CONFLUENCE
Esplanade
Concert Hall
Sunday (5 July 2015 )
This review was published in The Straits Times on 7 July 2015 with the title "Ruan music hits the sweet spot".
The Singapore Ruan Ensemble marked its
10th anniversary with a concert that showcased some of the finest young talents
in the local Chinese instrumental community. The group founded by Singapore
Chinese Orchestra principal Zhang Rong Hui began with 20 players and has now
expanded to over 50 members, augmented by bowed strings, wind and percussion
for this concert.
The ruan
is a four-stringed plucked instrument with a round torso, which sounds similar
to a lute, guitar or banjo. Performing as a group, its mellow strummed sound
has a pleasant ring, filled with varied timbres from instruments of differing
registers. As a solo instrument, virtuosic playing of great agility makes for
breathtaking spectacles.
The first half was led by Taiwanese
conductor Ku Pao-wen, opening with Wang Chen Wei's Confluence. An excellent example of Nanyang music, its themes
combined Chinese, Malayan and Indian influences which the ensemble played with
much gusto, culminating in a fugue (a Western contrapuntal device) where the
voices were very well delineated.
Law Wai Lun's arrangement of the guqin
tune Xiao Xiang Shui Yun (Clouds Over Rivers Xiao & Xiang), a
landscape portrayed in music, was beautifully atmospheric with a dizi melody rising above ruan accompaniment. Zhu Lin's Song Without Words was an Italianate
serenade, the piano's contribution making its sound particularly
Mendelssohnian.
Enjoying the solo spotlight was
16-year-old Megan Tan, whose sparkling performance in the vigorous finale
of Liu Xing's Reminiscences of Yunnan was distinguished by sheer steadiness and
personality. Twin sisters Clara and Sophy Tan (below) were zhong ruan and guzheng soloists
respectively in their composition Traveller,
an engaging meditation on the Silk Road , which had contemporary
touches provided by Govin Tan on tabla and
Dayn Ng's electronica.
 |
| Doubly delighted: Clara & Sophy Tan (or is it Sophy and Clara?) enjoy the applause. |
Quek Ling Kiong conducted the concert's
latter half, which included another arrangement by Law, of the Nanyin favourite
Melody Of Peach Blossom. Here, sanxian and dizi solos came to the fore. This was followed by Tan Kah Yong's
arrangement of Nikolai Budashin's Fantasy
On Two Russian Folksongs, where the ruan's
kinship with its Russian counterpart, the triangular balalaika, became all the more apparent.
The evening closed with Law's arrangment
of the popular war classic, Xin Hu Guang's Gada
Meilin, starring the Mongolian Mai La Su and his traditional horsehead
fiddle. This box-shaped 2-stringed instrument is bowed like an erhu but with a deeper voice of a cello.
What enthralled the audience the most was Mai's throat singing, creating
bitones with each exhalation, which got them applauding even before the act was
up.
Two ensemble encores, one sentimental and
the other fiery, closed a most satisfying evening of exuberant and spirited
music-making.
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