AN EVENING OF CHINESE TIMELESS CLASSICS / NAFA Chinese Orchestra / Review

 

AN EVENING OF 

CHINESE TIMELESS CLASSICS

NAFA Chinese Orchestra

Singapore Conference Hall

Sunday (28 September 2025)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 30 September 2025 with the title "Spirited performance of classic works by young talent of NAFA Chinese Orchestra".

If one wondered how professional Chinese musical ensembles like the Singapore Chinese Orchestra or Ding Yi Music Company get its members, just take a look at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts’ (NAFA) Chinese Instrumental Studies degree programme. Now part of the University of the Arts Singapore (UAS), this is the very reason why we have the highest levels of Chinese musical performances here today.

In the final concert of the 2025 Singapore Chinese Music Festival, the NAFA Chinese Orchestra led by Lim Yau provided a showcase that stands the test of time. The concert opened with the popular Dance of the Yao People by Liu Tieshan and Mao Yuan, originally conceived for western orchestra but orchestrated by Peng Xiuwen for Chinese instruments.

The music sourced from the ethnic minorities of southwest China rhapsodised with much feeling and fervour, with concertmaster Koh Yu Jie’s gaohu confidently singing its principal theme. Picking up speed, momentum and without looking back, the work made for a rousing curtain-raiser.

What followed were concertante works featuring four NAFA faculty members, two of whom are principals in the Singapore Chinese Orchestra. The old Cantonese tune Zhaojun’s Lament was elegiac in nature, wholly suited for Qu Jian Qing’s eloquent and mellow musings on the yangqin. Temperance ruled, and the orchestra piped down for the understated angsty emotions on show.

Quite different was the more demonstrative Ballade of Lan Huahua by Guan Ming, arranged as a dizi concerto by Zhan Yong Ming and Lu Chunlin, with Zhan as spirited soloist. Here, the sense of tragedy was more palpable, with the bamboo flute’s plangent tones searing a path through the dramatics. The trill-filled cadenzas made for moments for contemplation and reflection before closing on a subdued note.

The longest and arguably most virtuosic piece was Heroic Sisters of the Grassland composed by the committee of Wu Zhuqiang, Wang Yanjiao and Liu Dehai, and arranged by Peng. This work’s claim to fame was having been recorded by the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Seiji Ozawa in 1979 with the gradual opening of communist China to the West.

Yu Jia, resplendent in a stunning red outfit, was the spectacular pipa soloist who caught no breaks in its 20-minute playtime. This work of programme music recounted the escapades of two young sisters in Inner Mongolia who braved a blizzard to protect their flock of sheep. Through storms and squalls of orchestral textures, it was Yu who held firm from its pastoral opening to brilliant conclusion.

Photo: Chew Kai Xin

One often needs to separate the Socialist Realist claptrap of many Chinese works of the period from the true quality of the music. This however did not apply to Liu Wenjin’s Ballad from Northern Henan, another folk rhapsody, with Sunny Wong Sun Tat, head of NAFA’s Chinese music department, on his trusty erhu.

This was celebratory music one need not apologise for, and his excellence of execution and the orchestra’s spirited contribution were emblematic of the very bright future ahead for Chinese instrumental music in Singapore.

NAFA CHINESE ORCHESTRA GALA CONCERT / Review

NAFA CHINESE ORCHESTRA

GALA CONCERT

Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre Auditorium

Thursday (12 April 2018)

The Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts is the premier Singaporean tertiary institution for the study of traditional Chinese instruments. Its Chinese orchestra, rightfully, is also the finest of its kind among the local educational institutions. In a concert celebrating the institution’s 80^th anniversary helmed by veteran Chinese conductor Wang Yongji, the NAFA Orchestra, with its student body augmented by alumni and Singapore Chinese Orchestra members, rose to a rarefied standard of playing that lovers of Chinese music will all be proud of.

