The music school built from grief

In April 2003, Nicole Yap lost her sister. Within five months, she opened a music school – one that, over two decades later, still carries her sister’s presence within it

There is a photograph that Nicole Yap keeps in her mind, though not one you’d find in an album. It is April 2003, and her sister has just died at 26 years old. Nicole is 24. “I wanted to do things that I want,” she says. “I wasn’t going to delay anymore.” 

By June, she had found premises. By September, Ideal Music had opened its doors in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – funded, in part, by her sister’s savings. Money left behind without instruction, waiting for someone to give it purpose. “Although it wasn’t a lot,” she says, “I can grow it to contribute to society.” 

The frustration that drove her was specific. Most music schools offered students structured lessons and very little else – one performance a year at most. The gap between learning an instrument and being given a stage felt like a fundamental failure of music education. “Most schools only teach,” she says. “So my thought was: why not set up a school that will provide more platforms to our students?” 

Ask her what makes a good music educator, and she will correct your language first. She does not use the word “teacher” – she prefers “coach.” “Teachers teach, coaches inspire,” she says. “Inspiration is more important than delivering knowledge, especially nowadays, when knowledge can be so easily received from social media.” 

The story she returns to most often involves a boy who joined the school at 11. He barely practised and was later bullied in secondary school. Gradually, he started playing seriously. Nicole introduced him to more advanced piano repertoire, and then to the cello. By the time he graduated, he had decided to major in cello and minor in piano. 

“I will say that music saved his life,” Nicole says quietly. “You can see, in his own secondary school life, music was what made him human.” 

There are other stories, too. A mother called recently, 49 years old, looking to learn piano for the first time. Her son attended Ideal Music 20 years ago but had given up halfway through. Now 21, her first instinct was to call the same number. “She told me the reason she looked for me is that she remembers I was very patient,” Nicole says, laughing. “I don’t think I’m patient.” The unchanged number, and recognising each other after two decades, says something about the kind of institution she has built.

Nicole is often asked why she has not expanded, and her answer is simple. “Life doesn’t only revolve around my career,” she says. “I have many other things to balance it.” What makes this striking is who is saying it: someone with an economics diploma from the London School of Economics, a first-class music degree from ASWARA, and experience co-organising international festivals across Asia. Though she had opportunities to build something larger, she chose not to, and does not regret it. 

She built Ideal Music out of grief, funded with savings that were not hers to spend lightly, and has run it for over two decades without making a loss. She says her sister is still present in all of it. 

You believe her.