Panoramas of Bali, Indonesia

Believe it or not, this is my third trip to the islands of Indonesia within the last third of this year. Having visited Java and Sumatra previously, it was time again to visit Bali. Although this trip was about music, that did not deter me from doing a spot of sightseeing as well. The coastal Hindu temple of Pura Tanah Lot has to be the most hyped up and photographed sight in the whole of the Bali. That is not surprising given its highly picturesque location, situated on a headland which was previously joined to the main island. The rocky bridge has already be eroded by the constant bashing by the sea, and all is left is the island and a few stony steps. It is still possible to wade to the island when the tide is low.

Tourists arrive by their busloads, and it is most crowded in the evening when people come to view the temple at sunset. Morning is not a such as bad time to come, but the sun is blazing hot. However, one is able to take some nice and dramatic shots of the temple at this time when the sun is eastward rather than directly overhead. Is Tanah Lot much ado about nothing? Maybe, but it remains one of Bali's most beautiful and romantic spots.

The view of the promontary opposite
of Tanah Lot and lots of tourists!

The mountain that dominates
much of the West Bali coastline is Batukaru.

A view of another temple, Pura Gede Luhu Batungaus,
located south of Tanah Lot,
as seen from the lush gardens of
Villa Ombak Laut at Cemangi.

The idyllic swimming pool of Villa Ombak Laut.

Every villa has its own temple.

The sea-front view of Villa Ombak Laut and Tanju Bali.

The villa of Tanju Bali.

A great view of Pura Gede Luhu Batungaus at low tide.

The glory of the sea, carving fissures
through the rocks on the sea off Cemagi.

Another view of the sea off Cemagi.

BALI CLASSICAL NIGHTS II @ Villa Ombak Laut

The second evening of Bali Classical Nights (29 December 2012) was a totally informal affair, held away from the media glare in the far more congenial environment of Villa Ombak Laut in Cemagi, the island hideaway of the Franks family. All the performers from the previous evening had returned, and after a sumptuous dinner spread topped up by delectable chocolate mousse, the music began.

Korean flautist Hyun Ju Juno Lee joined members
of the Prima Vista String Quartet
in Mozart's Flute Quartet in C major.

Then it was the turn of the host Neil Franks,
who performed the solo part of J.S.Bach's  Piano Concerto
in F minor (1st movement) with the quartet.

Four hands on one piano: Neil Franks and his teacher Boris Kraljevic  
with Dvorak's first two Slavonic Dances from the Op.72 book.

More piano music, with Tou Liang in Debussy's Clair de lune.

Korean soprano Sung Hee Park is joined by flautist Soyoung Lee
and pianist Boris Kraljevic  in Mendelssohn's On Wings of Song
with variations and Caccini's Ave Maria.  

The Prima Vista String Quartet then played Joplin's The Entertainer
and transported the audience to Vienna with Strauss'  Pizzicato Polka,
On The Beautiful Blue Danube and the Radetzky March.
If you can't make the Vienna Philharmonic's
New Year's Day Concert, Bali will do nicely!

All Bali Classical Nights end with its signature tune,
when all and sundry play Wilhelm Ganz's  
Grand Gallop de Concert, Qui Vive. 
A great way to close the old year and great the new.

BALI CLASSICAL NIGHTS I: A SOIRÉE OF CLASSICAL MUSIC / Hotel Tugu Bali

A SOIRÉE OF CLASSICAL MUSIC

HOTEL TUGU BALI

28 December 2012

Here are the photos from a magical evening of chamber music and art song at the third edition of Bali Classical Nights, the annual post-Christmas musical soirée held in the Wantilan Agung Hall of Tugu Bali Hotel on Canggu Beach. There was a more varied programme this year, with a full piano concerto and piano quintet to boot. It seems that the audience is getting more bang for their buck from the international cast of performers.

The beautifully decorated  Wantilan Agung Hall  
of Tugu Bali Hotel,
with its high ceiling  and ever-looming Garuda,
was the perfect venue for chamber music.

The evening opened with Boris Kraljevic and Neil Franks
performing the first two Slavonic Dances (Op.72)
by Antonin Dvorak. 

The Prima Vista String Quartet from Poland
was the resident ensemble of the festival.
Here  the foursome performs the first movement
from Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.

Korean flautist Hyun Joo Juno Lee joined members
of the quartet to play Mozart's Flute Quartet No.1 in D major.

Its dazzling diva time, with Korean soprano Sung Hee Park
in sparkling form in a aria from Bach's Coffee Cantata
and Adolphe Adam's Ah, dirai vous je maman.
Accompanying her was flautist Soyoung Lee. 

Neil Franks performs Bach's Piano Concerto in F minor
(BWV.1056) with the Prima Vista Quartet.

After the intermission, Boris Kraljevic was joined
by the Prima Vista Quartet
in Dvorak's Piano Quintet in A major (Op.81).
Despite being the longest work in the evening by far, it was
a very gripping performance which held the audience in a thrall.

More coloratura arias closed the evening's sumptuous fare:
Mozart's Queen of the Night's Aria (The Magic Flute) and
Offenbach's Doll Aria (Tales of Hoffmann)
from soprano Sung Hee Park.

Sadly the soirée had to come to an end.
Here's to Bali Classical Nights 2013!

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, December 2012)

 

 

 

NEW YEAR’S CONCERT 2012

Vienna Philharmonic / MARISS JANSONS

Sony Classical 88697927102 / *****

 

The traditional closing works of all Vienna New Year’s Concerts are, without exception, Johann Strauss the Younger’s Blue Danube Waltz and his father’s Radetzky March. In this edition, Latvia-born conductor Mariss Jansons provides an early surprise by opening the concert with two works that quote both these warhorses. The Vaterlandischer March (Patriotic March) and Rathhaus-Ball Tanze (Town Hall Ball) both get first performances, as do Tchaikovsky’s Panorama and Waltz from The Sleeping Beauty. Non-Viennese “guest” composers do get featured on and off, as long as they are equally entertaining. Copenhagen Steam Railway Gallop, as good as train music gets, comes from the Dane Hans Christian Lumbye, known as the Strauss of the North.

 

The Vienna Boys’ Choir make a cameo in the Tritsch Tratsch (Chit Chat) Polka and younger brother Josef Strauss’s Feuerfest (Fireproof) Polka, adding to the festive atmosphere. Some unusual rarities come in Joseph Helmesberger’s Hungarian-flavoured Danse Diabolique and   Eduard Strauss’s Carmen Quadrille, which is a digest of favourite tunes from Bizet’s Carmen played in double and triple speed. Favourites like the Pizzicato and Thunder and Lightning Polkas return, and the fun factor is high. The usually staid Viennese really know how to have serious fun.

 

 

 

 

 

FRANCAIX Wind Chamber Music

Bergen Woodwind Quintet

BIS SACD-2008 / ****1/2

 

The French composer Jean Francaix (1912-1997) stands out uniquely among his musical compatriots by not being a member of any trendy musical movement, school or -ism. While contemporaries were breaking new ground in post-impressionist modernism and experimenting with atonalism or serialism, he wrote only tonal music and totally agreeable ones at that. Like the more serious-minded and neo-religious Francis Poulenc, Francaix’s music is good humoured, exquisitely crafted and possibly most important of all, entertaining. This hour-long collection of wind music is totally easy on the ear, but extremely demanding for the performers.

 

Almost four decades separate the two Wind Quintets (1948 and 1987), but both share an infectious sense of wit and penchant for lightness without being frivolous. It is almost impossible to tell which is earlier or later. Popular musical genres and jazz idioms are incorporated into these 20-minute long works, and the challenge is for players to keep the music spontaneous and springing with quasi-improvisatory surprises. The Bergen Woodwind Quintet is a virtuoso outfit that delivers with terrific aplomb. The shorter Wind Quartet (1933) and Divertissement for oboe, clarinet and bassoon (1947) complete this thoroughly enjoyable outing, which can be a guilty pleasure indeed.



BEST & WORST OF 2012: CLASSICAL CONCERTS

BEST CLASSICAL CONCERTS OF 2012

(as published in The Sunday Times on 24 December 2012)

 

 

BEETHOVEN PIANO CONCERTO CYCLE

Lim Yan, Piano with The Philharmonic Orchestra

School of the Arts Concert Hall, June 2012 

 

History was made when LIM YAN became the first Singaporean pianist to perform all five Beethoven piano concertos in a cycle here. This feat was accomplished over three evenings, playing completely from memory and crafting his own cadenzas. Partnered by The Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Lim Yau, he was also the pianist in Beethoven’s Triple Concerto. He later completed the grand slam with Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy at the Esplanade 10^th Anniversary Concert in October.

 

 

BEST DÉBUTS

 

Of the emerging young Singaporean musicians, honours were even for the best début performances by violinist SEE IAN IKE, in recital with pianist Miyuki Washimiya (Esplanade Recital Studio, 18 August 2012) playing a wonderful programme of Bach, Brahms and Ravel, and soprano TENG XIANG TING, a law graduate singing the lead role of Adina in New Opera Singapore’s production of Donizetti’s L’Elisir D’Amore. Their confident and highly accomplished performances can stand scrutiny in any corner of the musical world. 

