STRAITS SERENADE / Singapore Symphony Orchestra Fundraising Gala Dinner

It's been ages since I was last invited to a Singapore Symphony Orchestra fundraising gala dinner. All thanks to musical philanthropist and serial Patron of The Arts award winner Kris Tan, I made a long-awaited appearance on Saturday 26 April 2025 at the grand ballroom of the Ritz Carlton. 

Having had to miss an all-Ravel piano recital which took place at the same time, this had to be something special. And it was. You don't often get to have dinner with celebrities like TwoSet Violin, Brett Yang and Eddie Chen. And they are as amusing in person as they are on YouTube. Over 1.4 million dollars was raised for the SSO this evening. And here are the incriminating photos. 

Cultural diplomacy at work.
TwoSet Violin meet with the Chinese ambassador
to Singapore. China promises not to invade Taiwan.

Lianhe Zaobao journalist Zhang Heyang
has a pic taken with TwoSet Violin.

And here's our table 29.

Main course: Fish or Beef?

Hobnobbing with more celebs:
Cellist Ng Pei-Sian, Ambassador Kishore Mahbubani,
Dr Geh Min, Geoffrey Yu & conductor Dedric Wong.

Kris Tan makes a bid for the expensive booze,
while TwoSet Violin ponder how much of
their budget they can afford to blow.

And the music started, with Associate Conductor
Rodolfo Barraez conducting the SSO.

Lau Wen Rong performed the finale
of Haydn's Trumpet Concerto.

TwoKong Violin:
Concertmaster Kong Zhaohui and his son
Kong Xianlong, who performed Nigel Hess.

The Singapore Symphony Children's Choir
sang Dick Lee's Home.

They also performed Why We Sing.

The dessert, complete with
an edible chocolate Merlion.

Here's a final photo with
Ong Shu Chen (Mrs David Loke), TwoSet Violin,
Kris Tan and Olga Isserlis (Steven's cousin).

KRIS FOUNDATION presents THE TROUT / EVELYN HANDRISANTO & FRIENDS / Review

THE TROUT

EVELYN HANDRISANTO & FRIENDS

Kris Foundation Concerts

Esplanade Recital Studio

Thursday (7 December 2017)

Every year, the Kris Foundation (founded by philanthropist and SSO Ladies League member Kris Tan) presents recitals and concerts featuring talented young Singaporean musicians and the occasional foreigner residing in Singapore. This evening, the spotlight fell upon the Medan-born Indonesian pianist Evelyn Handrisanto, who was a graduate from the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts and the 1^st Prizewinner of the First Nanyang International Piano Competition held in Singapore earlier this year.

The first half of her concert showcased solo piano works, opening with Debussy’s Second Book of Images. Evelyn crafted a beautiful crystalline tone in Cloches a travers les feuilles (Bells Through The Leaves) with the use of exemplary pedalling, and the exoticisms of Et la lune descend sur le temple qui fut (And The Moon Sets Over The Temple) were very well brought out. The cycle finished with a shimmering view of Poissons d’or (Goldfish) which was built to a great climax.

The next two works were by young Singaporean composer Lim Kang Ning, who happens to be the daughter of Kris Tan. Sommerlied has an early Romantic feel, redolent of the sound world of Chopin, John Field and Mendelssohn’s Songs Without Words. The key moved from D major to D minor and then back, closing with a gentle waltz rhythm. Flower Visages, influenced by Chinese music, was more of a concert showpiece. It opened in C major in the manner of Ryuichi Sakamoto’s film scores before erupting into a vigorous dance embellished by sweeps simulating a guzheng. Evelyn played these very well, and one hopes to hear these again, especially the second piece.

The first half closed with Chopin’s Andante Spianato & Grande Polonaise Op.22. Evelyn provided a nice pearly touch to the nocturne-like Andante even if she did miss a few notes in the ornamentations. The romping Polonaise was taken with vigour, and a few more notes were missed in this somewhat jittery performance before closing on a high.

The second half was devoted to Schubert’s Piano Quintet in A major, popularly known as the Trout Quintet. Evelyn was partnered by her friends from the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, Nadine Ng (violin), Jolene Goh (viola), Chee Jun Sian (cello) and Chee Jun Hong (double bass), and together they made many nice sounds. This work is the epitome of hausmusik, that Biedermeier concept of music-loving friends coming together to make music in a convivial spirit at home. Granted this was a public concert venue, but the atmosphere generated was one of informality and congeniality.

The players, save Evelyn, were informally attired but the music was treated with the respect it deserved. Evelyn was in sparkling form, providing the lead and main thrust of the performance. The players were young and sometimes this showed in the raw edges that were occasionally heard. However each movement was played with genuine love and lilt, culminating in the 4^th movement’s Theme & Variations based on Schubert’s lied Die Forelle (The Trout). The finale was also taken at a goodly pace, closing the enjoyable concert in high spirits.

The performers with some of
their teachers and friends.

WASSY FANTASIA: Piano Recital by MIYUKI WASHIMIYA / Review

WASSY FANTASIA

MIYUKI WASHIMIYA Piano Recital 

Esplanade Recital Studio 

Tuesday (17 November 2009)

An edited version of this review was published in The Straits Times on 20 November 2009.

Stranger things have happened, but it took a French-trained Japanese pianist to pull off the belated World Premiere of Singaporean composer Tan Chan Boon’s (pictured below) Magnum Opus for the piano, Reminiscence. Originally commissioned for the Young Virtuoso Recital of the 2008 Singapore International Piano Festival, the 24-minute work in four linked movements was deemed unplayable by the pianist and dropped.

Contrapuntally dense and awkward for ten fingers it certainly was, but unplayable? Miyuki Washimiya eloquently brought out the multi-layered textures of the strolling introduction, with its passing resemblance to the African-American spiritual Deep River, and surmounted the three ensuing fugues with great lucidity. Hers was not merely a reading, but a solid interpretation revealing many fine details, sculpted with the pristine care of a lapidary.

Making little concessions for the listener, this was “Charles Ives meets Busoni in Singapore”, a thorny devil of a masterpiece which could easily be hailed as Tan’s Fantasia Contrappuntistica, a major landmark in the Singaporean piano repertory.

The rest of Washimiya’s programme was far more audience-friendly, beginning with Mozart’s popular Sonata in A major (K.331). The opening Theme And Variations could have been inflected with a greater degree of dynamic variety, but the Minuet and familiar Turkish Rondo romped home with aplomb. 

Her Chopin set was nicely shaped, reliable rather than revelatory, but the left hand octaves in the "Heroic" Polonaise (Op.53) were remarkable for sheer stamina and power. The first half closed with two Rachmaninov Préludes; the G minor number (Op.23 No.5) was aristocratic and well-judged – putting Lang Lang’s self-serving performance from 2007 to shame – while its counterpart in C sharp minor (Op.3 No.2) pealed with genuine Slavic clangour. 

Washimiya’s true sympathies lay in Latino music, displaying much flair and sensitivity in three dances – including the indestructible Malaguena - by Cuban Ernesto Lecuona, and her encores of Granados’ Andaluza and Falla’s Ritual Fire Dance well and truly brought down the house.

In between these, Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue rocked with the swagger of a jazzman, even if the excisions she made in the score left out some of the juiciest bits. Given the wide-ranging selections over two hours, there was little to complain but much to celebrate.

This piano recital was sponsored by Kris Tan and Lim Liang Chuan in celebration of their 21st wedding anniversary.