Our Journey with Chloe Chua

Whether at home or abroad, Chloe’s performances draw remarkable anticipation. In Singapore, her concerts with the SSO regularly fill the Esplanade Concert Hall, with long queues of audience members waiting for her autograph after the performance. On the SSO’s recent tour of Australia, the same scene unfolded – sold-out halls, eager crowds, and autograph lines that testified to the excitement surrounding a young artist whose artistry resonates across borders.

Each of these achievements is a powerful reflection of Chloe’s musical prowess and voice, and the Singapore Symphony Group (SSG) has been proud to be a partner in her development, advancing her trajectory on the stage, in records and in the digital sphere.

From Competition to Wider Stages

Chloe Chua first stepped into the international spotlight in 2018, when she claimed the joint first prize in the Junior Division of the Yehudi Menuhin International Competition. At just 11, it was a remarkable achievement that placed her on the radar of the global classical music community. That milestone was built on years of training at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA) School of Young Talents, where she studied under violinist Yin Ke, whose guidance has been central to her development as a musician. Previously, she had received Violin Junior First Prize in the 2017 National Piano & Violin Competition.

Her appearance at the Singapore Botanic Gardens with the SSO in 2019 then offered a different kind of turning point. Performing to a relaxed, open-air audience, her playing drifted across the lawns to families, passers-by and casual listeners. The performance, later uploaded to the Singapore Symphony's YouTube channel, drew comments such as:

Whether under the lights of an international competition, in the greenery of a public park or through a screen at home, these moments revealed the early outlines of her path as a musician whose artistry could speak to seasoned concertgoers and new listeners alike.

Nurturing Potential with Intention

With Chloe, the SSG recognised not only a remarkable young talent but also an artist with the promise of long-term growth and committed to supporting and nurturing her journey.

This early recognition would shape a significant step for Chloe as well as the SSO: the pivot to Covid-era recordings.

When pandemic restrictions left the Esplanade Concert Hall empty and audiences reduced to the unblinking eye of a camera, Chloe and the SSO joined hands to perform Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 2 in 2020. The video premiered in Dec 2020 on the orchestra's SSOLOUNGE video-on-demand platform during the pandemic and was later released on YouTube in 2021. That performance marked the beginning of a series of recordings and collaborations, setting the stage for future projects including the complete Mozart violin concertos album.

As the SSO took to the digital stage, it filmed Chloe’s performances and shared them online, reaching audiences far beyond Singapore. Several of these videos drew hundreds of thousands of views, with two surpassing the million mark and another two approaching two million views. These recordings brought Chloe into homes around the world – a young Singaporean violinist whose sound became a familiar presence in the playlists of listeners she had never met, many of whom would follow her journey from that point on.

Complementing her expanded reach to listeners worldwide, Chloe’s embrace of social media unlocked a different side of her artistry. Her appearances on platforms like TwoSet Violin and its “Ling Ling” challenges introduced her to viewers in a more informal and personal setting. Chloe’s bubbly, down-to-earth nature contrasted with the distant image often associated with classical prodigies, striking a chord with audiences through not only her virtuosity, but also her relatability and joy in music-making. In particular, many younger listeners saw in her not only an artist to admire, but a peer whose passion encouraged them to hone their own craft.

One fan summed it up in a comment:

A Curated Journey: Artist-in-Residence

Continuing this partnership, the SSO appointed Chloe as its Artist-in-Residence for the 2022/23 and 2023/24 seasons. Her residency was shaped through a considered progression of repertoire curated by Hans Sørensen, then-Head of Artistic Planning and Administration, across several concerts each season. Her interpretive voice and artistry were matched with programmes mapped to her musical development, moving from Baroque to Classical and onward to Romantic repertoire, and she worked with a range of conductors including Music Director Hans Graf who provided particular guidance.

Her debut album, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons & Locatelli’s Harmonic Labyrinth, was chosen as a symbolic starting point as The Four Seasons first brought her to international attention at the Menuhin Competition. This was followed by Butterfly Lovers & Paganini, representing the next stage in her artistic growth towards a more expressive and technically demanding Romantic repertoire. Chloe told Apple Classical Music that Paganini’s First Violin Concerto was “a really passionate and very expressive work through which I can express my musical side.”

Most recently, Chloe recorded the complete cycle of Mozart’s violin concertos under Hans Graf – works that, in an apt parallel to her journey, were largely written while the composer was still a teenager and which marked a milestone in artistic maturity. The project also harked back to the 2020 Covid-era filmed performance of Mozart’s second Violin Concerto that first kickstarted her collaboration with SSO, bringing things full circle. This recording would go on to achieve the #1 spot on Apple Music’s Classical charts for two weeks, stay in the Top 5 for multiple weeks after, and break into the Top 5 of the UK Specialist Classical Music Charts.

These achievements represented a confluence of numerous elements within SSO that complemented Chloe’s artistry: a growing focus on nurturing Singaporean talent, strategic artistic planning led by Hans Sørensen, musical guidance from Mozart specialist Hans Graf, strengthened social media and marketing efforts, an expansion of the orchestra’s video production capabilities, and a broader growth in classical music audiences and local consumption. Further, at a time when it was uncertain if international producers could be convinced to come on board, Pentatone Records trusted in Chloe’s potential and launched her debut album in collaboration with the SSO – a step that proved pivotal in bringing her music to global platforms and audiences.

These factors, combined with great trust from Chloe’s parents, created a supportive ecosystem that allowed her talent to flourish and positioned her for wider recognition.

Chloe’s story is remarkable not only for her innate gift but for how that gift has been carefully nurtured. At every stage, the SSO has sought to give her the right repertoire, the right collaborations and the space to grow. Behind what audiences hear on stage or through recordings lies years of guidance, trust and partnership – the quiet, deliberate work of building a path for a young artist to find her sound and share it with the world.