TOUCH 2024
National University of Singapore
Piano Ensemble (NUSPE)
Esplanade Recital Studio
Monday (8 April 2024)
One of my favourite activities as an undergraduate at the National University of Singapore during the mid to late 1980s was to escape to the Centre for Musical Activities (now Centre for the Arts, or CFA), where I sampled records in its LP collection, attended music talks and occasional concerts.
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| The Centre for Musical Activities (CMA) then, now the Centre for the Arts (CFA) Studios. |
A particular concert which caught my interest was the one by the Piano Ensemble (NUSPE), where one got to enjoy piano repertoire performed by fellow students. The overall standard was mostly middling to pretty good, not much to write home about, but sharing with them a common interest in piano playing was a wholesome hobby, and that was enough for me.
Imagine my pleasure to be invited to the annual NUSPE concert, titled Touch 2024, to find that the world of amateur piano pursuits has completely evolved. This recital involved 28 young pianists, performing on two pianos 14 works most of which may rightly be called rarities.
There was absolutely nothing by Rachmaninov, Liszt, Mozart, Schubert or Schumann. The very interesting repertoire may instead be classified under three unusually distinct categories: works by woman composers, works from the Americas, and works from the present / former Communist bloc.
Am I in Husum (another word for piano heaven)? No, its just the Esplanade Recital Studio but piano rarities are in the air. And performed at a very high level. 12 of the 14 duos accomplished the onerous task of playing completely from memory some very technically difficult music, and there were no performance which were indifferent or half-baked. Everyone was well prepared and out there having a good time.
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| Koh Xin Ruo & Samantha Kuek playing Mel Bonis |
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| Sugimoto Takami & Lim Cheng An go to the Beach. |
Let it never be said that women are lesser or inferior to men. These pieces represent wonderful music, well-crafted and full of charm, totally enjoyable within the hands of Koh Qin Ruo and Samantha Kuek (Bonis), Sugimoto Takami and Lim Cheng An (Beach), Shen Congzhe and Zhao Zijie (Chaminade), and Ng Jing Ting and Liew Xin Yi (Tailleferre). Of these, the two varied movements of Tailleferre (the only lady member of Les Six) left the strongest impression.
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| Shen Congzhe & Zhao Zijie charmed in Chaminade. |
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| Ng Jing Ting & Liew Xin Yi made the strongest impression with Tailleferre. |
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| Hoang Manh Duc & Zhang Ming entertained with Piazzolla. |
From the Americas came perhaps the two most familiar pieces, Astor Piazzolla’s Adios Nonino, a tango dedicated in memory of his father played with flair by Hoang Manh Duc and Zhang Ming, and most entertaining of all, William Bolcom’s ragtime fantasy The Serpent’s Kiss (from The Garden of Eden), complete with foot-stomping, rapping of piano wood and audible tongue clicking from He Yuxin and Zhang Ziye.
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| He Yuxin & Zhang Ziye had a great time with Bolcom. |
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| Kelly Amanda & Zheng Yilin in more rhythmic Copland. |
Aaron Copland’s Danza de Jalisco (from Latin American Sketches) from Kelly Amanda and Zheng Yilin was a engaging first cousin of his more extended El Salon Mexico.
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| Chua Zi Tao speaks about his new work. |
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| Chua Zi Tao & Phua Guan Wei give a world premiere. |
The sole local work was the World Premiere of young composer Chua Zi Tao’s A Musical Box from a Distant Land, which he cheekily referred to as “the quietest piece in the whole concert”. Performed by the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory undergraduate himself and Phua Guan Wei, the work was an oasis of static stillness, with soft chords and birdsong permeating the air, a refreshing breath of fresh air away from the hustle-bustle of keyboard pyrotechnics.
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| Gwendolyn Heng & Wu Ziye opened the evening with Khachaturian |
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| Verrin Bo & Celine Tan with Arutiunian & Babadjanian's Armenian Rhapsody |
From the former and present Communist / Soviet bloc nations were Armenian Aram Khachaturian’s Fantastic Waltz (elegantly played by Gwendolyn Heng and Wu Ziye), the jointly-composed Armenian Rhapsody by Alexander Arutiunian and Arno Babadjanian, with each composer separately writing the primo and secondo parts. Verrin Bo and Celine Tan gave one of the evening’s most convincing performances.
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| Lai Ruo Yan & See Xian Hui go to Vietnam! |
From Vietnam came the Singapore premiere of Dang Huu Phuc’s Con Ga Rung (Wild Chicken) and Trong Com (Rice Drums) from Lai Ruo Yan and See Xian Hui, two short pieces that delighted in ostinato rhythms and pentatonic melodies. Imagine Bartok in Saigon, and one gets the picture.
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| Mao Huanqing & Zhao Yushan commune with Kabalevsky. |
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| Chua Zhan Au & Joshua Ngeow Defending the Yellow River. |
The former Soviet Union saw Dmitri Kabalevsky’s Youth Concerto, a pleasing Socialist Realist potboiler. The first movement has sappy tunes but was well-played by Mao Huanqing and Zhao Yushan. In a similar vein was the populist finale Defend the Yellow River from the China Central Philharmonic Committee’s infamous Yellow River Concerto. Shamelessly jingoistic and copying from Liszt, Chopin, Rachmaninov and Grieg, and throwing in The East Is Red for good measure, a suitably bravura account was afforded by Chua Zhan Au and Joshua Ngeow, which closed the evening on a flag-waving high.
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| The late Nikolai Kapustin will be pleased his music's being played in Singapore. |
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| Best performance of all! Tan Chong Ren & Ma Yuchen in Kapustin. |
Wait! Stop press! I have not even mentioned the best performance of the evening. That had to be Tan Chong Ren and Ma Yuchen’s no holds barred recital of Nikolai Kapustin’s Fourth Piano Concerto, which has to be a Singapore premiere. Scored in jazz and popular dance idioms, this freewheeling work received as rhythmically vibrant and unbuttoned reading as could be hoped for. That the duo mastered this completely from memory was just a staggering thought.
If anyone had said these pianists (and the other 26 for that matter) were Conservatory students, I would have been none the wiser. A hearty molto bravissimi to all!
N.B. The NUS Piano Ensemble is now tutored by Dr Choi Hye-Seon, vocal coach / accompanist at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory.
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| We're not gangsters. We're from NUS! |
The nice professionally taken photos were by Marcus Soh Zheng Yang. The others, you can lay the blame on Pianomaniac.
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