Key People
The ACJC and Alumni Choirs have been blessed with inspiring musicians who dedicated their gifting and craft to the transforming of lives through choral music and singing. With the support and close ties of generations of teacher-administrators, the ACJC Choir Family is inspired by a passionate Conductors-Teachers Team who walks the talk to live out the humble belief that – great music-making is possible through the cultivating of deep friendships and ties that bind.
Yap Shing Min graduated from the University of Birmingham with a Joint First Class Honours degree in Music and Mathematics under the Singapore Public Service Commission’s Overseas Specialist Award in 2002, and later obtained a Masters Degree in Historical Performance (Voice) with Distinction from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama (RWCMD). Her principal voice teachers include Buddug Verona James, Lim-Quek Soo Hiang and Andrea Calladine. During the course of her studies in the UK, Shing Min also benefited from the teaching of Dame Emma Kirkby, James Gilchrist, Elin Manahan Thomas and Vivien Ellis.
As a singer, Shing Min has given recitals in Cardiff and Zurich. Highlights include a Dowland song project collaboration with Lynda Sayce, one of the UK’s leading lutenists and director of the lute ensemble Chordophony, and a premiere performance of Andrew Wilson-Dickson’s Obsession, a French cantata for soprano, Baroque violin, viola da gamba, and harpsichord.
Locally, Shing Min has performed at the Singapore Lieder Festival, co-presented by the Sing Song Club and the Arts House. Other performances include soprano solos in Bach’s Mass in B minor and Mendelssohn’s incidental music to A Midsummer’s Night Dream with The Philharmonic Chamber Choir and Orchestra conducted by Lim Yau, soprano solos in Magnificat in D and Handel’s Messiah with the Voices of the East Indies. She has also sung solos with the TO Ensemble more recently.
Shing Min has sung with numerous choirs, both locally and abroad, benefiting from the direction and musicianship of conductors such as Sir Charles Mackerras, Lim Yau, Joseph Flummerfelt, Chifuru Matsubara and Andrew Wilson-Dickson. She is currently still singing with The Philharmonic Chamber Choir.
A choral enthusiast and a music educator at heart, Shing Min hopes to share her passion for choral music with the younger generation. Since 2012, Shing Min has been conducting the Yio Chu Kang Secondary School Choir. Under her directorship, the choir attained Distinction at the Singapore Youth Festival Arts Presentation in 2015 and 2013, and has been twice invited to perform at the Limelight series presented by The Esplanade.
Shing Min has been the vocal coach to the Anglo-Chinese Junior College Choir since 2014. She is Conductor of Anglo-Chinese Junior College Choir.
An alumnus of Anglo-Chinese Junior College, Valarie read Music at King’s College London where she won the Adam Undergraduate Best Performer Prize, the Sambrooke Exhibition Prize, and the Purcell Prize. Valarie studied piano at the Royal Academy of Music under Antonietta Notariello and is Associate of the Royal College of Music.