TRAVERSING / Ding Yi Music Company / Review

 

TRAVERSING

Ding Yi Music Company

Victoria Concert Hall

Saturday (11 April 2026)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 13 April 2026 with the title "Eclectic programme allows musicians to shine in Ding Yi concert".

The title of Ding Yi Music Company’s first evening of its concert season had to do with eclecticism and transcending geographical and cultural boundaries. Led by its chief artistic mentor Tsung Yeh, who regularly helmed similar programmes with the Singapore Chinese Orchestra, the concert was greater than the sum of its parts.

Tsung Yeh is the Conductor Emeritus
of the Singapore Chinese Orchestra
Photo: Ding Yi Music Company

Opening was the world premiere of Su Xiao’s short tone poem Sing A Pura. Beginning quietly with an air of mystery, the dizi gently rose above the percussion’s rhythmic accompaniment. The lilting dance that came after summed up the Chinese composer’s impressions of the city-state – lively, urbane and somewhat exotic.

More substantial was New York-based Singaporean composer Koh Cheng Jin’s Tang - Moonlight Fragrance, a single-movement concerto for orchestra inspired by Tang poetry. Huang Hsu-Lei’s long and impassioned dizi solo set the mood of contemplation. The demanding obbligato piano part with Ning An initially began as part of the general ensemble but soon grew in stature as the work picked up in tempo and volume.

Replacing guzheng and yangqin for creating specific sound textures, the part also included scraping the insides of the Steinway grand. Its percussive effects and virtuoso figurations also fueled the ethnic dance as the music lurched to a vigorous and wild close.

Photo: Ding Yi Music Company

The most demanding solo of the evening was by Yvonne Tay, whose guzheng worked overtime in Tang Jian Ping’s concerto Goddess of the Luo River. In a variegated score of multiple scenes, she cast a spellbinding thrall, from the gentlest of plinks to sweeping swathes of sound that rose above the orchestral throng. She literally personified the work’s subject, a figure of feminine grace and fearless self-empowerment.

Photo: Ding Yi Music Company

After a first half which did not pander to popular tastes, the concert’s latter half was to be much lighter. Bohemian cellist-composer David Popper’s Hungarian Rhapsody Op.68, arranged by Jon Lin Chua, was the virtuoso vehicle for Ding Yi’s Uzbek cellist Bekhzod Oblayorov. If the music sounded familiar, that was because it used the same Magyar folk sources as a number of Franz Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsodies. As with those florid piano fantasies, the cello was obliged to jump through many hoops for an enjoyable romp.

Eric Watson’s Celtic Knots, receiving its world premiere, was an engaging succession of Scottish, Irish and Welsh melodies. Given the modal nature of the songs, among them Suo Gan (heard in Steven Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun), these translated very well for Chinese instrumental treatment. And one has not lived without hearing the suona imitating bagpipes or Londonderry Air played on pipa.

Photo: Ding Yi Music Company

Closing the evening was the 1950s Chinese Socialist-Realist and populist Youth Piano Concerto, concocted by a committee of composers including Liu Shikun, Sun Yilin, Huang Xiaofei and Pan Yiming. Ning An returned as the brilliant soloist in three movements influenced by Russians Dmitri Kabalevsky and Sergei Rachmaninov but with Chinese characteristics. It was so well received that its final four minutes had to be encored.

Photo: Ding Yi Music Company

MEMOIRS IN MUSIC / Nanyang Collective / Review

 

MEMOIRS IN MUSIC

Nanyang Collective

Esplanade Recital Studio

Tuesday (9 December 2025)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 11 December 2025 with the title "Musical narrative of Singapore history deserves encore".

The SG60 commemoration continued with Memoirs In Music, a multi-disciplinary hour-long concert presentation by Nanyang Collective conducted by Dedric Wong. Its timing, coinciding with the Albatross File public exhibition at the National Library Board, seemed almost uncanny but it tapped on our nation’s sense of becoming by facing up to Singapore’s history as a modern city-state.

Photo: Aaron Ang

The story and script by Jasmin Wong thankfully avoided jingoism and self-congratulation, instead took on a wistfulness that people of a certain age tend to harbour while looking at the past. Actor Clement Yeo played the part of storyteller by being Everyman, with multiple roles including children and adults relating their accounts in both English and a smattering of Mandarin.

In these assorted vignettes, not necessarily presented in a chronological order, one may relate to by suggesting, “Hey, that’s me!” while others may appear as vague and tenuous memories.