 

 

 

ZEN RENAISSANCE

The Philharmonic Chamber Choir / Lim Yau

with Ueno Koshuzan, Shakuhachi

School of the Arts Concert Hall, 8 September 2012

 

Conductor Lim Yau has become even busier after leaving the post of SSO Resident Conductor to become Head of Music at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts. His first love is still choral music, and The Philharmonic Chamber Choir continues to break new ground in programming, juxtaposing Renaissance music of Palestrina, Taverner and Gesualdo with the haunting strains of Zen master Ueno Koshuzan’s shakuhachi (bamboo flute). Seldom have two completely diverse art forms shared a spiritual kinship and shone with unusual synergy.

 

 

Most Disappointing Concert of 2012

 

THE FLIGHT OF THE JADE BIRD

Singapore Arts Festival

Esplanade Concert Hall, 20 May 2012 

 

For all its hype, the Pan-Asian quasi-opera by Mark Chan fell far short of the sum of its parts, its intermittently interesting music bogged down by an over-fussy English libretto and running for an unwieldy and convoluted 140 minutes. Big and long does not always mean better. Why hadn’t the Singapore Arts Festival taken on John Sharpley and Robert Yeo’s opera Fences instead?

BEST & WORST OF 2012: CLASSICAL CDS

 

BEST CLASSICAL CDS FOR 2012

(Published in The Sunday Times on 24 December 2012)

 

 

 

 

LA NOCHE Works for Flute & Harp

ROBERTO ALVAREZ, Flute

KATRYNA TAN, Harp

 

This is a unique, unlikely to be repeated, anthology of new works for flute and harp by Singaporean composers including Ho Chee Kong, Robert Casteels and Chen Zhangyi and their Spanish counterparts from Asturias. All are World Premiere recordings, covering a wide and diverse range of voices and idioms with the mystery and splendour of night as unifying theme. Here is strikingly beautiful music, lovingly performed.
 

 

 

 

RACHMANINOV Cello & Piano Works

QIN LI-WEI, Cello

ALBERT TIU, Piano

Decca 8898195

 

The most celebrated cello and piano duo resident in Singapore has returned to the recording studio for Rachmaninov’s complete cello music, including the 40-minute long Cello Sonata in G minor (Op.19), two early pieces and song transcriptions. Here are the true voices of yearning and nostalgia, in an album that is the worthy successor on Decca to the beloved 1980s recording by Lynn Harrell and Vladimir Ashkenazy.

 

 

 

 

 

INTRODUCING RE:MIX

Foo Say Ming, Violin & Leader

Local cross-over band re:mix believes that classical music has taken itself too seriously, and its début album breaks down the demarcation between classical music and pop culture. Violinist Foo Say Ming’s method is to apply “classical” methods to popular hits in a novel and highly intelligent manner. Allied to this cause are Cultural Medallion winner Kelly Tang’s witty arrangements of Latin and Chinese songs, and his Two Contrasts, a work as eclectic as the ensemble itself.

 

  

WORST CD of 2012

 

 

ADAGIOS 101

Decca CD-Rama 4783985

Compilations are a lazy way to listen to music, and it is worse when a lack of thought and incoherence influence the programming. There is much fine music, performed by big-name artists (Vladimir Ashkenazy, Sir Neville Marriner and Kiri Te Kanawa among them) in this selection of 101 slow movements, but the overall effect is as dreary as Symphony 92.4 FM’s all-night broadcasts.



HAVE A BLESSED CHRISTMAS!

The Christmas tree at Citylink Mall

HAVE A BLESSED CHRISTMAS!

CHRISTMAS IN SINGAPORE 2012

 

The Christmas Tree at Marina Square

T'ANG QUARTET'S UPSIZED CHRISTMAS / T'ang Quartet / Review

T'ANG QUARTET’S UPSIZED CHRISTMAS

T’ang Quartet

Esplanade Concert Hall

Saturday (22 December 2012)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 24 December 2012 with the title "The T'ang of Christmas".

It is good to see that the T’ang Quartet can still pack a concert hall after all these years. Two decades ago, they were the “Bad Boys” of classical music, striving to do something different and make an impact. Today, they are the stylish middle-aged men of the local scene, wiser and wizened, but no less irreverent.

 

One could already anticipate the tomfoolery when they strutted on stage in Calvin Klein jeans, and with cellist Leslie Tan balancing precariously on an outsized armchair designed by Francfranc as they performed the first work. Professor Teddy Bor’s Eine Kleine Bricht Moonlicht Nicht Musik was the perfect opener, throwing up Mozart’s favourite serenade with highland melodies like Scotland The Brave and Auld Lang Syne into the mix.

Only the T’angs could bring out a barrel of laughs from the usually austere figures of 20^th century composers Shostakovich and Hindemith. The former’s Polka from The Age of Golden was performed straight – itself two minutes of pure satire - and the latter’s Minimax benefited from scripted gags by Pamela Oei and Ivan Heng.

Minimax was Hindemith’s answer to Mozart’s A Musical Joke, a 25-minute spoof in six movements on musical clichés, poor technique and the chicanery musicians get up to. Prefaced by violist Lionel Tan’s remark, “Somebody did not practise again!” his brother Leslie was literally the butt of the jokes with off-pitched playing, mistimed cues and the breaking of wind.

There was the customary send-up to Wagner, the Johann Strauss waltz, the military march, and the rivalry between fiddlers as second violinist Ang Chek Meng attempted to upstage his leader Ng Yu Ying. Whether the reference to tonight’s AFF Suzuki Cup Final between Singapore and Thailand was intentional or not, both received red cards from referee Lionel, as Leslie blew a whistle for their efforts. Believe it or not, it is more difficult to deliberately play badly than one thinks.

Christmas music dominated the second half. Local jazz pianist and arranger Kerong Chok’s (above) medley was classy lounge music, opening with Mykola Leontovych’s Carol of the Bells and Howard Blake’s Walking in the Air from The Snowman, before incorporating The Christmas Song, Silent Night and Let It Snow. Chok’s cool and understated pianism was well supported by the quartet, who was already in cruise control.

Closing the show was Syafiqah Sallehin’s (left) medley Nutty But Nice which cleverly interpolated movements from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite with various seasonal favourites. A female Malay-Muslim composer arranging Christmas music for four Chinese guys is one for the books, the sure sign that our multi-cultural society has inexorably progressed.

Whoever thought of merging the Trepak with Feliz Navidad, using the ostinato bass of the Arabian Dance as rhythm for The Little Drummer Boy, or playing a neat game of counterpoint with Waltz of the Flowers and Silver Bells? Such surprises, coupled with the T’ang Quartet’s usual showmanship, gave the fuzzy, warm and happy feeling on seeing a well-filled stocking on Christmas morning. Have a Blessed and Merry Christmas, you all.  



We Remember Singaporean Pioneer Violinist SIOW HEE SHUN (1935-2012)

 

  

We remember pioneering Singaporean violinist SIOW HEE SHUN (1935-1912), who passed away on 23 December 2012 after a prolonged illness.  He was a member of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra when it gave its first concerts in January 1979, one of eight Singaporeans who were founding members of the orchestra. He was also a well-known violin teacher, who counts among his students her daughter well-known Singaporean violinist Siow Lee Chin and many others.

I was at his funeral wake when I found out that he was a survivor of the Japanese holocaust (Sook Ching or ethnic cleansing) that took place during the Second World War when the Japanese Imperial Army occupied Singapore. He and many young Chinese males were rounded up by Japanese soldiers and were forced to dig their own graves before being machine-gunned at close range. He fell into the pit and feigned death despite being bayoneted as well. He laid in the mass grave till nightfall and after the soldiers left, before escaping into the darkness. His children remember being shown the stab wounds on his back.

After the war, he picked up the violin and had lessons with the legendary pedagogue Goh Soon Tioe. As he could not afford a formal education in music, he was largely self-taught and made a living by playing in string ensembles and bands in Malaya and Singapore. He is survived by his wife and three grown-up children. His eldest is daughter Siow Lee Chin, who dedicated her debut violin recital album to him, entitled "Songs My Father Taught Me". Like her father, Lee Chin is also a dedicated teacher and is presently the Head of Strings at the College of Music in Charleston, South Carolina. His elder son, Dr Siow Yew Nam, a consultant paediatric anaesthetist at Kandang Kerbau Hospital, is a very accomplished amateur violinist.     

  

Siow Lee Chin giving a violin masterclass at Raffles Institution. 

Mr Siow suffered from Parkinson's Disease during his final years, but was still very moved by music. He also helped Lee Chin by actively listening to her takes during the recording process and was involved in the editing. He was well enough to attend Lee Chin's concert with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra in January this year at the Esplanade. Although he became less responsive and could not recognise loved ones, Lee Chin remembers that whenever she played the violin for him, tears would roll down his cheeks. It was the love of music and his family that kept him on until his final days.

Without pioneering musicians and teachers like Siow Hee Shun, the musical scene in Singapore will not have been what it is today (with no thanks to the Japanese). For this, we owe him a debt of thanks.