I JUST DON'T GET MODERN ART!

Tang Da Wu appears in this video.

Try as I may, I just don't get modern art. Ever so often, I stumble on an art exhibition in whatever city, and that always piques my interest. MOMA, Tate Modern, JC Contemporary, MOCA, Queen's Gallery, you name it and I've spent hours in these over the years, and have always wondered. "What's it all about?" The latest stumbling took place back home in Jendela, Esplanade's biggest arts space. And these are the photos.

Entitled The Seminar - Don't Teach Art, it brings together works by Singaporean visual artist Tang Da Wu (born 1943), well-known as founder of The Artists Village during the 1980s at Ulu Sembawang. At 82, he still commands a loyal following among local visual artists but he has yet to receive the Cultural Medallion. NAC, what are you waiting for? It's probably his political leanings and pushing the boundaries of artistic expression that ruffled official feathers. In a way, receiving the CM might be a cop out of sorts, a sure sign of being accepted into the mainstream, and that is what true rebels and real artists try and avoid. 

 

The words in Chinese refer to an over-reliance
of machines to get things done.
So says a helpful exhibition guide.

The installations look imposing.

Perhaps dangerous to Ozempic users.

Is this some butcher's stall?

Bibi Netanyahu meets Kamala Harris.
The futility of politics.

We are constantly reminded of this year.
Not knowing is a sure sign of dementia.

What is this supposed to mean?

A man falls into a heap of bricks.
Looks like he tore a new one, so he's doomed.

The Ascent of Otters.
They'll soon rule the world.

A Zen-like corner space.

No entry permitted, but the lock looks puny.

A pile of sticks. So what?

No idea what this means.

The glory of bubble wrap.

Ladder to nowhere.

Call this number if you are being scammed.

Absolutely no clue on this one.

This reminds me of the North Korean 
communist party symbol.

The exhibits bite. So beware.
Esplanade is not liable for injuries.

The Seminar – Don’t Teach Art - Esplanade

This exhibit runs till 1 February 2026.

Admission is free!

(Would you pay to look at this?)

ILLUMINATIONS / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

ILLUMINATIONS

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall

Saturday (5 November 2022)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 9 November 2022 with the title "Symphonic celebration befitting Esplanade's 20th".

 

On 11 October 2002, Esplanade Concert Hall was inaugurated by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra in a concert led by Shui Lan that featured a world premiere by a Singaporean composer, a double concerto and Beethoven’s Choral Symphony. The symphony concert to commemorate the art centre’s twenty years, part of the festival In New Light – A Season Of Commissions, had a similar of combo of works but with a more local twist.

Photo: Esplanade

 

On the podium was award-winning young Singaporean conductor Lien Boon Hua, who opened the concert with Polish composer Grazyna Bacewicz’s Overture (1943). This is less of an unusual choice given that Lien was formerly an assistant conductor of the Polish National Radio Orchestra. With strings committed to virtuosic runs at the outset, answered by nippy woodwinds and incisive percussion, its form resembled Glinka’s popular Ruslan and Ludmilla Overture, making for a very effective opener.

 

Photos: Esplanade

The double concerto this occasion featured as soloists the More Than Music duo of violinist Loh Jun Hong and Abigail Sin in Mendelssohn’s Concerto for Piano and Violin in D minor. A precocious work by a 14-year-old, its overlong 40 minutes was guilty of note-spinning and over-indulgent display for its own sake.

 

Photo: Esplanade

It nevertheless had Mozartian moments of sturm und drang (storm and stress) and nice melodies for which the duo was grateful to dwell upon. Loh’s singing violin tone was well complemented by Sin’s limpid keyboard work, coming off best in the slow movement’s song without words. It was not always immaculate in the first movement’s repetitiousness, but the finale’s effervescent romp more than made up for earlier longeurs.

 

Photo: Esplanade

The concert’s highlight was young home-grown composers Jonathan Shin and Phoon Yu’s Illuminations, a symphony for organ, chorus and orchestra in seven movements, specially commissioned for the evening. Given the significance of Esplanade’s priceless twenty years to Singapore’s arts scene, the 35-minute-long work could be forgiven for trying to be a bit of everything – a Straussian tone poem, an organ concerto, a choral fantasy – while encompassing many different composers’ styles.

 

Wasn’t it Gustav Mahler who proclaimed, “A symphony is like a world, it must have everything!” or something to that effect? It opened with stillness as concertmaster Kong Zhao Hui’s solo violin rose ethereally above massed strings, much like in Pole Karol Szymanowski’s violin concertos. With the evocation of a new dawn over, voices of the Singapore Symphony Chorus and Youth Choir entered with “Break the earth and shatter sky... a symphony rises into the air made real by our dreaming”. Here the influence of Vaughan Williams’ English choral tradition came to bear.

Both composers also performed,
Phoon Yu on organ and Jonathan Shin on piano
Photo: Esplanade

 

Phoon as a soloist, then flexed his muscles, demonstrating the full might of Esplanade’s scandalously underused Klais organ. Earth-shaking and tumultuous, however brief, was his impact and now the listener was transported into the realms of the beyond like in Frenchman Olivier Messiaen’s visionary organ works.     

