FRIENDS IN RHYTHM / Singapore Percussion Association & Friends / Review

 

FRIENDS IN RHYTHM

Singapore Percussion Association & Friends

Esplanade Recital Studio

Wednesday (12 August 2026)

I never knew about the Singapore Percussion Association (SPA) until late last week. Now I know. Founded by Mario Choo, percussionist of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, the association presented a very enjoyable 70-minute concert with members Benjamin Boo (Principal percussionist of the Singapore Chinese Orchestra) and Hazizi Jaafar (freelance percussionist), and their friends.

Photo: Umagic Studio

The well-attended concert opened with Calvin Warren’s Truncated with three men huddled around assorted drums and cymbals. This was a brief but exuberant “fanfare”, erupting with energy and flair, a literally striking beginning to the evening.

Photo: Umagic Studio

Next came Lou Harrison’s First Concerto for Flute & Percussion, a three-movement fast-slow-fast work with Eric Lamb, Head of wind, brass and percussion at Yong Siew Toh Conservatory accompanied by Choo. Busy Bach-like counterpoint occupied the swift outer movements, sandwiching a central movement of haunting beauty, with long-breathed aria backed by the quiet chime of gongs, evocative of Bali or somewhere exotic in the Orient.

Coloratura soprano Wang Tong, also Mario’s wife, was literally carried on stage for a sparkling performance of Les oiseaux dans la Charmille, the famous Doll Song from Jacques Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann. This arrangement by Choo included accompaniment by piano, flute, marimba and triangle and ratchet (cog rattle). Those familiar with Sumi Jo’s performance know what to expect when the automaton winds down, with Wang Tong brought back to life with a giant key by Hazizi. 

Photo: Umagic Studio

Tickled by the spectacle, people in the front row started taking photos, but were stopped by very obtrusive Esplanade ushers despite a prior announcement that photos and videos were permissible. Who are the real-life automatons now?

Esplanade staff only know how to spoil a show.

Photo: Umagic Studio

For Ben Cato’s Hidden Universe, three men huddled around a marimba for another love-in. This time, the sonorities resonant but mellow, with the syncopated rhythms being more comforting rather than strident. Mario’s remark “I just love off-beats” was on the dot.

Photo: Umagic Studio

The bell is an instrument from the world of percussion, and a tribute was provided by Thai pianist Poom Prommachart, head of junior music at Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, in the form of Marc-Andre Hamelin’s Etude No.3 d’apres Paganini-Liszt. This is a fiendishly distorted vista of La Campanella heavy with bass notes, exaggerated grace notes, misplaced harmonies and general virtuoso mayhem. Hamelin, who was in Singapore last weekend, would have approved.

Photo:  Umagic Studio

Wang Tong returned for the lovely Chi il bel sogno di Doretta (The Beautiful Dream of Doretta), the most famous aria from Puccini’s early opera La Rondine. Accompanied by pianist Poom, this was just enchanting. Andrea Venet’s Omnes Trio completed the three-man percussion fiesta, now huddled around a central bass drum and smaller drums. Opening with a strike of a tam tam, and a hint of a theme on cymbals, another rhythmic and exuberant show erupted to close the percussion showcase as it began.

Photo: Umagic Studio

Photo: Umagic Studio

The enchanted evening closed with the Xinjiang folksong, Shang De Yi’s Serene Pastures of July, imbued with Central Asian flavour and mystique, as Wang Tong was accompanied by the full monty tutti. As an encore, she and Poom obliged with Schumann’s Widmung (Op.25 No.1), a dedication to every person in the audience. One can hardly wait for the next SPA concert.

Photo: Umagic Studio

INTIMATE INTRICACIES & FOR OUR DREAMS / Ding Yi Music Company / Singapore Chinese Orchestra / Review

INTIMATE INTRICACIES

Ding Yi Music Company

Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre

Saturday (10 June 2023), 3.30pm

 

FOR OUR DREAMS:

WANG CHENWEI’S 

COMPOSITIONAL SHOWCASE

Singapore Chinese Orchestra

Saturday (10 June 2023), 7.30pm

This review was published in The Straits Times on 15 June 2023 with the title "Ding Yi and Singapore Chinese Orchestra highlight homegrown composers in two concerts". 

Two concerts featured three young Singaporean composers within the short space of a single day. It appears that Chinese instrumental ensembles are doing the heavy lifting when it comes to promoting local compositional talent.

 

The first concert conducted by Quek Ling Kiong was a project commissioned by Ding Yi Music Company, part of its “Disappearing...” series of programmes documenting the plight of Chinese cultural heritage at risk of being lost forever. In an hour-long film scripted by Jesvin Yeo and directed by Eric Wong, the subjects of giant joss stick making and Teochew embroidery were sensitively handled in the orchestral scores Scent Of Reminiscence by Liong Kit Yeng and Iridescent Threads by Ding Yi composer-in-residence Jon Lin Chua respectively.

 

The preludes, Liong’s Handicrafts and Chua’s Heartcrafts, were easily relatable and created the right mood for recounting poignant personal stories of third generation artisans Albert Tay and Jeffrey Eng. In the case of Tay’s family business (Tay Guan Heng), this narrative has come too late as secularism, anti-pollution laws and family bereavement have contrived to make his giant joss sticks craft obsolete. A rebirth is however represented by the incense recycled as incense-infused pottery by artist Oh Chai Hoo.

More fortunate were Eng’s embroidery endeavours, the comforting clatter of his trusty Singer sewing machine being skilfully dovetailed into Chua’s music with Yvonne Tay’s guzheng providing a mirror-like counterpoint. Moments like this and the optimistic end-credits titled Friendship provide hope that when people choose to remember, not all is lost.   

 

The second concert, led by conductor emeritus Yeh Tsung, featured four local premieres by Singapore Chinese Orchestra composer-in-residence Wang Chenwei. The mind boggled at how these very accessible works have never previously been heard here. For Our Dreams (2021) made for a rousing opener with a big central melody that resembled a cross between Scottish folksong O Waly, Waly and some National Day Parade crowd pleaser.

 

Wang is credited to have composed music’s first-ever virtuoso concerto for the diyin sheng, possibly the mouth organ with the world’s largest pipes. Taoyuan Wonderland (2020) featured soloist Lim Kiong Pin, who produced a deep bellowing sonority capable of an astonishing degree of agility. Its four short movements depicted picturesque scenes in Taiwan, with a recurring melody redolent of  I Saw Mummy Kissing Santa Claus.  

 

Postcards From Macao (2019) was a prime example of how to effectively write a musical travelogue. Its movements A-Ma Temple, Mount Fortress and Senado Square incorporated both Chinese idioms and Portuguese influences from the territory’s colonial history. The Portuguese term saudade, connoting nostalgic sadness and yearning, was eloquently expressed in a musical language common to both Eastern and Western viewpoints.    

 

The evening’s most impressive work was Wang’s Concerto for Chinese Percussion (2019), also titled Bronze Age Of Shang, with Benjamin Boo clearly relishing his virtuoso solo role. The three bronze objects referred to – a battle axe, wine vessel and ritual cauldron – represented the forging of a definitive Chinese identity in its first dynasty, circa 2000 BC. Boo’s mastery of a sprawling array of drums, cymbals, bells, gongs and bamboo clappers, a daunting feat of multi-tasking, brought out the longest and loudest plaudits.  

 

As the complete opposite of unfamiliarity, the upbeat encore Dauntless is likely - thanks to school competitions - the most-played Chinese orchestral work in the land. And for good reason too, as Wang’s craft of fashioning tunes and rhythms is totally infectious.

 

HOMECOMING III / Singapore Chinese Orchestra / Review

HOMECOMING III

Singapore Chinese Orchestra

Singapore Conference Hall

Saturday (27 April 2019)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 29 April 2019 with the title "Rousing finale for SCO's Homecoming concert".

Singapore Chinese Orchestra’s Homecoming series of concerts is a showcase of local musical talents who have established international careers, mostly while plying their artistry overseas. Past editions have included pianist Melvyn Tan, violinist Kam Ning, wind soloists Kwok Chin-chye and Choo Boon Chong, and the T’ang Quartet. This latest concert conducted by Yeh Tsung featured three SCO percussionists and America-based violinist Siow Lee-Chin as soloists.

There were two major concertante works by Singaporean composer Ho Chee Kong, Head of Composition at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory. Both works integrated solo parts so well into the orchestral fabric that these could be considered symphonic poems rather than actual concertos. The Way Of Play (2005) saw percussionists Xu Fan, Tan Loke Chuah and Benjamin Boo placed behind the orchestra but they generated enough volume and pulse to drive this work of extreme energy.

There was also a pan-Asian air to its palette of symphonic colours, leaving one to wonder whether the inspirations were Japanese, Javanese or from Jiangnan. Notions of temple and courtly rituals were conjured, but it was when conductor Yeh stepped off the podium to admire the threesome’s cadenza that one realised this was actually a virtuoso’s paradise.

  

More Chinese in feel was There And Back, a double concerto receiving its World Premiere by Siow and cellist Qin Li-Wei. Here, Ho crafted an atmospheric and cinematic score that evoked the rigours of a journey through China’s vast loess plateau. Siow’s ethereal violin opened the slow introduction, answered by Qin’s mellower and deeper plaint.

Before long, soloists and orchestra were swept into a rugged but exhilarating dance of the steppes. The most poignant moments transpired when the lights were further dimmed, revealing only Siow and Qin in an intimate duet, one of rapt stillness and seeming finality for the ages. This new work deserves to be heard in SCO’s future overseas tours.

Tagged on after the intermission were two solo works with Siow. Despite the obvious show of bravura, Henryk Wieniawski’s famous Polonaise in D major sounded unwieldy in its guise with Chinese orchestral accompaniment. Much better was Manuel Ponce’s Estrellita, with Siow’s flowing lyricism backed by shimmering huqins in Phang Kok Jun’s excellent arrangement.

The balance of the concert was a extroverted display of the Chinese orchestra’s wealth of instrumental colours and textures. Liu Qing’s Puppetry, which began the evening, was finely balanced between modernity and tradition. Concertmaster Li Bao Shun’s jinghu solo, like some suspended character from puppet theatre, served as a focal point.    

Zhao Ji Ping’s Homeland Nostalgia from Silk Road Melody was Debussyan in mood, with Zhao Jianhua’s erhu as protagonist while including the popular melody Chai Yun Zhui Yue (Colourful Clouds Chasing The Moon) as one of its motifs. Wang Danhong’s eclectic Macau Capriccio, more Western (with ideas from Tchaikovsky and Dave Brubeck) than oriental in feel, closed the evening on a rowdy note.