The music graduate who built a country’s choral music scene from scratch

You can’t discuss Malaysia’s choir scene without mentioning Susanna Saw. 

She has a long list of achievements in the field. She’s the founder and director of the Young Choral Academy (YCA), Malaysia’s first academy for choral music and a leading hub for choral education and singing activities.

Together with Taylor’s University Malaysia, Saw and YCA created a new singing track for their Bachelor of Performing Arts degree.

Listing all her titles and achievements might take the length of a musical, so here’s a glimpse of what she has earned:

• Lecturer and Choir Director at the Malaysian Institute of Art, and has led the M.I.A. Ladies Chorus to garner many gold awards from various international competitions.
• Lecturer and Choir Director at the University of Malaya and University of Technology MARA.
• Vice President of the International Kodály Society.
• Vice President of the Malaysian Association for Music Education.
• Organiser of the 24th International Kodály Symposium in August 2019 in Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia.

Saw is a force to be reckoned with. 

It’s not enough to say that she headed Malaysia’s choir scene – she has built, shaped, and grown it from its meagre beginnings to a budding landscape fit to flourish with time.

Her journey with music is extensive, and it’s a song that has barely reached its peak.

How to pursue a music education 

A music education was inevitable for Saw.

Between taking part in her school’s choir and singing competitions, learning to play the piano at a young age, and growing up with cousins who were piano teachers and owned music centres, music was a path that just made sense.

But not everyone thought of it as a path to a good career. Studying music was far from the norm in her hometown of Butterworth, Penang, were music was seen merely as an after-school activity. 

“At that point, the public didn’t really understand the need to study music,” says Saw.

Instead of switching to another discipline, she decided to change her environment. She felt it was the only way.

“A music education abroad was very expensive. I was asked to try to think of something else, but I really didn’t have anything else in mind,” she says.

From there, it was figuring out where to go and how to raise the hefty tuition fees that came with it. 

Luckily for Saw, her uncle lived in Melbourne and had found the Melba Memorial Conservatorium of Music. Getting into the school meant that Saw could alleviate her financial burdens by living with her uncle, so she applied with gusto. 

“Back then, we were still using cassettes to audition,” laughs Saw. “I had to play my pieces, record them, and send the cassettes over; I remember my piano teacher helping me record it the old-fashioned way.”

“That was how I got into the school’s Bachelor of Music programme with a major in piano and a minor in singing.”

Seizing every opportunity that comes her way 

Presently, many international students can afford to return home during terms breaks or to spend the holidays exploring the world. 

But when Saw was a university student in Australia several decades ago, she was working jobs through the holidays, like playing the piano at Christmas markets. 

“At the end, I could even send some money home,” she says. 

In her second year, the head of the music department presented her with an opportunity to be an accompanist in the Australian Boys Choir, an offer that she gladly took up.

During the interview for the role, Saw found out that the role was for an assistant tutor instead – the choir needed someone to help out the head tutor, an elderly lady who was 80% blind. Undeterred, Saw proceeded with the interview and got the job.

“I was asked if I knew of the Kodály teaching philosophy – I even asked them how to spell it,” laughs Saw. 

Here, she explains that the choir had been using the Hungarian method of teaching students to sing in tune combined with extensive physical movement to develop timing and rhythmic competence.

It was a skill that Saw quickly picked up after accepting the assistant tutor role thanks to the school subsidising her Kodály Teachers’ Training Course during the summer.

This was a time in Saw’s life when she was learning and teaching simultaneously, and she credits the head tutor for showing her the ropes of classroom management and teaching ideals.

But she didn’t just stop there: Saw seized every opportunity she found.

She auditioned with the Melbourne Choral, who performed with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. She also worked as an accompanist with singers and instrumentalists and taught music at Robertson Girls High School in Victoria. 

“The five years I was in Melbourne, I immersed myself in many activities,” says Saw. “I suppose this is what you need to do. You try to gain as many experiences as possible when you are abroad.”

But the ball was rolling until it stopped. 

Upon graduating, Saw had to decide what to pursue next.

To work in Australia, she would have had to return to Malaysia and work for six months before applying for an Australian work visa, and this was where Saw found herself at a fork in the road. 

After much deliberation, Saw made a choice, one that she doesn’t regret in the slightest.

“I decided to come back to Malaysia to be somebody rather than stay in Australia and just be another music teacher.”

‘Be somebody’ in Malaysia

Piano accompanists and choir teachers were a dime a dozen in Australia, and Saw could easily join any music organisation. 

This wasn’t the case in Malaysia.

“Before I came back, I already knew there would be many things missing, but I thought of ways to build it for myself,” Saw says. 

After returning, she dedicated her time to school choirs, working with teachers and local composers, especially for inter-school choir competitions.

Saw was eager to bring the Malaysian music scene overseas for competitions, but one of the main criteria was that the choir should perform a Malaysian patriotic song – and there were scarcely any choir arrangements for Malaysian music. 

