PRESIDENT’S YOUNG
PERFORMERS CONCERT
Singapore Symphony Orchestra
Victoria Concert Hall
Saturday (12 September 2026)
This review was published in The Straits Times on 13 September 2026 with the title "Singaporean classical talents shine in President's Young Performers Concert".
The annual President’s Young Performers Concert by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra is the ultimate platform for Singaporean classical soloists under the age of 25. This year’s edition, conducted by Jason Lai, had several interesting and pleasant surprises. For the first time, each concertante work was preceded and complemented by a rarely-played purely orchestral work.
English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams’ The Wasps Overture (1909), with its buzzing strings and rousing pentatonic melodies, was the prelude to Swedish composer and orthopaedic practitioner Franz Berwald’s Konzertstuck (Concert Piece, 1827) for bassoon and orchestra.
Typical of early-Romantic showpieces, its mix of bel canto lyricism and technical pyrotechnics also included a set of florid variations on Henry Bishop’s Home, Sweet Home. Its myriad complexities were superbly articulated by Shi Jia Ao, Yong Siew Toh Conservatory alumnus presently pursuing his masters degree in Mannheim, Germany.
Frenchman Andre Caplet’s lush 1911 orchestration of Claude Debussy’s popular Clair de lune heralded an even more sensuous work, Maurice Ravel’s song cycle Sheherazade (1903). The titular character from the Arabian Nights does not appear here, instead its intimations of exoticism and eroticism are explicit in the French texts by Tristan Klingsor, nom-de-plume of Leon Leclere.
Soprano Natasha Da Costa lived every word from the moment she sultrily voiced “Asie, Asie, Asie”, an invitation to dream and escape into the allure of Asia. Her perfect French and strong characterisations continued into La flute enchantee (The Enchanted Flute), a love song with Evgueni Brokmiller’s sinuous flute solo as protagonist, and L’indifferent (The Indifferent One) where beauty is unattainable and desire unfulfilled.
Another English work, George Butterworth’s The Banks of Green Willow (1913), opened the concert’s second half. SSO’s fabled strings were evocative of an English pastoral scene, filled with nostalgia and capturing the loss of innocence. Poignantly, this became Butterworth’s masterpiece before he was killed on the Somme during the First World War.
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| Photo: Clive Choo |
Far more cheerful was Erich Korngold’s Violin Concerto (1947), one of the most-performed 20th century violin concertos. Famously premiered by Lithuanian-American violinist Jascha Heifetz, it received a suitably extroverted performance from Kaelyn Soh, who is double majoring in Music and Chemistry / Molecular Physics in London.
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| Kaelyn Soh in 2014, when she won the Mediacorp Symphony 92.4 Young Talents Competition. |
Its three movements drew from four Hollywood movies scored by Korngold - Another Dawn, Juarez, Anthony Adverse and The Prince and the Pauper. Totally comfortable with its blend of arch-lyricism and virtuosic diablerie, Soh commanded the stage with bold authority and stunning aplomb.
The audience was moved to applaud between every movement, however inappropriately, but accorded her a rare standing ovation on the concerto’s conclusion. Attended by President Tharman Shanmugaratnam and Jane Ittogi, this concert shone for its eclecticism and excellence of execution. Verdict: the kids are getting better and better.
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| President Tharman Shanmugaratnam and Jane Ittogi meet with music philanthropists Kris Tan and Lim Kang Ning. |
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