CLASSICAL MUSIC'S BEST & WORST OF 2018

Its that time of the year again to relive the landmark classical concerts in Singapore and recordings which I had reviewed for the pages of The Straits Times Life! section. 

Here are the best and the worst. Thankfully, all the concerts I had attended this year were mostly good, and I had no recourse to single out any bad one. So I have decided to focus on a pet peeve of mine: terrible concert etiquette, which were sadly evident on more than one occasion. 

BEST CONCERTS

MESSIAEN TURANGALILA

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall, 1 April 2017

It took the Singapore Symphony Orchestra some 23 years to perform again Olivier Messiaen’s massive 10-movement, 75-minute long Turangalila Symphony, but it was well worth the wait. The French composer’s grand conception of universal love, encompassing sacred, profane and carnal varieties, with Andreas Haefliger (piano), Cynthia Millar (Ondes Martenot), and over 100 musicians (including 10 percussionist) led by Shui Lan proved to be the year’s most impressive sonic spectacular.

DREAMS OF HOMELAND

Singapore Chinese Orchestra

Victoria Concert Hall, 21 May 2017

Seldom has a visiting soloist so dominated a concert than Chinese dizi exponent Zhang Weiliang with the Singapore Chinese Orchestra conducted by Yeh Tsung. Other than the purely orchestral overture, he played in every work of the 2-hour long concert, including his own composition Tears Of Flowers and the world premiere of Cui Quan’s Southern Wind. Showcasing the full gamut of dizi and shakuhachi technique with consummate mastery and effortless ease, the audience could be excused for feeling breathless on his behalf.

JOHN WILLIAMS. THE MUSIC MAKERS

Orchestra of the Music Makers

Esplanade Concert Hall, 12 August 2017

Edward Elgar’s cantata The Music Makers was given its Singapore premiere by the appropriately named Orchestra of the Music Makers led by Chan Tze Law. Movers and shakers of the independent orchestral scene, the young ensemble got its name from this work’s title, which appears in the first line of Arthur O’Shaughnessy’s Ode. Joined by 200 singers from Singapore and Taiwan, the spine-tingling performance had the strong sense of living out its credo, that is to “carry on dreaming”.

WORST CONCERTS
because of concert etiquette befitting the Stone Age.

A blatant case of videotaping a performance,
an activity that is commonplace in PRC.

7 January 2017, Lee Foundation Theatre

Children misbehaving themselves in clear view of the audience and their shameless parents. Only numbskulls will bring kids to a concert of George Crumb and Bela Bartok.

14 January 2017, Lee Foundation Theatre

More children misbehaving including bouncing up and down the seats, with parents being blithely ignorant. How do you say STFU in Mandarin?

13 April 2017, Esplanade Concert Hall

Latecomers spoiling the slow movement of Barber's Cello Concerto by nonchalantly making their way to their seats while the music is playing, not helped by inept ushers who should have known better than to let them in.

4 May 2017, Victoria Concert Hall

A toddler screamed "I wanna go home!" in the front row while Angela Hewitt was playing a Bach partita, and had to be dragged out. Go home and stay home! 

18 July 2017, Victoria Concert Hall

The noisiest concert in living memory was Yao Xiao Yun's otherwise marvellous piano recital. You name it, the audience did it: excessive coughing, dropping of objects, fidgeting children, inappropriate applause, eating, drinking and videotaping with a cellphone.

29 December 2017, Esplanade Concert Hall

Another noisy kid being dragged out, within the very first minute of Melvyn Tan's recital. When will this kiasu madness end?

To make it clear, these concerts were in no way poor, but its takes only a few members of the audience to behave poorly and inconsiderately, thus marring the enjoyment of the moral majority. Young children, in particular, were most culpable but we must lay the blame on their clueless parents who should know better than to bring toddlers to attend concerts of serious music. They deserve to get the "Hamroll of the Year" award (an unenviable accolade created by Troopz of Arsenal Fan TV). End of rant. 