 

The Singapore Symphony Children’s Choir also got into the act in the fourth movement, Iridescent / Electric, which perfectly described its part. “Watching the world with shining eyes / To cast colours upon the bay”, one imagined Benjamin Britten’s many wide-eyed and whimsical children’s choral pieces.  

 

Shin, himself the obbligato pianist, was let loose on the orchestral canvas, which was as eclectic as it could possibly get. Avant-garde modernisms were hinted at, as were Pole Witold Lutoslawski’s scherzo-like orchestrations (now the choice of Bacewicz’s overture made even more sense), but the overriding idiom was more of Mahler and Hollywood film music, representing by the likes of Erich Korngold and John Williams.

 

 

There was a choral climax closing with the words, “This distant flame that grows, keeping the light!” but the stirring work chose to end on a subtler and quiet note with Kong’s violin returning for one last time. While this was not Beethoven’s Ninth, one is better off for having witnessed the world premiere of a momentous Singaporean symphony, still a rarity, and a little history being made.   

Post-concert photos by PianoManiac:

Three of Singapore's major composers:
Phoon Yew Tien, Ho Chee Kong & Bernard Tan.

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory deans
past and present,
Bernard Lanskey and Peter Tornqvist.

Singapore Symphony Orchestra CEOs,
future and present
Kenneth Kwok & Chng Hak Peng.

Two of Singapore's finest young pianists,
Churen Li and Abigail Sin.

The composers with their jedi-master,
Ho Chee Kong.

Fact: Without the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory,
Illuminations would not have been possible.

 

ESPLANADE WEEKEND OF CONCERTS / 30 Jan - 1 Feb 2021

ESPLANADE CONCERT WEEKEND

Saturday – Monday (30 Jan – 1 Feb 2021)

 

Concert life is slowly but surely coming back to life in Singapore. Earlier in January, there were two consecutive evenings of concerts at Victoria Concert Hall, featuring the likes of Singapore Lyric Opera and re:Sound’s chamber groups. The last weekend went one better with three varied concerts at the three iconic spaces of Esplanade Theatres On The Bay. While social distancing, face-masking and Trace-Togethering have become par for the course, a sense of normality has returned. So let us see what transpired.

 

 

OF COURAGE AND HOPE

QIN LI-WEI Solo Cello Recital

presented by Altenburg Arts

Esplanade Concert Hall

Saturday 30 January 2021

 

Make no mistake about it, Australian-Chinese cellist Qin Li-Wei, presently an Associate Professor at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory, is the greatest cellist ever to make his home in Singapore. His various concerto performances and recitals, supplemented by superb recordings of wide-ranging repertoire on compact disc, attest to that notion. This one man solo show, with three of J.S.Bach’s unaccompanied Cello Suites, confirmed that as plain fact.

 

Quite unusually, he performed these in reverse published order, beginning with the ultra-serious and sombre Suite No.5 in C minor (BWV.1011), also the longest of the three. Straight off, one is struck by the intent and intensity of Qin’s musings. His tone is voluminous, filling the capacious hall with an immediacy of clarity and purity. Never mistake this with loudness, and nothing he does is brash or vulgar. With his kind of playing, the music does not shout into the face but speaks directly to the heart. This continued all through the suite’s six movement schema (Prelude – Allemande – Courante – Sarabande - Dance Doubles - Gigue), alternating fast and slow dance numbers, which was further repeated in the other suites.

 

Even if Bach originally meant these to be übung (exercises) for his cello or gamba friends, the movements transcended mere technical execution to attain spiritual sublimity in Qin’s  interpretation. As he continued without intermission into Suites No.4 in E flat major (BWV.1010) and No.1 in G major (BWV.1007, also the most familiar of the six), the works get progressively shorter and definitely cheerier. This was, without a doubt, a journey from grim darkness to shining light, with each long-breathed Sarabande in the three suites being focal points for reflection and contemplation.

 

This was fittingly allegorical to the current Covid pandemic, a gradual but optimistic trudge towards the light at the end of the tunnel. There were surprisingly many children in the hall, and judging by their stillness and relative silence, some of the messages must have gotten through. There was a sole encore, an unaccompanied and truncated version of Rachmaninov’s Vocalise (Op.34 No.14). Needless to say, Qin’s tone and lyricism was simply ravishing.

 

 

THE SKIES BEYOND

TO ENSEMBLE

Esplanade Recital Studio

Sunday 31 January 2021

 

It’s been almost two years since TO Ensemble last performed a public concert. In the meantime, jazz pianist Tze Toh and his merry band produced a compact disc recording, besides preparing for this concert which saw a smaller and more compact group of players. Missing in action was saxophonist Teo Boon Chye but returning after a hiatus of ten years is erhu exponent Dai Da. With Carnatic violinist Lazar T.Sebastine and Toh being the constants, this was to a more string-based sound to the programme titled The Skies Beyond.

 

The premise is a multi-millennia history of mankind, from the violence of primal tribes to modern inventions of man which reach for the sky, with references made to Leonardo da Vinci, Amelia Earhart and Stephen Hawking.

