"DON'T BE A PIANO NERD!" / LANG LANG @ STEINWAY GALLERY SINGAPORE

The renowned Chinese pianist LANG LANG gave two concerts in Singapore in November 2013. In between his concerto performance with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra and his solo recital, he spared some time to visit Steinway Gallery Singapore at Palais Renaissance on Friday 29 November 2013, where he met with members of the media and selected Steinway owners.

There was a lively session of interaction at the Breitling showroom, where the 31-year-old phenomenon, now considered by many as a global symbol of China's rise in the world, spoke on a number of topics.

Returning to Singapore

This was Lang Lang's 8th visit to Singapore. He remembered his first visit here when he was just 15 years old (in 1997) very well. He travelled here alone and performed Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No.1 with the SSO conducted by Choo Hoey, who had spotted him after seeing a NHK video of him winning the Tchaikovsky Youth International Piano Competition in Japan. He best remembers the exceptional seafood here and people speaking Singlish, like, "How are you doing lah?".  

He has since returned in 1999 (Beethoven No.4 with SSO), 2002 (with the New York Philharmonic), 2005 (with The Philadelphia), 2007 (Solo recital at the Singapore Sun Festival), 2010 (Beethoven No.1 with SSO) and once more for a private event. 

The Lang Lang Foundation

His foundation was formed 5 years ago to promote young talents entering into the crowded world of concert pianists. There are presently 15 young pianists (from 9 to 14 years) under his tutelage, most of whom were spotted via Youtube and social media. Although they have their own teachers, he tries to conduct a masterclass once a week for his charges. He is proud of the fact that some of them have already performed in Carnegie Hall, and the foundation has some USD 2.7 million in its endowment fund. 

Young pianists in China

There are estimated to be some 50 million young people learning the piano in China. "Surely there must be some good ones!" he quipped. While the general standard of the playing has improved, he feels that it is not enough for them to remain in China. Many of them should get a chance to learn from the best in USA and Europe. As Chinese students work very hard, there is a good chance of success. As it is, he noted that almost 80% of music college and conservatory applicants were Chinese or Asian.

Lang Lang met with a larger audience at the Steinway Gallery itself. He was introduced by Mr Alexander Melcher who proclaimed that Steinway was the proud supporter of Lang Lang's musical activities around the world.

Wellness and Well-being

Sleep is one of Lang Lang's most important needs. "Get as much sleep as possible," he advised, "at least 7 or 8 hours every day". As modern living is already hectic as it is, he feels that one should not think too much and not generate negative energy. "Think beautiful things, like the beaches of Sentosa!" he added.

Before a concert, he tries not to get distracted. He takes no interviews on the day and avoids internet surfing. He like a lot of fruits and chocolate makes him happy. "Just don't take too much!" he warns. 

In his free time, he listens to hip hop and jazz, naming Kanye West, Herbie Hancock and Alicia Keys among his favourite performers. He occasionally tunes in to heavy metal such as Metallica and the Rolling Stones whenever he feels down. From listening to Italian and German opera, he has learnt new words in those languages.

He tries to avoid listening to too much piano music. "When I asked one young pianist what movies he has watched, all he could think of then was Bach Partitas," so I say, "Don't be a piano nerd!" 

Making mistakes

One young person asked him how he handled making mistakes on the piano. "Just pretend nothing happened!" he advised, "Don't stop playing and nobody will care anyway. We are all human beings who can make mistakes." 

"You can always blame the piano, as long as it isn't a Steinway!" he joked. Then he related the case of a lady pianist who fainted at the keyboard, and cautioned, "but you can only do that once!"

Lang Lang's operatic facial expressions.

What keeps Lang Lang going

"I always want to be better." is his credo. Do not be self-satisfied as that will lead to having no motivation. "I always want to keep a bit of hunger," was his parting shot.

Lang Lang with the folks at Steinway:
Alexander Melchers and Celine Goh.

This young lady had her iPhone autographed by Lang Lang!

People buying his CD and autobiography
makes Lang Lang happy.

Photogaphs by the kind courtesy of Steinway Gallery Singapore and Flame Communications.

VIVA VERDI! / Bellepoque / Review

VIVA VERDI!

Bellepoque

Esplanade Recital Studio

Thursday (28 November 2013)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 30 September 2013 with the title "Operatic entertainment".