BEST CD RECORDINGS

DEBUSSY Jeux, Khamma

& La Boite A Joujoux

Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Lan Shui

BIS 2162

The Singapore Symphony Orchestra’s second Debussy disc is an even greater success that its first. All three works are ballets not often heard in concerts or recordings, coming from the French impressionist composer’s later years. Jeux contains some of Debussy’s finest music, while the orchestrations of La Boite A Joujoux (The Toybox) and Khamma by Andre Caplet and Charles Koechlin respectively are masterful. Conductor Shui Lan and the orchestra’s close attention to detail and nuance is brilliantly captured in this breathtaking recording.

SALVADOR BROTONS

Complete Works for Flute Vol.1

Roberto Alvarez (Flute) et al

Centaur 3554

The Singapore Symphony Orchestra’s principal piccolo player Roberto Alvarez is the ideal interpreter of Catalan composer-conductor Salvador Brotons’ flute music. Fully attuned to his idiom and mastering myriad technical challenges, the performances of his two flute sonatas and chamber music with flute (Coloured Skies, Fantasia Concertante, Three Divertimenti and El Port De La Selva) play like a dream. He is ably partnered by a Who’s Who of Singapore music, including Beatrice Lin (piano), Katryna Tan (harp), Kevin Loh (guitar) and Eugene Toh (percussion).

WORKS FOR VIOLIN & PIANO

KAM NING (Violin) &

Liebrecht Vanbeckevoort (Piano)

Etcetera 1582

The Dutch label Etcetera has found a winner in Singaporean violinist Kam Ning who displays incisive and sensitive playing, and her lovely string tone, in this wonderfully contrasted recital disc of music by Mendelssohn (Sonata in F major), Stravinsky (Suite Italienne) and Prokofiev (Sonata No.2). All three works have a common factor, namely a fond look back at past musical traditions, which are well-served by Kam’s vision of conceptual simplicity coupled with outsized virtuosity. A joy to listen.    

WORST CD RECORDING

BEST LISZT 100

Warner Classics 837942

Some bright spark had the idea of cramming 100 tracks of music by Hungarian pianist-composer Franz Liszt into six compact discs for this compilation box-set. This was achieved by sub-dividing his two piano concertos into 10 separate tracks, and allotting the Sonata in B minor some 7 tracks. Also reliving the acts of Procrustes, a number of works, such as Les Preludes, Totentanz and Hungarian Fantasy, had been truncated to fit the confines of each disc’s time limit. There are neither programme notes nor a biography of Liszt, so one wonders to whom this exercise of dumbing down was targeted.     

MELVYN TAN GALA CONCERT / Review

MELVYN TAN GALA CONCERT

Esplanade Concert Hall

Wednesday (27 December 2017)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 29 December 2017 with the title "Pianist Melvyn Tan lights the way for series of concerts".

Singapore-born British pianist Melvyn Tan was the first performer of the Aureus Great Artist Series, an ambitious line-up of concerts organised by Aureus Academy, Singapore fastest growing private music education institution. His recital, entitled Dances and Mirrors, was a well-conceived programme built around the music of Maurice Ravel.

The short first half featured waltzes, opening with Weber's Invitation To The Dance. Its slow and courtly introduction depicts a gentleman politely addressing a lady, and her gracious acceptance, before leading to the ballroom floor. The entreaties were however broken by a bawling toddler who had to be carried out of the hall.

Unperturbed, Tan leapt brilliantly into the waltz proper, one that pulsed and heaved as one breathed. Far from being metronomic, Tan's dance delighted in liberal rubato, deliberately slowing down before gathering speed once more, giving the music both life and lilt. The over-arching climax and false ending had the audience applauding prematurely, before a return to the earlier pleasantries.

The eight short waltzes of Ravel's Valses nobles et sentimentales came next, modelled on Schubert's similarly titled groups of dances. A plethora of dynamic contrasts were brought out, highlighting many facets of these sparkling polished gems. Boisterous yet coy, brusque yet tender, Tan found them all and never once did he miss out on the vital and unceasing rhythm.