 

One should probably best forget all the titles of the multi-movement concert, for each piece does not conform to any classical form. These are probably best described as fantasies with programmatic inspirations, where initial ideas inputed on piano, electronic keyboard or pre-recorded tape, are later improvised upon by the musicians. There were only few moments when all three performed together, and the play of counterpoint would have been nice but these opportunities were not fully exploited.

 

Heavy bass chords and clusters occupied the episode entitled War, where the influence of Bartok or Messiaen may be cited. The mood shifted from darkness toward light (an unconscious echo of the previous evening’s Bach cello suites) and there was even a waltz movement for erhu and piano which afforded some sentimentality and nostalgia. With Lazar’s inimitably nonchalant fiddling stealing the show (as he invariably does), eighty pleasurable minutes passed like a flash. Was this easy listening, jazz, classical, crossover, World Music, or a heady conflation of all these? As before, TO Ensemble defies any form of pigeon-holing or classification, yet sounds different at every outing. Tze and Co roll on, and we the listeners are all the richer for it. 

 

DONALD LAW Piano Recital

Esplanade Concourse

Monday 1 February 2021 

 

Young local pianist Donald Law performed two short recitals at the Esplanade Concourse, featuring favourites of his repertoire. Beginning with Mozart’s Rondo in D major (K.485), he revelled in its light-heartedness while providing adequate contrasts within the shifts between major and minor keys. In Debussy’s La plus que lente, one of his pet party pieces, he exercised liberties in rubato. Turning its sentimental slow waltz into a series of episodes, there was a sense of dislocation from the Belle Époque, instead looking ahead to the cataclysm that is Ravel’s La Valse, its final fruition. Hopefully he’ll play that someday.    

 

Moving into serious territory was Janacek’s Sonata I.X.1905 “From The Street”, two movements that revealed a more sober side to the artist. He explained the premise and underlying tragedy of the work in a short preamble, and then showed he meant every word of it. Its narrative arc from expectation (the first movement is titled Premonition) to ultimate violence (Death) and its denouement was well brought out. The catharsis afforded by the sonata might have affected his final selection, the finale of Chopin’s Third Sonata in B minor (Op.58). He started confidently but almost got derailed near the rondo theme’s final statement. Nerves are most probably the reason, but he valiantly weathered the storm till its heroic close.

 

So that was three concerts in three days as Singapore emerges from the Covid circuit breaker. It’s a start and there are more events, both live and streamed, to come. That is something worth being patient for.

SOWETO GOSPEL CHOIR / A Tapestry of Sacred Music / Review

SOWETO GOSPEL CHOIR

A Tapestry of Sacred Music

Esplanade Theatre

Thursday (16 April 2015)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 18 April 2015 with the title "African earthy harmonies get crowd swinging".

It is a testament to the faith of a community to be united and upbeat in times of war, oppression and poverty. South Africa has had a long history of colonisation, racial discrimination and internal strife to keep its people down but judging by the sheer exuberance of the music sung by the double Grammy winning Soweto Gospel Choir in a hour-and-a-half concert, part of Esplanade's A Tapestry of Sacred Music festival, one might have thought otherwise.

The choir from the South Western Townships (an acronym of which forms its name) of Johannesburg has entertained and inspired since 2002, and its 18 singers (9 women and 9 men) with two drummers and a keyboard player were an instant hit with the audience. It dedicated their show to their “father”, Nelson Mandela, which immediately drew spontaneous applause.

Their costumes of beaded headbands (for the women) and geometric patchwork designs in a riot of rainbow colours were a visual spectacle on their own. When they began to swing and sashay with their singing of traditional South African (in Zulu and Xhosa) and English gospel hymns, an infectious beat soon spread into the house. 

Like the concert given by the Harlem Gospel Choir here in 2013, there was no fixed programme and the quick succession of hymns came with such a natural flow that time was soon forgotten. While the American group's numbers resembled those heard in an evangelical church service, the Sowetans had the more earthy and exotic harmonies, those emanating from the deepest heart of Africa.

The call and response style was much less in evidence here, and there was much humour when the men and women engaged in friendly rivalry. After the men had crooned a number in their cool insouciant manner, a lady challenged, “You're almost there. Now watch and listen.” Thereafter the women gave own their rendition of the same song, now with greater vigour and richer harmonies.

There were a number of familiar songs, from the New World where African music had taken root over the centuries. These included the spirituals Many Rivers To Cross and Swing Low Sweet Chariot, and the hymn Amazing Grace where singers took turn to embellish its melodic line, more floridly with each strophe. More modern songs included Simon and Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Waters and Sarah McLachlan's Arms Of An Angel, done in their own inimitable way.

Soon the concert was drawing to an end, but the audience was getting footloose and ready to shake, rattle and roll. Encouraged by a male lead, virtually the entire house got to its feet to clap their hands and wave their arms with the encores. A standing ovation greeted I Feel Good, an extended run of Amen, Miriam Makeba's (better known as Mama Africa) Pata Pata and O Happy Day, after which the choir gaily shuffled member by member its way off stage. As they say, it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing.    

All photos courtesy of Esplanade Theatres by the Bay.