Photo: Aaron Ang

The concert opened with musicians placed within the audience and behind, playing isolated tunes and melodies before gathering onstage to form the ensemble proper. This was representative of diverse peoples who hailed from different lands coming together in composer Gu Wei’s Hope / Divergence, the opening work.

Photo: Aaron Ang

One might have expected jarring dissonances when instruments from the West (violin, cello, clarinet and euphonium) collide headlong with Chinese (pipa and sheng), Indian (veena), Indonesian (gamelan and suling) and those that cross cultures (accordion and percussion).

Photo: Aaron Ang

But no, the music remained remarkably harmonious for most part including Gu’s Fracture / Ascent, representing separation from Malaysia. If truth be told, Singapore’s independence was not exactly bloodless, with dozens paying with their lives in 1964 race riots, leading to the eventual split.

Symbolism was strong in the running tableaux, especially in Yeo’s obsessive activity in building, planting, watering and cultivating. Soil and sand littered centrestage, plants were uprooted and re-potted, Lego bricks were assembled into various structures, and assorted toys were played with.

One is soon guided into the notion that ever-busy Everyman was encapsulated in a singular person, the founding prime minister. To his credit, he never had to proclaim, “I am Lee Kuan Yew!”

Young Artist Award recipient Chen Zhangyi’s segment From Scratch related events including the 1961 Bukit Ho Swee fire (dramatic shouting), the 2004 Nicoll Highway MRT collapse (Lego pieces falling apart), and the 1981 completion of Changi Airport (toy planes taking off). Memories are made of these, and with Cultural Medallion recipient Eric Watson’s Passing The Baton and Legacy And Beyond / After The Rain, one is transported to present times.

Photo: Aaron Ang

It did not matter if one could not distinguish when each work ended and the next began, as the musical narrative accompanying the acting was seamless. The multiple instrumental parts were helmed by no less than virtuosos, and one could easily enjoy their work even if one was no longer following the story. Memoirs In Music deserves to be replayed, at least to a bigger audience that gathered on this lazy Tuesday evening.

Photo: Aaron Ang

MUSICAL MOSAICS: IMAGINEASIAN / Asian Cultural Symphony Orchestra / Review

MUSICAL MOSAICS: IMAGINEASIAN

Asian Cultural Symphony Orchestra

Victoria Concert Hall

Sunday (10 August 2025)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 12 August 2025 with the title "Asian Cultural Symphony Orchestra's concert celebrates Asean's musical heritage".

There was a definite ASEAN flavour to the Asian Cultural Symphony Orchestra’s (ACSO) latest concert jointly conducted by Dedric Wong and Adrian Chiang. Attended by President and Mrs Tharman Shanmugaratnam, there were no less than four medleys of local and regional songs, but thankfully there was hardly any overlap with each composer having distinct voices.

Kelly Tang’s Symphonic Suite on a Set of Local Tunes, which opened the show, highlighted Dick Lee’s songs including Home and Bunga Sayang. Syafiqah ‘Adha Sallehin’s Singapura Medley was strong on Malay songs, beginning with Di Tanjong Katong, while Zechariah Goh’s Singaporean Folk Medley looked at local Eurasian culture, closing with Jinkly Nona.

Given the recent border dispute between Thailand and Cambodia, a musical truce was declared with concertante works from both nations performed one after another. Thai composer Jinnawat Mansap’s Naka, celebrating the mythological serpent (or naga as we know it) featured Prapanpong Maneewong on the khaen, a mouth organ fashioned with bamboo pipes. Its sheng-like sonority dominated this work which was filled with striding martial strains.

By contrast Cambodian composer Him Sophy’s The Way To Angkor opened plaintively with Tola Say bowing the tro sao, a Khmer spike fiddle with a timbre not unlike the zhonghu. His duet with cellist Olivia Chuang was short but touching, and despite oncoming dissonance from the orchestra, the traditional instrument was a voice not to be silenced.

Wang Chenwei’s Tekka Theka was a tribute to the Kandang Kerbau vicinity of Little India with its bustling market place. Ghanavenothan Retnam’s hauntingly beautiful bansuri (Indian flute) was the protagonist in a work which had Indian, Malay and Chinese influences. In support were Madhavan Kalaichelvan (veena), Muhammad Ansari Abdul Razak (rebana) and Soh Swee Kiat (sheng) representing three musical cultures.