The longer second half saw the five impressionistic pieces of Ravel's Miroirs (Mirrors) separated into four suites. Within each group, works by Liszt and Scarlatti were imaginatively selected to mirror Ravel for a show of converging inspirations and diverging outcomes.

Some masochistic impulse must have possessed Tan to begin with Liszt's Feux Follets (Will-o'-the-wisp), arguable the keyboard repertoire's most merciless finger-twister. Although he came through relatively unscathed, the account came across as effortful. More comfortable he was with the flittering and flickering denizens of Ravel's Noctuelles, an evocative portrait of night moths, and the resounding echoes of Oiseaux Tristes, which sounded magical.

The watery realm was explored next in Liszt's Les jeux d'eau à la Villa d'Este, a gushy play of spouting fountains. There was a brief lapse of focus midway, but benediction was found at its spiritual close and the ensuing roar of waves in Ravel's Une barque sur l'ocean.

The third suite was the most unrelenting, with two Scarlatti sonatas simulating outsized sonorities of military parades (with drums and trumpets aplenty) and flamenco guitar. The nightmare of repeated notes in the D minor Sonata (K.141) was then mirrored in Ravel's Alborada del gracioso, the unfettered morning dance of a court jester. Here, the highly animated and demonstrative Tan became the jester himself.

Closing the recital were the pealing tones of Liszt's Bells Of Geneva and Ravel's The Valley Of Bells, which made for a sublime and quiet ending. Instead of playing an encore, Tan gave way for two of his youngest students, Aaron Oh and Asher Khoo, who impressed on four hands with the evening's final dance - a Johann Strauss polka. 

CD Review (The Straits Times, December 2017)

2017 NEW YEAR'S CONCERT

Vienna Philharmonic / Gustavo Dudamel

Sony Classical 88985376152 (2 CDs) 

****1/2

It is amazing to ponder the fact that the New Year's Day Concert by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra continues to bring up new works never previously performed at this landmark institution. 

Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel's first appearance unfortunately did not present some Latino pops classics, but no less than eight “premieres” were heard, including favourites like Emile Waldteufel's Skaters Waltz (Les Patineurs) and Franz von Suppe's Pique Dame Overture. The concert opened with Franz Lehar's Nechledil March, ever bit as rousing and clappable as Johann Strauss the Elder's Radetzky March that closed the event.

In between, there were first performances of Johann Strauss the Younger's Rotunde-Quadrille, Die Extravaganten and fast polkas Auf Zum Tanze! (Let's Dance!) and Pepita Polka, all sparkling like bubbly champagne. The Wiener Singverein chorus also made its debut, singing in the Moon Chorus from The Merry Wives Of Windsor by the orchestra's founder Otto Nicolai. 

Not to be outdone, the orchestral players themselves have their voices heard in Strauss' Tik-Tak Polka (not to be confused with the better-known Tritsch-Tratsch Polka) besides their customary shouted new year's greeting. The Beautiful Blue Danube gets its due, as always, and what would the Vienna New Year's Concert be without it?  

A CONCERT NOT TO BE MISSED: MELVYN TAN GALA CONCERT on 27 December 2017

Here's a concert not to be missed:

Hear MELVYN TAN, the greatest pianist Singapore has ever produced, perform in a piano recital at Esplanade Concert Hall. Presented in the Aureus Great Artists Series by Aureus Academy, Melvyn Tan performs a dance-inspired programme of music by Weber, Ravel, Liszt and Scarlatti.

MELVYN TAN GALA CONCERT

Wednesday, 27 December 2017

Esplanade Concert Hall, 7.30 pm

To book tickets, click on: 

https://www.sistic.com.sg/events/cgala1217

The programme:

WEBER Invitation to the Dance

RAVEL Valses nobles et sentimentales

LISZT Feux follets

LISZT Les Cloches de Geneve

LISZT Les jeux d'eau a ala Villa d'Este

SCARLATTI 2 Sonatas

RAVEL Miroirs

TWO SINGAPOREANS SELECTED FOR THE 2018 LEEDS INTERNATIONAL PIANO COMPETITION!