The third concert this year celebrating the bicentenary of Italian opera composer Giuseppe Verdi’s birth was undertaken by Bellepoque, an enterprising local group specialising in light musical theatre. Unlike the large-scaled productions by the Singapore Lyric Opera and Singapore Symphony Orchestra, this was salon concert of arias, duets and choruses modestly accompanied by piano.

Five operas were represented, with highlights performed in mostly chronological order. With popular numbers interspersed with the less familiar, the arrangement worked well if not for the variability of the singers. Veterans appeared alongside relative novices, and the marked disparity of abilities was sometimes all too obvious.

La Traviata (1853) opened the show with the popular Brindisi (Drinking Song) sung by the full ensemble of seven singers. It was misfortune that tenor Edwin Cruz (Philippines) had to lead, as he could barely keep in time. The empty champagne flutes the singers pretended to drink from seemed symbolic, as the performance lacked fizz.

The role of Violetta was shared by sopranos Angela Cortez (Philippines) and Sabrina Zuber (Italy), in Un di felice and Addio del passato / Parigi o cara respectively. Both were competent enough, and the transformation of the courtesan from a picture of health to frailty was very believable. Opposite them was Singaporean tenor Shaun Lee’s Alfredo, whose raw and desperate heroics in this highly demanding part was reminiscent of the legendary and now-retired Leow Siak Fah.

Baritone William Lim (Singapore) was his usual unflappable self in Germont’s aria Provenza il mar, easily the most convincing moment of the segment. He and soprano Satsuki Nagatome (Japan) united in A tal colpa e nulla il pianto from Un Ballo In Maschera or The Masked Ball (1859) gave the best duet of the evening, with passion now in full flow.

Nagatome in Ritorna Vincitor! from Aida (1871) also provided the single most arresting aria of all, spitting the words with true fervour and vehemence. Contrast this with the struggling Cruz in Celeste Aida, who never quite hit the high notes and whose final last gasp was achieved by falsetto rather than full voice. It was a small mercy that the great closing duet of Aida and Radames was not on the programme.

From Verdi’s last opera Falstaff (1893) came Fenton’s little aria Dal labbro il canto, sung with sensitivity and finesse by tenor Brendan-Keefe Au (Singapore), clearly someone who knows where his strengths lie. The concert ended with the famous Hebrew slaves’ chorus Va Pensiero from Nabucco (1842), where unison singing sometimes eluded the men.

Pianist Vincent Chen dutifully filled in for the indisposed Robert Casteels in accompaniment, and Thomas Manhart’s conceptualisation was narrated with engaging humour in Italian-accented English by actress Alessandra Fel. A mixed bag, to be sure, for a fair evening’s entertainment.    

MUSICAL INSPIRATIONS / Singapore National Youth Orchestra / Review

MUSICAL INSPIRATIONS

Singapore National Youth Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall

Tuesday (26 November 2013)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 28 November 2013 with the title "Youths up the game in the music stakes".

Singapore’s youth orchestral movement is riding high on the crest of wave of musical excellence, none as evident as this year. Following in the examples of the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Orchestra and Orchestra of the Music Makers, the Singapore National Youth Orchestra (SNYO) has considerably upped its game to match the accomplishments of its colleagues.

This latest concert conducted by American guest conductor David Commanday was a proud showcase of the maturity of its young musicians, both as an ensemble as well as in disparate solo parts. Marcus Choo’s solo French horn that opened Weber’s Oberon Overture was a portrait of composure and confidence despite being so exposed, and that set the tone of the concert as the whole.

Its slow introduction, so expertly traversed, was the perfect foil to the work’s mercurial and energetic main body which could boast of slickly homogeneous string playing and a responsiveness that was totally gripping.   

The orchestra sympathetically partnered Canadian violist Max Mandel in Carl Stamitz’s Viola Concerto in D major (Op.1), with very cohesive tutti playing and attentive accompaniment. It was left to the soloist to weave a charming spell of singing tone in the first two movements and folksy jocularity in the Rondo finale, with a surprising and jaw-dropping glissando slide down to the nether reaches.  

The truest test came in Brahms’s mighty First Symphony in C minor, which was clearly the highlight of the evening. From its opening measures, the intent was clearly spelt out. This was to be an account infused with urgency and nervous tension, the good kind that drives the music forward. Yet under Commanday’s command, it also sounded spacious, one that had ample room to breathe.

