WILD & IN LOVE
re:mix
/ FOO SAY MING
re:mix #002 / *****
Remember
those suites of Beatles hits arranged and dressed up as baroque concerti
grossi? Here is a new album of popular songs, golden oldies mixed with more
recent ones, performed by the land's leading purveyor of musical nostalgia, the
crack string ensemble re:mix led by Singapore Symphony Orchestra first
violinist Foo Say Ming.
The
two major works are by Hong Kong-based British composer-conductor Dominic
Sargent. Sonatina headily brings together the Bee Gees' Night Fever,
Lady Gaga's Bad Romance (masquerading as a Mahlerian ländler) and
Michael Jackson's Billie Jean. Longer and in five movements is Sonata
Latina, which recycles songs like Solamente Una Vez, Quizas
Quizas Quizas, Besame Mucho and Desafinado. Whoever thought
that Gloria Estefan and Miami Sound Machine's Conga could be spoofed so
deliciously as the finale from Bartok's Concerto For Orchestra?
Singaporean
arrangers Chen Zhangyi (Chinese evergreens Everlasting Love and Sands
Of Sorrow, and the Beatles’ Eleanor Rigby) and Derek Lim (Ye Lai
Xiang) also get a look in, but by no means a token one. Foo and his charges
are totally into this music and they are sumptuously recorded, making this classy
trip to yesteryear a most memorable one.
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