For the first time in ages, two Singaporeans have been selected to participate in the 1st Round of the Leeds International Piano Competition. They are CLARENCE LEE and KSENIIA VOKHMIANINA (originally from the Ukraine), who will perform on 8 April 2018 at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory. 

The last time any Singaporean got to play in the Leeds dates back to the 1970s when the likes of Melvyn Tan and Seow Yit Kin got to participate.

There were over 200 entries this year for the United Kingdom's most prestigious piano competition, and 68 pianists were selected to perform in the decentralised 1st round, which takes place in Berlin, New York and Singapore. This is the first time that the competition is being held outside of the West Yorkshire city of Leeds. 24 pianists will then be selected to perform in the 2nd round which carries on in Leeds from August 2018. 

So make a date for Sunday 8 April 2018 to cheer on our young musical talents. Let's hope our locally trained artists (Clarence at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory and Kseniia at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts) get to go all the way!

CHRISTMAS CONCERT 2017 / Ensemble de la Belle Musique / Review

CHRISTMAS CONCERT 2017

Ensemble de la Belle Musique

Esplanade Recital Studio

Monday (18 December 2017)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 20 December 2017 with the title "Ensemble's debut is a sugar plum fairy party".

Imagine going to a buffet and heading straight for the desserts to face an array of pastries, cakes, puddings, jellies, ice-creams and a chocolate fountain. Ensemble de la Belle Musique's (EBM) inaugural concert was the musical equivalent of a sugar plum fairy orgy, made more apparent by its Christmas theme.

The philosophy of EBM – founded by twin-pianists/composers Low Shao Ying and Shao Suan and Emmy-nominated composer Joseph Curiale - was to promote and perform only tonal and aurally beautiful compositions. Consciously rejecting atonalism, serialism, avant-gardeism, the idea was to present music players love to perform and audiences want to hear.

There was none of the bland soppiness associated with André Rieu, Richard Clayderman and their ilk. There was also no need for listeners to swallow an entire cheesecake whole as the pieces were short and palatable, each lasting from three to eight minutes. The ensemble comprising 22 musicians led by conductor Leonard Tan premiered 11 works by 11 composers from Singapore, Australia, United States of America, Denmark and Spain.  

There were two commissioned works, Dane Martin Åkerwall's The Snow Queen and Spaniard Ricardo Molla's Dulcinea. The former conjured a soundscape redolent of fairy-tale film music in two movements, while the latter played up contrasts in Chua Lik Wuk's violin and Eddie Sim's cello, its title highlighting the knight Don Quixote's unattainable dream.

The Australian Daxter Yeo had two works performed, Belle Reveries being a slow waltz for piano and strings while La Vie Est Belle unfolded sumptuously like a Mahlerian slow movement, a crescendo building up to a big climax before receding to quietness. Here is a composer who deserves to be heard again.

Fellow Australian Paul Kopetz's Island Christmas Dawn had Jonathan Lim's soprano saxophone rising to accompanying strings like a nascent sun, while American Michael Winstanley's The Ice Palace Waltz was an upbeat number more in common with waltzes from Shostakovich's Jazz Suites than Johann Strauss. American Kari Medina's Christmas Reveries shifted from moody minor to cheery major keys, closing with an effusive expression of warmth and happiness.

What about the five Singaporean composers represented? Yvonne Teo's Christmas Waltz opened with a “Once upon a time” introduction before a wistful and casually-paced three-quarter rhythm ensued. Germaine Goh's Christmas in June generated a feeling of mystique, but instead of snow there was sunshine, unleashed by the brass – Dixie De Souza's French horn, Kenneth Lun's trumpet and David Wong's trombone - for a big melody at its close.

Twin sisters Evelyn and Frances Goh's Please Think Of Me This Christmas (arranged by Jason Shahul) resonated like a K-Pop ballad before ending in totally agreeable C major. One suspects the final work, Around The World In One Night by Jon Tho, will be played the most. This was a jazzy big band romp alluding to popular Christmas songs in a most irrepressible of Santa sleigh-rides. There can be no better call to bring out the bubbly.

