BRIDGES ACROSS THE SEA: SJ60 GALA CONCERT / Review

 

BRIDGES ACROSS THE SEA:

SJ60 GALA CONCERT

Lee Foundation Theatre,

Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts

Monday (24 August 2026)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 27 August 2026 with the title "Young string talent shine in Japan-Singapore Youth Music Exchange gala concert".

Over four days of workshops, rehearsals and intense practice, 43 young string students from Singapore and Japan bonded in the Japan-Singapore Youth Music Exchange Programme. The Gala Concert, celebrating 60 years of friendship between two nations, was an enjoyable showcase of string music from Singapore, Japan and beyond.

Photo: Yong Junyi

Most of the works were conducted by programme director Yunosuke Yamamoto, former principal cellist of the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, beginning with the Allegro first movement from Yasushi Akutagawa’s Triptyque for string orchestra. In this dramatic and mildly dissonant music, the players displayed much cohesion and togetherness, not least in the unison passages.

The ensemble turned capable accompanist for the two outer fast movements from J.S.Bach’s Concerto in D minor (BWV.1052). This work exists in versions for both violin and keyboard as soloists. Singaporean violinist Gabriel Lee, member of Red Dot Baroque, gave an accomplished reading of the first movement, while pianist Kyoko Koyama who fluently accounted for the finale seemed to shun the limelight by having the piano placed on the orchestra’s far left.

Photo: Yong Junyi

Singaporean conductor Tan Wee-Hsin, former Singapore Symphony Orchestra violist, led in the next two works. It seemed scarcely credible for an ensemble of such briefly acquainted players to gel so well in Edward Elgar’s familiar Serenade for Strings.

They created a rich and homogeneous sonority, aided by close to excellent intonation, with the Larghetto slow movement being particularly lush. The refinement and restraint displayed showed that the students had been well mentored by the exchange faculty, senior members who also performed in their ranks.

Composer Chen Zhangyi gets the plaudits.

Young Artist Award recipient Chen Zhangyi’s Istana Woodneuk received a performance in its all-string version, minus the percussion. Cellist Stanley Ngai and violinist Zanna Phua starred as Sultan Ibrahim and his Scottish Sultana Helen respectively in a romance whose parts were delightfully intertwined amid scoring of Malay rhythms and opulent string textures.

From L to R: Yoichi Yamashita,
Rebecca Oh, Nagane Mei & Dora Yang Rui
Photo: Yong Junyi

Next was a chance for eight violin soloists to strut their stuff in two movements from Antonio Vivaldi’s popular Concerto for four violins in B minor (RV.580). The audience was clearly entranced by the appearance of players with such great disparity of heights. Size mattered little in any case, as even the littlest among them - Dora Yong Rui, Esther Lim and Zhangming Xu - acquitted themselves very well.

From L to R: Takase Yusuke, Esther Lim,
Zhangming Xu & Saitoh Chika
Photo: Yong Junyi

The evening closed with arrangements of Japanese and local folksongs, including the earthy and vigorous fishing song Saitarabushi (arranged by Yamamoto) and Jinkli Sayang (arranged by Sulwyn Lok), the latter mashing up Jinkli Nona and Raya Sayang to ticklish effect.

Photo: Yong Junyi

The encore was Yamamoto’s lovely arrangement of the well-known Japanese song Lullaby of The Silk Tree (ねむの木のの子守歌, Nemunoki no Komoriuta), composed by his mother Masami in 1966. This touching setting of words by Empress Michiko was just the right balm to send everyone home with lightness in their hearts.

Photo: Yong Junyi