CELEBRATING
SG50
Yong
Siew Toh Conservatory Orchestra
Conservatory
Concert Hall
Friday
(25 September 2015 )
This review was published in The Straits Times on 28 September 2015 with the title "New shining lights".
Within the coming week, the Yong Siew Toh
Conservatory Orchestra will undertake its first overseas tour, performing concerts
in Macau and Hong Kong . Its touring programme
is a hugely demanding one, and knowing what the young musicians led by
Principal Conductor Jason Lai have accomplished in the past, its pre-tour
concert in front of a Singaporean audience generated much interest and
expectation.
The orchestra opened with the World
Premiere of Ho Chee Kong's Empyrean
Lights. Its title refers to the aurorae or spectral phenomena that take
place in the polar regions, commonly known as the Northern or Southern Lights.
It is a 17-minute long étude for orchestra which taxes the strings enormously,
with woodwinds and brass also given exacting solo parts.
Beginning quietly with a D minor drone
not unlike the outset of Beethoven's Ninth
Symphony, solo instruments emerge from and return into a mysterious haze,
gradually morphing into a dynamic force that is both serene yet majestic. There
are running string passages which bring to mind Sibelius, but the defining
voices were the three trumpets that capped the work's final chapter. Only one
stayed the course, its notes configuring enigmatically the name or initials of Singapore
This has to be the most subtle and
eloquent tribute to the nation's guiding light yet, and the orchestra responded
to its rugged challenges with admirable aplomb. With time, some of its rough
edges will be smoothened out, just as one begins to realise the impact of this
moving music.
Completing the first half was Beethoven's
Second Piano Concerto, given an
articulate and elegant reading by Li Churen, a Conservatory alumnus now
pursuing her Master's Degree at Yale. This is a more nuanced reading than the
one she gave with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra at the President's Young
Performers Concert three years ago. Having grown and matured in the interim,
her version of the slow movement oozed lyricism while the finale crackled with
unbridled joy.
Nationalist Finnish composer Jean
Sibelius' Second Symphony was the
concert's longest work. This received a taut performance which dallied little
yet gave a pervading sense of breadth and warmth in its 40-plus-minutes
duration. The strings played a large part in conveying this impression, and if
the beginning sounded a tad diffuse, it soon grew in stature. The stark opening
to the 2nd movement, chilling in its intensity similarly blossomed
to a fiery fruition under conductor Lai's baton.
The Prestissimo
3rd movement, with rapid string runs referenced earlier in Ho's
work, gave the programme an overall feel of cohesion and symmetry. Arctic
illuminations and Nordic utterances went hand in hand here. The finale's heroic
sweep with blazing brass was the rallying point for Finnish independance from
Russian domination, not unlike a certain Hakka lawyer's lifelong and steadfast
stand for the “little red dot”.
A less well-sustained climax would have
fallen flat, but Lai's charges never flagged for a second till its valedictory
final chords. In the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Orchestra and all associated
with it, Singaporeans have good reason to feel proud.
 |
| Composer & Conductor: Ho Chee Kong with Jason Lai. |
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