The star-studded ensemble included former SSO violinists
Yew Shan and Chua Lik Wuk, and the
twin sister-act of Low Shao Ying & Shao Suan.

Young composer Jon Tho speaks while
the Goh sisters look on.

CD Review (The Straits Times, December 2017)

THE PAUL BADURA-SKODA EDITION

Deutsche Grammophon 479 8065 (20 CDs) 

****1/2

This handsome twenty-disc box-set celebrates the 90^th birthday of Austrian pianist Paul Badura-Skoda (born 6 October 1927), who is best known for his interpretations of the Viennese classics – the music of Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert. 

These are gloriously represented by his recordings on the now-defunct British Westminster label from 1951 to 1965. All the five Beethoven piano concertos are accompanied by the Vienna State Opera Orchestra conducted by Hermann Scherchen. These and six Mozart piano concertos (Nos.19, 20, 22, 23, 24 and 27), also partnered by Viennese orchestras, sound fresh and energetic, and occasionally include his own idiomatic cadenzas.

As a sensitive chamber music, he partnered fellow Viennese Jörg Demus in 4-hands piano music by Mozart and Schubert; and violinist Jean Fournier and cellist Antonio Janigro in selected piano trios by Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert and Brahms. With members of the Barylli Quartet, an ebullient reading of Schubert’s Trout Quintet was the result.

Less well known are his performances of 20^th century and Romantic repertoire, the latter including some unexpected choices – piano concertos by Chopin, Franck, Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov and Scriabin. The young Badura-Skoda displayed a fire and passion one might not have been aware of. 

Just as satisfying are the discs of solo piano music (Schubert, Schumann, Chopin, Brahms and some anachronistic Bach), capped by an hour of encores which has him attempting Liszt and Ravel. The majority of the recordings are in monaural sound, but revelatory listening beckons.     

Some Photographs from PIANO MARATHON 2017

After a hiatus of some 15 years, the Piano Marathon returned to public consciousness on Saturday 16 December 2017 (incidentally Beethoven's birthday) at the 1st floor plaza of ION Orchard. Organised by Steinway Gallery Singapore and The Rice Pte Ltd, the voluntary public piano-playing event attracted over 120 participants who performed continuously for 13 hours to raise funds for charity. The beneficiary of Piano Marathon 2017 was the Business Times Budding Artist Fund. 

Just a bit of background history, the first ever Piano Marathon was held in 1998 at Raffles City Atrium. That and the three subsequent marathons (Music Marathon 1999, Children's Music Marathon 2000 and Music Marathon 2002) were organised by the Singapore Symphonia Co. Ltd. in aid of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra. 

The masterminds of the endeavour were Phan Ming Yen, former SSO General Manager Tisa Ho and yours truly. The first marathon saw 122 pianists perform from 10 am to 11 am, and was opened by the late  then-Chairman of SSO and former Attorney General Mr Tan Boon Teik who played Chopin's L'Adieu Waltz. At 70, he was the Marathon's oldest performer, a record I believe still stands. Late in the evening, Ming Yen and myself closed with a 4-hand version of Rossini's William Tell Overture.

The second marathon in 1999 involved other instruments and voice in addition to the piano, and took place over two days (24 hours in total) at SUNTEC City, involving over 200 performers. In those days, the Singapore Book of Records did not exist and the "records" set then had not been documented. This year's statistics were however captured by the Singapore Book of Records, and hopefully preserved for posterity. 

This year's Piano Marathon was opened by
14-year-old Pung Rae Yue who performed a
recital with music by Chopin & Debussy.

Kion Chew exhibited remarkable maturity
by performing 15 of J.S. Bach's Sinfonias.

A very dapper Ryan Phuan mastered
a selection of Tchaikovsky's Seasons.

Kion and Ryan in a very interesting
medley of tunes from Mozart's Magic Flute.

Some of the youngest performers with their
teacher Christine Gan and Celine Goh
from Steinway Gallery Singapore.

The youngest performer at the Piano Marathon
was only 4 years old.

