Flora Lim has accomplished for herself a distinguished career in music education together with a record of highly acclaimed piano performances. She has been actively involved in music education for more than 20 years. She is now the Director/Principal of Seimpi School of Music in Singapore and Malaysia, and the founder of the innovative music program, Music for the Intelligent Mind (MIM ).

Flora first received her music instruction at the age of six under Miss Loh Phaik Kheng, and Mr. Joe Emaung. After receiving her Fellowship of Trinity College of Music (FTCL), she was accepted into the prestigious Royal College of Music in London to pursue her postgraduate studies in piano performance and teaching. She learnt under Prof. Yu Chun Yee on her piano performance and under several distinguished ABRSM examiners namely, Patricia Caroll and Peter Element for her teacher's training. While in London, she performed in several music festivals and in 1992, she was awarded the Outstanding Prize in piano performance at the North London Music Festival. On her return to this region, she performed in the DBS Auditorium and gave solo recitals in the Putra World Trade Centre in Kuala Lumpur. Her exuberant performance has gained her critical acclaim.

She has been active in music lecturing and performance since her return. She started lecturing for a music degree twinning program in Sedaya College in 1993. In the same year, she compiled a selection of popular classical pieces in 'Improve Your Repertoire' published by Rhythm Publisher. Included together in the book is a recording of her interpretation of the pieces. In 1997, she led a very successful public charity concert, which earned a first page coverage in the second section of several newspapers in Kuala Lumpur.

In 1995, she took over as the Principal of Seimpi Music Academy, a music academy that she helped to set up back in 1991 in Kuala Lumpur. In the same year, she set up two diploma programs, which were called Associate of Seimpi Music Academy and Licentiate of Seimpi Music Academy. These two diploma programs have been successfully recognised and accredited by The Birmingham Conservatoire in the United Kingdom as an equivalent to their first and second year degree program in the Conservatoire. These are the first diploma programs in Malaysia to be recognised by a music conservatoire in England. With these programs, she successfully helped her students gain scholarships to study in England and many of her students are now professional teachers and performers.

Back in 1990, when Flora studied in London, she was fascinated by the capabilities of the many young talented performers that she met in London. Apart from the teacher training that she received in London, she started her research on early childhood music education, observing many courses specially catered for young beginners in London, Singapore and Malaysia. She has also engaged in serious discussions with several professors and examiners from London and Australia during her research. She realised that early childhood music education is essential in moulding one to be a fine musician. From the findings in her research, the many capabilities that she has observed from many young talented performers can be explained by the exciting and innovative training of the right brain and left brain. She started to fit the puzzles together, started her early childhood music course in Seimpi Music Academy, Kuala Lumpur in 1995, using an exciting and unique syllabus. Students who are trained in this course have all excelled in their examinations.

In 1999, Flora Lim came to settle in Singapore. After 3 years of private teaching, she again put all her teaching philosophies and experience together to set up a music course specially catered for young children in Singapore. This course is the Music for the Intelligent Mind (MIM ) series of music programs.

Seimpi School of Music has expanded to 5 branches in both Singapore and Malaysia and the MIM course have been implemented successfully in over 30 childcares and kindergartens in Singapore. In 2008, Flora designed a unique teachers’ training program, the Associate diploma of Music Pedagogy, aiming to help teachers and students who are interested to take music teaching as their career. It has gained a respectable reputation in Singapore as a training program which combines piano pedagogy and classroom pedagogy. She went on to set up the Certificate and the Diploma of Early Childhood Music in 2009 and also brought in the professional full time Associate and Licentiate diploma (which can lead to the undergraduate program in Birmingham Conservatoire upon successful audition) first started in Kuala Lumpur.

She has appeared in Channel 8 and Channel U interviews back in 2006. In 2008, the mainstream Chinese paper ‘Lian He Zao Bao’ wrote a first page coverage about her work and Seimpi in their 2nd main section. She continues to aspire to bring more innovative and unique training programs to this region and hopes to see more new generation True Music Educators.

Judith started giving private music lessons to individuals since her university days while pursuing both her business degree at National University of Singapore (NUS) and her music teaching diploma from the Trinity College of Music, London. She obtained her Licentiate diploma (LTCL) in 1987 and graduated with a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from NUS in 1988. Throughout her secondary school and college days, Judith played an integral role as school pianist, providing live music at school functions and concerts. She represented her school choir in SYF competitions, and was instrumental in the school's first production of a musical, "The King & I" for its centenary celebrations. She also formed a band, provided orchestral arrangement and led it to win the school's Talentime. She was awarded Merit Awards by the school for outstanding results in music (as a subject). While in college, she did an instrumental arrangement for an ensemble for a radio recording. She graduated from Raffles Girls' Secondary School and Raffles Junior College with distinctions in GCE 'O' and 'A' level music. After getting her business degree and while working as a banker, Judith continued to give private music lessons on a part-time basis. She subsequently gave up her banking career when she was starting her family. She later started teaching MIM classes at Seimpi on a part-time basis when her children enrolled for music classes at Seimpi. During this time, she attended a summer program on Early Childhood Music Education at the University of Queensland in Brisbane in 2005. She left Seimpi in 2007 due to family commitment and re-joins Seimpi in 2012. Recently she completed a pop music composition course at the Lee Wei Song School of Music.

Cecilia started learning piano as well as vocal from young. She has obtained her Associate of Trinity College London (ATCL) in Piano Performance, ABRSM Grade 8 (high scorer) in Vocal, Diploma in Music from Yamaha Academy of Arts & Music and has a Bachelor of Music Performance from University of Malaya (Dean’s Award), under the tutelage of Ms. Tan Sim Sim. Cecilia has been teaching since 2013 and has vast experience helping all types of learners in their musical journey. She has also been conducting regular Masterclass to bring out the best in her students.

Cecilia has also actively participated in numerous music festival such as Yamaha Music Scholarship Asia, MIA Young Musician Competition, Music showcase University of Malaya and MCE National Choir competition. As an active performer, Tze Ling performed regularly in several ensembles, such as the Kuala Lumpur City Opera (KLCO), National Association of Private Educational Institutions Vocal ensemble and University of Malaya Choir.

Ms Hara graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Education, Major in Music Education at Colegio de la Inmaculada Concepcion in Cebu, Philippines in 1994. In 1992, while in her second year of college, she studied violin and viola as a scholar at the Salvador and Pilar Sala Foundation and eventually joined the Cebu Youth Symphony Orchestra, which ten years later was renamed to Peace Philharmonic Philippines. Within that 10-year period, she joined several concert seasons around the Philippines as a viola player. She was employed as a full time music teacher for graders aged 6 to 10, for over ten years in St. Theresa College, a prestigious school for girls in Cebu, Philippines.

​

Ms. Hara once organized and trained a choral group with members aged 8 to 12, which garnered Third Place in the Grand Finals in Manila. The then organized choral group went through a very tough screening. From then on, she has been invited as a trainer in various choral groups in church, government and school settings. All the choral groups she trained won several awards, always in the top three (from First prize to Third prize).

​

Aside from being a full-time classroom teacher, she also conducted private tutorials in violin, viola, and piano to children and adults at the Salvador and Pilar Sala Foundation and other institutions. After 12 years of her career (1994-2006), she ventured to Kuching, East Malaysia, teaching music and violin among pre-schoolers in Junior Learning House (a kindergarten school) and in International Music House (a music school).

​

From Malaysia, she was hired back as a music teacher by St. Theresa College, Cebu City, Cebu, Philippines in 2008-2009. She has attended various trainings or seminars, workshops and short courses such as the Special Course on Kodaly Methodology, the XIIIth International Kodaly Symposium, a Seminar Workshop on Music Therapy for Special Education, and Functional Literacy Program in Sign Language (Level 1).

Mr Thomas Tan has a distinguished teaching career and has been with the Ministry of Education (MOE), Singapore for over 40 years as a Music Specialist. He was Head of the MOE Music Unit (Curriculum) and was the Assistant Director of CCA Music.

Trained in Institut Catholique de Paris , France, Thomas got his Diplome de Pedagogie Musicale, then subsequently a Master degree in Education from the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU) in 1997.

He was also involved with the organization of the Singapore Youth Festival (SYF) and the development of the Singapore National Youth Orchestra (SNYO). In conjunction with MOE and in collaboration with the National Institute of Education (NIE), he has conducted numerous courses and workshops on music teaching for school teachers. He has also worked with such agencies as the National Arts Council (NAC), Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA), La-Salle College of the Arts and other national and international bodies on the promotion of music and the arts.

He is currently teaching at Seimpi School of Music, conducting workshops for teachers and parents on Music in Early Childhood Education and is also preparing candidates for the Associate Diploma in Music Pedagogy (Assoc Dip MP). He holds a Master of Education and has also completed a Specialist Diploma in Pre-School Education (Teaching & Leadership).