The first time I saw Chu Hui was when he guest-conducted the Experimental Symphony Orchestra at the National Concert Hall in Taipei last December.

Viewed from afar, Chu Hui is small but as sturdy in his arms as a rugby player. His glossy hair bounces along in time with his conducting movements, which can be as jerky as a mechanical dancer's or as fluid as a tai-chi-ch'uan practitioner's.

The next time I saw him was on January 8 this year, in his office at the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, where he talked at ease about his own musical history.

The affinity between Chu Hui and music goes back to one day when he was just five years old, when he saw a teacher playing the violin at a Chinese high school in Indonesia where his parents worked. As soon as he got home he picked up a short broom and a bamboo stick and started sawing away with them in front of his chest. When his mother saw his new game she mentioned it in a letter to his father, who was on business in Singapore at time, and the result was that when his father returned home he was carrying with him a violin--one that was half as big as his son.

"I have a good ear. I couldn't read music but I could listen to a record and play along with it," Chu Hui says with some pride. Since he failed to receive correct instruction as a beginner, however, he had faulty technique and his whole body was tense when he played, and he couldn't change later even though he wanted to. "A bad beginning is half the secret to failure, and it was ordained from the start that I wouldn't become a violinist."

After graduating from high school, Chu Hui passed the entrance exam to the Royal Academy of Music in London with flying colors. "I would have received a scholarship but I was disqualified because I didn't have British citizenship."

But that kind of obstacle naturally didn't faze a person like him, and in April 195l he headed off to London as a full tuition-paying student, with his father's help and encouragement. He was well aware of burden it placed on his parents to support an overseas student on the meager income they earned at the time, and in his high school yearbook he wrote the motto, "Life is a struggle, not enjoyment."

Those words could serve as an apt description of his time as a student in England. He had originally wanted to study conducting as soon as he enrolled, but according to the academy's regulations he had to master two instruments first. So during his four years at the academy he majored in the violin and minored in the piano, and then went on to study music theory, the history of music, harmony, the French horn and conducting.

He graduated from the academy in 1955, and even though he was now a qualified conductor and had received the acclamation of his teachers, hard times were in store for him as an Oriental who had grown up in a poor musical environment yet who hoped to make a name for himself in an alien land.

In January 1958 he finally managed to persuade the Belgium National Symphony Orchestra to give him a chance and let him conduct A Soldier's Tale by Stravinsky, and he paid a visit to Marcel Cuvellier, the most influential music agent in Belgium, and urged him to attend.

When the performance was over, Cuvellier, who was rarely accustomed to even hearing out novice conductors, came up to shake his hand: "This season's schedule is fully booked, but you'll certainly be invited as a guest conductor next season." Those words, along with favorable reviews in the Belgian newspapers, gave Chu a big boost.

Even more unexpectedly, a few weeks later Cuvellier telephoned him with the news that the conductor who had been scheduled to direct the orchestra two weeks from then had died, and he asked him whether he was willing to accept the challenge and appear in his place. Chu Hui agreed at once and threw himself into preparations.

The upshot was that the performances were a success, establishing his reputation as "the first Chinese conductor to break into the Western music scene" and laying the foundation for his entire career.

In 1969 a big event in his life occurred. He had been invited to Athens and was wrapped up in directing on the podium, oblivious to the fact that a beautiful Greek girl was watching him with rapt attention.

"I was attracted the first time I saw him by the talent that oozed from his fingers," says Alexandra, who graduated in archaeology from the University of Athens and is now a consultant at a museum in Singapore.

After marriage they settled in Athens, where Chu was responsible for training and conducting four large symphony orchestras and became the principle director of the Greek National Opera House in 1972.

In early 1978 he received a letter from the vice premier of Singapore asking him if he wanted to serve as the general director of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra.

"I was very excited, and Alexandra supported me," he says. She had attended nearly every concert of his since they met and had provided several suggestions which, though not necessarily of any real help to him, had enabled him to deeply sense the emotion that was there. Now that he could return to work in his homeland, she dropped her own career without hesitation and followed her husband's lead uncomplainingly.

"Returning to his homeland to manage an orchestra was the dream of his life. How could I fail to support him?" she says with a smile.

"If you decide to do something, you should give it your all," Chu says. Since arriving in Singapore, besides taking over the orchestra and making his dream come true, he has also hoped to contribute in some way toward cultivating musicians in the land of his birth--and that means more than just relying on an orchestra. "The best way to do it is to set up a music academy."

Given the current dearth of specialized music training in Singapore, the costs for starting from scratch will be rather steep. Fortunately, Chu Hui, who promises to serve as a catalyst, is full of enthusiasm: "In any case, I've always believed you can't achieve anything without a struggle."

[Picture Caption]

The conductor at home.

Chu Hui leads the Singapore Symphony Orchestra through a practice session at Victoria Memorial Hall.

The conductor at home.

Chu Hui leads the Singapore Symphony Orchestra through a practice session at Victoria Memorial Hall.