More youngsters and budding pianists.

There were older performers too, like this duo of young adults
who played William Bolcom's Serpent's Kiss.

Celebrity performer time:
Former Nominated Member of Parliament
Eunice Olsen tickles the ivories in a Christmas medley.

This teenager sang Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah.

All dressed up to perform!

Piano teacher Corinna Chang with one of her students.

Less cute and less cuddly, then came my turn to sub
for any pianist who failed to turn up,
playing Bach-Siloti Air in D major.
Photograph by: Emily Gouw

Now a larger crowd had gathered in the early evening
to witness Lucas Ong playing Grieg's March of the
Internet Trolls and Fazil Say's Paganini Jazz.

After hanging around for close to eight hours, it was time to take my leave. Needless to say Piano Marathon 2017 proved to be a big hit, and it is hoped that this event continues to engage the public as it did 19 years ago.

CD Review (The Straits Times, December 2017)

VICTOR HERBERT Cello Concertos

Mark Kosower, Cello

Ulster Orchestra / JoAnn Falletta

Naxos 8.573517 / ****1/2

The Dublin-born American composer Victor Herbert (1859-1924) was a virtuoso cellist and bandleader before making his fame by writing musicals such as Babes In Toyland. His two cello concertos deserve to be heard mostly because they are filled with good memorable tunes besides being totally concert-worthy vehicles for cello virtuosos.

The First Cello Concerto in D major (1884) is slightly longer and in the traditional three-movement form that is shared by most Romantic concertos. His Second Cello Concerto in E minor (1894) is rather more famous, mostly because it had given the great Bohemian composer Antonin Dvorak, then living in the States, ideas about writing his own cello concerto. The cyclical form with recurring themes contrasting the dramatic and lyrical, within three connected sections, makes it a concentrated but absorbing listen.

The likes of Yo-Yo Ma and Gautier Capucon have recorded it, both coupled with the Dvorak Cello Concerto. American cellist Mark Kosower is their equal and his disc provides further opportunities to explore unfamiliar territory. The splendid Ulster Orchestra directed by JoAnn Falletta adds Herbert's Irish Rhapsody (1892) which strings together popular Irish melodies of the time to glorious effect.      

NATIONAL PIANO & VIOLIN COMPETITION 2017: ARTIST CATEGORY FINALS / An Observation And Some Thoughts

NATIONAL PIANO & 

VIOLIN COMPETITION 2017

ARTIST CATEGORY FINALS:

AN OBSERVATION & SOME THOUGHTS

Victoria Concert Hall

Saturday & Sunday 

(9 & 10 December 2017)

The biannual spectacular that is the National Piano Violin Competition (NPVC) is now managed by the Singapore Symphony Group, having taken over the reins from the National Arts Council after the 2015 edition. Much remained unchanged in the format, performance categories and repertoire requirements, and the grand finals for the Artist Category culminates with concerto performances with the NPVC Orchestra. This generically named orchestra is none other than the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, but shorn of principal players and augmented by free-lance professionals.  The conductor taking over Chan Tze Law's role (who had conducted the last six editions since 2005) was Joshua Kangming Tan.

There were only two finalists in this year's Violin Artist Category, chosen from a field of just four competitors.  It was notable that the two finalists were also the youngest, and neither of them were students of the local Conservatory.

It may be said that 12-year-old Yuri Tanaka from Japan (but resident in Singapore) has already won by making it to the finals after two gruelling earlier rounds. Her view of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E minor had much to recommend. She was quietly confident, extremely musical and produced a pleasing sound, topped with excellent intonation. She was on a reserved side in expression, and did not need to resort to extraneous gestures or movements to make her point. Her oh-so-correct demeanour is down to good teaching, as is her non-histrionic manner to rise to the music's challenges. There were rough edges in the heat of performance, such as in the mercurial finale, but she has many years ahead to polish and smoothen these out.

