And All That Jazz

Samantha Lim notes that No Black Tie, which turns 21 this year, is ever germane to our rapidly gentrifying world, especially under Evelyn Hii’s watch

You’ll know the classroom exercise— it’s almost a given in primary or secondary school (and in saome of the more ambitious Chinese preschools, so I hear). “Describe who you want to be when you grow up,” is the general instruction. While most of our careers come nowhere close to those childish scribblings, not only did Evelyn Hii hit the bullseye, her arrow of determination ricocheted, grazing several more targets.

‘Concert pianist’ prophesied Hii in a composition titled ‘My Ambition.’ “It was for English class and I was aged 10,” says the markswoman. But even she could not have anticipated initiating Kuala Lumpur’s longest running music institution. “Listening to my late father play records at home, starting piano lessons at seven, winning a state-wide piano competition organised by Yamaha Music School in my teens, touring with one of Sarawak’s leading choral groups in the role of accompanist, and pursuing classical piano performance studies in the USA...” she halts for a breath. “These experiences are what led to my creating an alternative platform, a ‘salon,’ if you will, for classical music outside of the conventional concert hall experience.” Thus was born No Black Tie in 1998.

PASSION FOR PERFECTION