The warmth and breadth of the playing was a unifying factor, lit up be excellent solo playing by oboe and violin in the beautiful slow movement and clarinet in the flowing third movement. Only inappropriate applause (by a quite clueless audience that insisted on clapping after every pause) spoilt the hush and transitory silence that led into the glorious finale.     

Thankfully that lapse was fully made up by the atmospheric playing capped by another wonderful French horn solo from Mindy Chang in the “alphorn” motif that heralded the dispersing of dark clouds and the emergence of blazing sunshine. The work concluded on the loftiest of joyous moods, hence the epithet Beethoven’s Tenth Symphony stuck, but the orchestra was not yet through.

The encore of Orange Blossom Special, a fiddlers’ “national anthem” captured in a train ride, was the icing on the cake. A strong SNYO is a vital for the strong future of classical music in Singapore. 

Concert photographs by the kind courtesy of the Singapore National Youth Orchestra.

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, November 2013)

GRIFFES Piano Music

GARRICK OHLSSON, Piano

Hyperion 67907 / *****

Anyone who attended the wonderful piano recital by Abigail Sin on 5 March would have been intrigued by the Piano Sonata (1917-18) of American composer Charles Tomlinson Griffes (1884-1920). It is a relatively short but violent essay in three movements that sounded primeval and exotic, even oriental in character and feel. This was the unusual sound world of an exceptional talent, cut short at the prime of his life by complications of influenza. Like all American composers of his generation, he studied in Europe. His piano music, spanning the last ten years of his life, was influenced by the musical trends of the time.

Listen to his Three Tone Pictures, Fantasy Pieces and Roman Sketches (all composed between 1910 and 1916) and one discerns the harmonic innovations spawned by Wagner and his followers, and the impressionist hues of Debussy and Ravel. The titles are equally evocative; The Lake at Evening, Night Winds, White Peacock and Fountains of Acqua Paola are worthy start points. A Winter Landscape curiously employs the same motif as Leoncavallo’s Vesti la giubba from I Pagliacci, but this is probably a coincidence. The late Three Preludes (1919) are short and aphoristic, sounding like Scriabin and point to the future. Veteran American pianist Garrick Ohlsson is a master colourist, and his persuasive manner makes one feel these works cannot be played in any other way. 

FRANK BRIDGE Orchestral Works

BBC National Orchestra of Wales

RICHARD HICKOX

Chandos 10729 (6 CDs) / *****

This year marks the centenary of Benjamin Britten, largely regarded the greatest 20^th century British composer, but do spare several thoughts for his most important teacher and mentor Frank Bridge (1879-1941). It was Bridge who helped shape the highly original and modernist voice the young Britten was to become. This budget-priced collection of complete orchestral works includes Bridge’s light music and songs (he could write a good melody too), but the emphasis lies on his symphonic poems and concertante works which exhibit exuberance and boldness of colour. 

The Sea (1910-11) is his best known work, a symphonic suite in four movements that is almost as evocative as the earlier La Mer of Debussy but far less celebrated. Bridge’s penchant for the vivid musical narration is to be found in Mid of The Night (1903), Dance Rhapsody (1908), Dance Poem (1913), Summer (1914-15) and Enter Spring (1926-27), all very well-crafted and deserve a listen. The two major concertos, Oration for cello (1929-30, with Alban Gerhardt as soloist) and Phantasm for piano (1931, with Howard Shelley), are excellent examples of his later style, bristling with dissonance and aggression, as if prescient of the great war to come. These performances from the BBC National Orchestra of Wales led by the late Richard Hickox set a gold standard for this music, and this set is unlikely to be surpassed any time soon.

Photos from the SINGAPORE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA'S ANNUAL DINNER 2013

Look who's the one wearing horns?

Believe it or not, the Singapore Symphony Orchestra held its Annual Dinner immediately one night after the Singapore Chinese Orchestra's party. This time, it was held at the Conrad Centennial Singapore Hotel on Monday 25 November 2013. The theme was Gold Class, Red Carpet, one which celebrated the great movies of all time. Here are the photos of more musicians having fun.  

Associate Conductor Joshua Kangming Tan looks
relaxed when introduced to Committee member Pang Siu Yuin's
black kitty. Mrs Yolanda Tan appears quite amused.

Maestro Lan Shui very much enjoyed SSO Chairman
"Harry Potter" Goh Yew Lin's address. 

Lynnette Seah wins her 35-years long service award.
Professor and Mrs Bernard Tan with Mrs Charlotte Goh,

New Concertmaster Igor Yusefovich and Cello Principal
Ng Pei Sian in Dancing in the Rain.
Yang Zhenyi and Gu Bing Jie relive the Titanic.

Finalists for the Best Dressed Awards.

Former concertmaster Sasha Souptel as Crocodile Dundee
is always among the winners, together with "Dracula" Zailani.

The Blues Brothers and Flute Principal Jin Ta's
vocal and keyboard début in Just The Way You Are.  

The Russian connection: Guennady and Olga Mouzyka.
Sasha Souptel and Masako Suzuki.

Tang I Shyan, Tan How Pang, Pang Siu Yuin and Sharon Son.

The coyboy connection: Regina Lee with PianoManiac.

Feline partner Othello does not look too amused!

Photos from SINGAPORE CHINESE ORCHESTRA'S ANNUAL DINNER 2013

Musicians are passionate people who also need time to relax and let down their hair. Here are some photographs from the Singapore Chinese Orchestra's Annual Dinner held on Sunday 24 November 2013 at the Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel. The theme of the evening was Black & White, which kind of explains why almost everyone looked like they were going to a funeral. But they all had a good time.

Playing the part of Kato from the Green Hornet was
Young Assistant Conductor in Residence Moses Gay,
seen here with concertmaster Li Baoshun.

Three Amigos in black:
Maestro Tsung Yeh, Dr Ho Chee Kong & PianoManiac.

SCO General Manager Terence Ho receives his 15-years
long service award from SCO Chairman Patirck Lee.
Erhu principal Zhao Jian Hua wins a prize.
Conductors Quek Ling Kiong and Tsung Yeh look on.

All dressed out and ready to go.

Wrestlemania: Cizhongyin Suona player Boo Chin Kiah
tackles the Lydia Sum impersonator.

Let's do it Gangnam Style!

Candidates for the Best Dressed Awards.

And here are the winners!

Time to groove!

The lights go out, and its party time!

Photos from SINGAPORE CHINESE ORCHESTRA'S TUNES OF TEOCHEW CONCERT

I was not going to review this concert as my knowledge of Teochew opera is next to nothing, but was determined to attend it in order to keep in touch with my Teochew roots. My maternal grandmother was a thoroughbred Teochew although she was born in Penang, Malaya. The Teochews are one of the major Chinese dialect groups in Singapore, its members having emigrated from the coastal areas of Southern China to Nanyang (Southeast Asia) in search of a better life. Many succeeded to become pillars of the Chinese community in Singapore. 

I also wanted treat my 90-year-old grand-aunt (also a Teochew) to some nostalgia, as she loved watching Teochew opera on television until the authorities banned all dialect programmes during the early 1980s, replacing them with Mandarin programmes (an unfortunate casualty of the Speak Mandarin Campaign). I remember her bringing me to watch the Teochew opera in the streets of Georgetown, Penang when I was seven or eight years old. I was sort of bored but was fascinated by the four or five instrumentalists who accompanied the whole wayang. It is our loss that Chinese street theatre is a dying art, and there are far less opportunities these days to partake of these spectacles.

     

The first part of the concert was helmed by Chen Zuo Hui,
a specialist in Teochew percussion.

Maestro Tsung Yeh leads in Zou Hang's
Buddha Jumps Over The Wall,
a contemporary piece with chants by the players.

Operatic excerpts began with Chen Lian Zhong singing two arias
from Concubine of the Later Shu and Return of the Official Title.

Sun Xiao Hua sang Melodies of the Bamboo and Wind
and Sighs of Empress Wu.

Tan Hock Lye was an impressive presence
in Lack of Thought in a Moment.

This was not a trio as each of the singers sang separately.
Here Goh Hui Ling begins in Sweetness in One's Heart.

Chua Ai Peck performed the trousers role.

Doreen Low completed the three part aria.

Sun Xiao Hua and Chen Lian Zhong in
Cease Your Anger, My Lady.

All six singers appeared in Wu Dian Xiang's Blooms of Nam Hwa,
composed for the 50th anniversary of Nam Hwa Opera.

Deserved applause for all the performers.

All photographs by kind courtesy of the Singapore Chinese Orchestra.