Our closest neighbour across the Causeway was represented by Loh Ui Li in her Malaysian Folk Song Medley, which had Rais Iqbal resplendent on the serunai (Malay reed instrument) with its plangent and piercing tone not unlike a suona. Among the songs were Rasa Sayang and Chan Mali Chan, and before one cries foul, it should be remembered that just a little more than sixty years ago, Malaysia and Singapore were once the same nation.

Food is a subject where many a debate arises, but Eric Watson chose a Broadway idiom to frame his Gourmet Paradise, a three-movement dawn-to-dusk primer of local meals. Vocalist Juni Goh from vocal band MICappella led a rap for Nanyang Breakfast – Kopi, eggs and kaya toast / Nanyang breakfast is so shiok – before extolling the virtues of Roti Prata and Hainanese Chicken Rice.

Closing the colourful concert was the world premiere of Germaine Goh’s When Rivers Remember, uniting the four soloists from four ASEAN nations. Here was the baroque concerto grosso updated to include water-related songs Dayong Sampan, Loy Krathong, Ulek Mayang and Sarika Keo Euy, with visuals representing the Singapore, Chao Phraya, Malacca and Mekong Rivers.

Photo: Nathaniel Lim

If all governments can sort their problems as harmoniously as these instrumentalists and ACSO, lasting peace is here to stay.

Photo: Nathaniel Lim

DISAPPEARING SERIES: THE LAST EPISODE / Ding Yi Music Company / Review

 

DISAPPEARING SERIES:

THE LAST EPISODE

Ding Yi Music Company

Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre

Friday (6 June 2025), 7.30 pm

This review was published in The Straits Times on 10 June 2025 with the title "A timely reminder to celebrate traditional practices".

The Disappearing Series concerts by Ding Yi Music Company has over the years examined local arts and traditions that are on the cusp of becoming extinct. These in-concert documentaries combining film, story-telling and original music on Chinese instruments have become art-pieces in their own right.

Photo: Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre

Ironically, this 70-minute concert conducted by Dedric Wong De Li called time on an invaluable part of the company’s creative output. With research by Jesvin Yeo, filmography by Sandra Sek and direction by Jeremiah Choy, three diverse yet often taken for granted aspects of our cultural heritage were explored.

Photo: Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre

The opening artform was the painstaking creation of lion heads used for the traditional Chinese lion dance, perfected by artisan Henry Ng. The accompanying music by Tan Yuting entitled Crafting Lions, Writing Dreams took the form of a four-movement suite, outlining the process of inspiration, fabrication, ornamention, and all the way to the final product.

Photo: Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre

Percussive beats, typically heard during festive processions dominated, before culminating in the actual dance, which was earthy and raucous in feel. Ng made a personal appearance centrestage, painting the lion head in brushstrokes of different shades but leaving the piece uncompleted, symbolic of the need for his work to be continued as long as it takes.

Photo: Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre

Alicia De Silva’s Love and Legacy dwelled on Malay songkok crafting in the hands of aged headpiece maker Abdul Wahab bin Abdullah. The use of a small gamelan set of metallophones, struck by mallets by the composer herself, lent an authentic flavour to the subject.

Ostinatos and minimalism heard on pipa and zhongruan simulated repeating patterns on the worked fabric. Although Wahab was not physically present, his voiceover established the craft as a familial heirloom passed down from his father. There was, however, an uneasy sense that he represented the final generation of this handicraft’s perpetuity.

Photo: Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre

De Silva then seamlessly moved to the angklungs, resonating wooden rattlers which accompanied the final segment focused on rattan-weaving in furniture making. This was Cultural Medallion recipient Eric Watson’s A Palm for All Seasons. His evocation of nature with solo dizi in full flight was also a salute to the rattan palm, from which pieces lying at many homes were fashioned.

Photo: Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre

The mellow marimba, whose bars and resonators are also made from wood, featured prominently in the music as well. The mood of the music became decidedly more light-hearted, reflecting the loving bond between furniture maker Chen Foon Kee and his wife Lee Joon as they plied their craft onstage together.

All three works resembled mini-symphonies in conception and execution, a conscious reaction to the synthesis represented by these living artforms hanging by a thread. As a closing gesture, a final coda to the concert - and the series - summated what we risk losing in the relentless pursuit of 21st century living. Ding Yi’s Disappearing Series will most certainly be missed.

Photo: Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre

Exhibition in the foyer: