A GIFT TO MUM / Singapore Chinese Orchestra / Review

A GIFT TO MUM

Singapore Chinese Orchestra

Singapore Conference Hall

Saturday (7 May 2016)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 9 May 2016 with the title "A charming and nostalgic Mother's Day concert".

The Singapore Chinese Orchestra's annual Mother's Day Concert this year was not so much about motherhood than about the memories of childhood. Directed by Resident Conductor Quek Ling Kiong, the concert opened with Lullabies, a medley of familiar cradle songs orchestrated by Sim Boon Yew.

Schubert's Schlafe, Schlafe (Sleep, Sleep) and Brahms' Wiegenlied from the West were balanced by songs from Dongbei and Kyoto, the last featuring the Japanese shakuhachi, and this was incongruously followed by Five Little Monkeys On The Bed, which sounded all too flippant. More appropriate was Lo Leung Fei's Memories Of Youth which featured nostalgic child-like melodies, accompanied by a projected montage of baby photographs of SCO musicians and their families, which was a nice touch.

Two concertante works completed the first half, beginning with Gu Guan Ren's arrangement of Charms Of Jiangnan, with soloists Yin Zhi Yang (on qudi), Ling Hock Siang (erhu) and Xu Hui (guzheng). This was much like a Chinese concerto grosso, with each instrument having separate flourishes and joining the general ensemble for a grand finish.

The outright virtuoso concerto of the evening was Phoon Yew Tien's Rhapsody On Dinuhua for yangqin, based on a popular Cantonese operatic melody. Qu Jian Qing, its dedicatee, gave a spectacular performance, easily transcending the orchestral textures in her stirring runs, and also casting a ruminative spell in the work's slower and more reflective moments. This work deserves a place among the Yellow River and Butterfly Lovers of the Chinese canon.

The concert's second half had the feel of a pop concert, with dimmed lighting and flashing spotlights. Law Wai Lun's medley of six Luo Tayou popular songs constituted Love Song (2016), which employed a different solo instrument for each melody. Conductor Quek was also on hand to quiz members of the audience as to which instrument played a starring role.

The stage was now set for Singapore-born singer-songwriter Hanjin Tan, a pop icon presently based in Hong Kong, to charm the hearts of mothers. Boyish in appearance, laconic in humour (occasionally referring to himself in a third person), and possessing a Barry Manilow kind of crooning voice, he was a natural slayer of aunties.

His Mandopop ballads, Marry Me, Wo Men Dou You Cuo (Nobody's Perfect) and Yi Bu Yi Bu Ai (Love Step By Step) had a contemporary feel which would easily appeal to listeners younger than the concert's pioneer generation audience. That he could get a usually-reticent crowd to clap, respond and shout “encore” (with a little coercion) - no easy task - was a testament to his entertaining abilities.

Fearing for their safety, he spared the audience the need to stand for his final song, Zhan Qi Lai (Stand Up), which closed the programme on a high. Quek and the orchestra were not done yet, and a clap-along to the popular melody Tian Xia De Ma Ma Dou Yi Yang (Mothers Are All The Same) was indeed the perfect encore.

 HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

BRIDGING FRONTIERS / Metropolitan Festival Orchestra / Review

BRIDGING FRONTIERS

Metropolitan Festival Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall

Saturday (21 June 2014)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 23 June 2014 with the title "East meets West in hymn".

This concert by the Metropolitan Festival Orchestra, Singapore’s one-year-old professional symphony orchestra and spiritual successor of the Singapore Festival Orchestra, was a throwback to the early seasons of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra. In those days, Choo Hoey regularly programmed Chinese orchestral works in subscription concerts of Western classics to court Chinese-speaking audiences.

These days, the Singapore Chinese Orchestra does the converse by playing Western classics transcribed for Chinese instruments. MFO on this evening has doubled back on this trend by playing a work originally for Chinese instruments arranged for Western orchestra. Liu Xi Jin’s Hymn of Wusuli, a concerto for two erhus, sounded perfectly idiomatic in Eric Watson’s masterly orchestration.

The two erhus were retained, performed by Ling Hock Siang and Wilson Neo, both members of the Singapore Chinese Orchestra. The music, instantly accessible, was a paean to fishing, singing and hunting, favourite preoccupations of the Hezhe people who live on the banks of the Wusuli River. It was a pleasure to witness how tightly intertwined the solo parts were, with the duo operating like some musical Siamese twins act through its three movements.

Further clarity was afforded by the subtlety of the accompaniment, always supporting and never overwhelming. The warmth of the strings and brass gave the music a smoother edge which would have contrasted greatly with the earthier and perhaps more strident original.

Two repertoire showpieces opened each half of the concert. Dvorak’s Carnival Overture is an established curtain-raiser, which was given a truly exciting reading. More impressive than the outward bluster was the sensitive and immaculate solo woodwind playing in the work’s quieter central section, going to the heart of its nostalgia.

Equally showy was Richard Strauss’s tone poem Don Juan, with the brass in full throttle. The French horn section can claim credit for a memorable outing, confidently nailing that ruinously familiar clarion call near the end which could have easily gone awry. Conductor Chan Tze Law deserves the plaudits for honing performances that can rival those of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra.

Finally the concert closed with Strauss’s Horn Concerto No.1, with leading horn virtuoso Han Chang Chou (also SSO Principal Horn) overcoming its multitudes of heroic flourishes and awkward leaps with great aplomb. Live performances of horn concertos here are understandably rare, and this reminded one why the thrill of going to a concert often trumps listening to reproduced recordings at home.

All photographs by courtesy of Chrisspics+ and the Metropolitan Festival Orchestra.

THE LITTLE ADVENTURER OF SCO 3 / Singapore Chinese Orchestra / Review

THE LITTLE ADVENTURER 3

Singapore Chinese Orchestra

Singapore Conference Hall

Saturday (18 May 2013)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 20 May 2013 with the title "Strings pulled by birdsong".

Arts organisations who wish to grow their audiences need to think seriously about outreach concerts. In this respect, the Singapore Chinese Orchestra has got its formula right. Its three concerts in The Little Adventurer series this weekend for primary school children and pre-schoolers were sold out, and so a fourth session had to be arranged.

It also helped that SCO Resident Conductor Quek Ling Kiong is unafraid to muddy his hands and act the clown. Attired liked an Oriental cross between Indiana Jones and Crocodile Dundee, his livewire act as host and conductor was hard to dislike. The fact that the hour-long show was conducted mostly in English, for the benefit of non-Chinese audience members showed a true desire to connect.

This was the third instalment of an ongoing series to introduce the traditional instruments of the Chinese orchestra, and the focus was on bowed strings. Armed with a bow and foam rubber arrows, Quek went on his mission of discovery, introducing the legendary blind erhu player Ah Bing, whose modern day counterpart is Ah Qiang, played by Ling Hock Siang. His rendition of Erquan Moon Reflections by Hua Yuan Jun (above) proffered the popular erhu as the voice of melancholy.

The mimicry of birdsong is a speciality of the strings, and this was no better illustrated in Yi Jian Quan’s Birds Returning To The Woods, an exquisite bit of chamber music that brought out unusual sonic qualities of the gaohu (the highest pitched string family member), the yehu (crafted from a coconut shell) and the revolutionary gehu (a hybrid of the erhu and cello).

An excerpt of Grasslands Fantasia by Law Wai Lun and Tan Kah Yong was played by Tian Xiao on the zhonghu, which has a mellow, throaty timbre resembling a viola. As there are no Chinese instruments with lower registers, the Western cello and double-bass were appropriated into the ensemble, represented by performances of The Swan (above) and Elephant from Saint-Saens’s Carnival Of The Animals respectively.

Erhu soloist Ling then returned to demonstrate how his instrument could simulate the human voice by accompanying Tang dynasty poet Meng Haoran’s poem Chun Mian Bu Jue Xiao (Spring Dawn), which in turn was recited by children in the audience. What better way is there to learn about Chinese poetry and music at a single go?

More sound effects came in Rimsky-Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumble Bee (erhu duet, above) and Chen Yao Xing’s War Horses Racing (massed erhus, below), and to press home the point further, Lalo Shifrin’s Mission Impossible Theme and Hans Zimmer’s Kung Fu Panda music found more fertile soil in the young listeners’ minds. 

The next instalment of this popular series next season highlights the family of plucked stringed instruments. It appears that the Singapore Chinese Orchestra is guaranteed a loyal following after this evening’s successes.

See you at The Little Adventurer 4!