OUR MEMORIES, OUR SONGS / Resonance of Singapore Singers / Review

 

OUR MEMORIES, OUR SONGS

Resonance of Singapore Singers

Esplanade Recital Studio

Sunday (24 May 2026), 7.30 pm

This review was published in The Straits Times on 27 May 2026 with the title "Resonance of Singapore singers deftly mix nostalgic songs with new works".

Has there been a better-named vocal consort in Singapore than Resonance of Singapore (ROS) Singers? The 8-member professional and non-profit a capella group founded as recently as 2002 by Young Artist Award recipient Toh Ban Sheng has aspirations of making Singapore society better besides bringing out slickly-presented concerts.

Its latest offering, mixing well-known with the new, was another step in the right direction. Nostalgia is a strong emotion, and its first song When We Find A Child, arranged by Toh, had lots of that. The Shaker hymn Simple Gifts opened, and grafted upon it were Are You Sleeping (Frere Jacques), Ke Ren Lai (A Guest Comes) and Two Tigers, Running Fast, combining English and Chinese in busy counterpoint. All familiar, all beloved.

Toh’s creations are sophisticated, challenging to sing yet gratifyingly harmonious. In the Taiwanese Hakka song Lok Sui Tien (Rainy Day), its air of lamentation was crafted to sound like an Afro-American spiritual. Once heard, it cannot be unheard.

In Sounds of Nanyang, two popular songs, Molihua (sung in Chinese) and Dayong Sampan (Malay), merged in matrimony. This could not have taken place anywhere but Singapore. In the Anhui folksong Feng Yang Hua Gu (Flower Drum Song), the use of percussion lent it's ironic words a distinctly ethnic flavour. In both songs, the octet was joined by nine members of the ROS Youth Singers.

Western songs also found a place, with the descending note sequence of Elizabethan composer John Bennet’s Weep, O Mine Eyes being a classic study of word painting. Without knowing the lyrics, one instinctively knew this was a tragic lament. Similarly, Sergei Rachmaninov’s Bogoroditse Devo from All Night Vigil in its highest registers evoked reverence, as it is a Russian Hail Mary prayer.

In Hubert Parry’s There Is An Old Belief from Songs of Farewell, it was the promise of meeting in the next life that sustained hope for the bereaved. This belief was also reinforced in Jake Runestad’s Let My Love Be Heard, where rising voices as if lifted on the wings of angels generated the evening’s most thrilling and radiant moment.

Aaron Lee & John Lee
talk about their world premiere.

Very significant was the world premiere of bass-baritone John Lee’s Night Journeys, based on three poems by Singaporean poet Aaron Lee. The inspirations were diverse, but common to all was the quest for transcendence. Just Some Found Words dwelled on Truth, Love and Beauty, a journey leading to the idea of God and ultimate solace.

Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy was humourous, cheekily quoting from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker ballet. The final song, Moe’uhane, a Hawaiian word meaning “soul sleep”, was also the most comforting, its warmth derived from the trust and faith that one places when crossing oceans.

Photo: Ryan Cheung

It was back to beloved Malay folksongs of our childhood to close, more of Toh’s nifty arrangements - Ikan Kekek and Geylang Si Paku – which despite their carefree vibes carried cautionary words of wisdom. Chan Mali Chan as encore seemed like the most natural choice, and that too, was rendered with much joy.

Photo: Zhang Jin Tiao