By comparison, 18-year-old Singaporean Ronan Lim Ziming almost seemed like an old master as he took on Sibelius' Violin Concerto in D minor. From the outset, one could feel his steely determination in this dark masterpiece. He produced a bigger and bolder sound, besides displaying a wider range of dynamics. His intonation was close to perfect and the first movement cadenzas, as with all the tricky articulation, were excellently dispatched. If there were a pinnacle to this reading, this took place in the slow movement which was scorched with a white hot intensity. By the finale, there were some frayed nerves but he overcame the quickfire dotted rhythms and relentless drive with astounding aplomb.

Having heard the Russian veteran Boris Belkin last week in Bangkok in the same concerto, I will not hesitate to add that young Ronan gave this listener a greater thrill and more spine-tingling moments. A shining future awaits. The jury of three adjudicators awarded 3^rd prize to Yuri Tanaka, and 2^nd prize to Ronan Lim, with the 1^st prize gone abegging.     

One disappointing aspect was the utter lack of public interest in this competition. The Straits Times declined my offer to cover the concerto final rounds (although the later Prize-giving Ceremony and Final Concert was reviewed). And there could not have been more than 100 souls who attended the violin concerto finals on Saturday evening. The piano finals on Sunday afternoon saw slightly more people turning up, but the stalls of Victoria Concert Hall was filled with many gaping seats. Should there have been more publicity for what is supposed to be a marquee event celebrating young local musical talent?

There were three finalists in the Piano Artist Category out of a field of nine. Their performances with the all-but-in-name SSO made for an absorbing afternoon of piano concertos. First up was Lily Phee who performed Mozart's Piano Concerto No.20 in D minor (K.466). She gave a totally musical account even if she did not project her limpid lines with the same power and force as the orchestra, which was for most part quite relentless in the driving opening movement. Her playing was however sensitive, with clarity and transparency being strong virtues. This was most apparent in the Romanze which was played most beautifully even if the central stormy G minor segment could have been better contrasted. The cadenzas were well-developed and the finale skipped with lightness and daintiness as it miraculous morphed from D minor to joyous D major. There was simply nothing to dislike in this performance.

Serene Koh, dressed in a glittery dark red sequinned gown, offered a strong Chopin First Piano Concerto in E minor, making a grand entry after the long orchestral tutti. Now we are now well and truly in the Romantic era, where passion and ardour rule over reserve and restraint. She delivered all this and more in a no-holds-barred reading that was also reliably accurate – with very few or no missed notes! The central Romance passed like a dream, taking its cantabile fully to heart.  The Rondo finale also came to life in a most ebullient manner, with her fingers flashing brilliantly its multitudes of notes. Have we found our 1^st prize winner?

Jeong Han Sol, who hails from South Korea but studies in a local institution, had no problems projecting in Beethoven's Emperor Concerto. His has a tendency to over-project, with loudness and brazenness, bordered on being pain-inducing. He is however capable of poetry and lyricism in the softer and slower parts, which provided relief from the aggressiveness that pervaded. That said, it were the many mistakes and slips that dogged this performance as a whole. On another day, he would have given a note-accurate account, so this rough and ready outing was most probably down to sheer nerves.       

It came as a surprise to me that no 1^st prize was awarded (again!). Serene Koh placed 2^nd (still the top placing) while Jeong Han Sol should be satisfied with coming in 3^rd. 

Lily Phee in the Quarter-final round
performing Chopin's Second Ballade.

That the totally musical Lily Phee was not placed, and not even given an Honorable Mention has to be the scandal of this year's competition. Had it not mattered that she had passed through two tough rounds and bested six other players to make it to the finals, and all her hard work in Mozart K.466 had counted for nothing? While I note that the jury’s decision is final, this non-acknowledgement was not only discouraging, but also downright cruel. I can only attribute this to the moral cowardice of the jury, comprising Choo Hoey, Dennis Lee and Artur Pizarro.

One only hopes that a true musician will through his or her experiences - both good and bad - learn to overlook such rejections and become a stronger and wiser person in the long road ahead which we call life.  

Yuri Tanaka with her teachers
Alexander Souptel and Masako Suzuki.

Serene Koh with her
childhood piano teacher Angelyn Aw.