Those days, there was no YouTube or TikTok – Saw used to sit and listen to Malaysian music from  national public broadcaster RTM (Radio Televisyen Malaysia) and painstakingly create musical arrangements herself. 

When teaching got busy, she reached out to some friends in the music industry to request help with choir arrangements. Unfortunately, she was constantly rejected as her friends had little to no experience arranging music for choirs – they usually made musical arrangements for orchestras or bands. 

Unfettered, Saw took it as an opportunity to build further on the composing scene in Malaysia.

In the process, she realised it wouldn’t be a small feat – composing wasn’t the only area she needed to build.

She had to improve the local choral scene’s teaching quality, awareness, and even venue and event management.

“This has been my driving force,” Saw says. “It’s very interesting because I don’t just focus on one thing. I’ve never been a person to sit in a room and do the same thing every day – I love meeting and working with people, and I like trying new things. Most of all, I love challenging myself.”

Through her work with people, she met her husband, whom she fondly cites as her best supporter despite not being in the music industry.

He taught her to embrace challenges and push onward.

Another large driving force, says Saw, would be the feeling she gets seeing the results of her work.

While she holds many achievements and has changed many lives, she will always remember her work at Tarcisian Convent, a school in Ipoh, Malaysia.  

“It was the first ever school that employed me as a choir teacher,” she says. “I was waiting for students and didn’t get any, so I ended up travelling to see the children at Tarcisian Convent every weekday. They would practise for 10 minutes during their recess and then meet again on Saturdays for proper choir lessons.”

After six months of working with children, the school issued Saw’s first paycheck – in two bags of coins. The students were very poor, and could only pay in 10 cent coins after selling pens to raise money. 

“I kept those two bags for many years,” says Saw. “It’s a reminder to myself that there are so many students out there who want the opportunity to learn no matter what.”

(A video of the Colorado Children’s Chorale singing Dr Wong’s composition of Kira!, a song based on Malay proverbs.)

One of her proudest accomplishments would be teaching Dr. Tracy Wong, one of her very first students.  

Dr. Wong is an accomplished choral conductor, music educator, composer, vocalist, and pianist hailing from Ipoh, Malaysia.

She has conducted workshops for choirs in North America and internationally, and her choral works are available on Cypress Choral Music (Canada), Graphite Publishing (US), and Young Choral Academy (Malaysia).

They have been performed by choirs at international competitions and festivals, and have even gone viral.

“When you see people like Tracy, who decided to pursue music and study abroad, you know that you’re doing something right,” jokes Saw.

“You’re inspiring people to go into this line, inspiring teachers to be better music teachers, and more, and that’s definitely one of the biggest factors.”

Pursuing a Master’s in Music Education

When she was in her 40s, Saw enrolled in a Master’s in Music Education (Choral Focus) by Westminster Choir College, Rider University in the US. 

She admitted that she had trouble deciding on which course to take – it was either choir conducting or music education. She felt that both departments were equally as important, and that she couldn’t pick one over the other. 

Eventually, she discovered Westminster Choir College, which offered a master’s with a Choral Focus – exactly what she wanted to do. 

The three-year programme was a blended experience – Saw studied her written subjects online for a few months before flying to the US for her practical subjects while still actively working for the local music scene. 

“I’ve been to Cincinnati before to judge for competitions and to New York for a holiday, but it was my first time to New Jersey,” says Saw.

“I was probably the oldest student there!” she jokes.

The programme offered hands-on modules like Gregorian chanting, which Saw was extremely interested in.

Some courses required her to fly to the UK for a week to learn from professionals there, even serving in the church choir for experience.

She eventually completed the course and passed with a high distinction.

When asked why she chose to pursue a master’s despite having achieved career success and raising a teenage daughter at that point, Saw says, “There’s no end to learning.”

Saw’s goals for the future at Taylor’s University Malaysia

Saw now heads the Music specialisation for Taylor’s University and The Actors Studio (TUTAS). 

“As Malaysia’s only conservatory-style performing arts programme, TUTAS has attracted students from all over the world, including Japan, Korea, Indonesia and China as well as exchange students from the Netherlands, Germany and Spain,” says co-founder and programme artistic director Joe Hasham .

The university recently launched two new specialisations for its Bachelor’s in Performing Arts programme – Music and Dance. 

The Dance specialisation offers modules in ballet, contemporary dance, traditional Malay dance, hip hop, and even “silat”, a traditional form of Malay self-defence.

The programme is headed by Ask Dance Academy (ADC)’s founder and artistic director, Prof .Dr. Joseph Gonzales. 

The Music specialisation will offer comprehensive modules in listening, vocal studies, scene studies, movement and stagecraft, musical theatre, repertory and song, and musicianship.

It’s a detailed, guided programme for anyone seeking a thorough music education. 

“We have an idea of what we want the students to learn,” says Saw.

“We want students to be able to learn about all aspects of music, not just new song after new song. We want to create opportunities for them in the industry, and at the same time, make sure that society will grow to understand performing arts better as a whole.”