festivals we have played for.”

And although Ng admits he doesn’t have enough time to relax, he still manages to “escape to London for some char koay teow in Chinatown, and to browse (in bookshops) - spending quite a lot on history and art books.

Travelling abroad also enables him to see many places others don’t.

“We had a whale of a time in New York, and are looking forward to Prague next year. Earlier in the year we were in Spain, and I seriously pigged out on seafood and squid ink paella and can’t wait to get back to Spain next year (to a different festival).

Of course, there’s also time for regular visits and concerts in Malaysia.

“I try to go home annually, but the timing is increasing difficult with the children (he and Susanne have two sons) reaching school-going age and with extended teaching at the Music Faculty.”

In fact, Ng hasn’t performed in Malaysia since February 2002 at the Alliance Francaise, Kuala Lumpur, with his wife Susanne, although they did make short social visit early this year. But he isn’t about to trade all he has achieved for anything else at the moment: “It was fate,” he says of his success so far. “I had nothing to do with it all. Things just happened and I was in the right place at the right time, as they say.”

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