Like the Singapore Chinese Orchestra's concert the week before, this was a programme of excellent showpieces – with no kitsch – that displayed the best of the orchestra's abilities besides highlighting solo prowess. Lady composer Wang Dan Hong's works are a case in point. Opening the concert was her Ode To The Sun, which worked from a slow opening to a rousing allegro. A winsome dizi melody accompanied by plucked strings (pipas and ruans) later soaring to a high with raucous drumming, were highlights in this music which resembled that of an epic film.

Similarly emotive was an abridged version of Wang's Ru Shi, a concerto for guzheng which featured as soloist one of NAFA's most brilliant alumni Yvonne Tay, now a principal member of Ding Yi Music Company. This concerto was derived from music from Wang's score for the film of the same title, about the legendary courtesan, her trials and tribulations. The slow to fast form was again employed, culminating in a show of digital virtuosity, one which also employed modern technical devices. There was a faux ending, which induced some premature applause, a ruse to further its narrative to a definitive but emphatic close.

Qiao Haibo, Principal dizi in the Shanghai Chinese Orchestra, played on no less than four instruments in Qu Xiaosong's Divine Melody. These included the dizi, xun (ocarina), xiao and shakuhachi, each producing a distinctively different timbre. Based on the poems of Qu Yuan, the music was atmospheric and lyrical, before following an increasingly furious martial beat to a rousing and heroic end.

In the second half, Zhou Chenglong's Nao Hua Deng (Playing Flower Lanterns) provided an imperious show for the orchestra's very impressive suona section. Theirs is a highly plangent sonority, ceremonial in intention and ritualistic in intensity. Subtler harmonies were also highlighted in the playing, that was later accompanied by an 8-member battery of percussion. It was revealed after the work that no less than four of its members were actually guzheng players standing in! Much detail of the music came through amid this racket, confirming the orchestra's mastery of this most piquant piece. 

NAFA's Head of Chinese instrumental studies, erhu player Sunny Wong Sun Tat, was the soloist in Jin Fuzai's concertante work When The Rivers Thaw In Spring. Arguably the best work of the concert, it was a rhapsodic wallow through the string instrument's extremes of registers. 

Inspired by Su Shi's poetry, it began lyrically and plotted its congenial course before arriving at an impressive cadenza. Disaster struck midway through the concerto when a string snapped. Wong coolly swapped an erhu with a front-desk member before excusing himself for two agonising minutes. Returning with an intact instrument, he blazed a path through this beautiful music to a splendidly animated close. If anything, the rupture galvanised all the players into an altogether excitable finish.

The final work was Peng Xiu Wen's arrangement of a Beijing opera favourite The Surging Of Turbulent Clouds. Highlighted in this more traditional number was solos from the sheng, suona and a centrally-placed jinghu, highest pitched member of the huqin string family. The rhythmic dance, aided by the incessant beat of a temple block made for a showy and grand close to the concert. There was also time for an encore, which was a medley which including amongst other tunes Di Tanjung Katong.

A very eventful and enjoyful concert, and one that foresees a very bright future for all these talented young musicians, and the strong case for the pursuit of great Chinese orchestral music.      

NANYANG IMPRESSIONS / Singapore Chinese Orchestra and NAFA Chinese Orchestra / Review

NANYANG IMPRESSIONS

Singapore Chinese Orchestra

& NAFA Chinese Orchestra

Lee Foundation Theatre

Wednesday (21 September 2016)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 23 September 2016 with the title "Showcase of Nanyang music".

Nanyang Music by nomenclature is a new genre of music, coined by Yeh Tsung and the Singapore Chinese Orchestra. It had an official inauguration in 2006 with the First Singapore International Competition for Chinese Orchestral Composition. In actual fact, Nanyang music has always existed as indigenous music of the lands of Southeast Asia or works of local composers without such formal titles.

Nonetheless, the notion of incorporating Southeast Asian elements into Chinese instrumental music has take root, becoming a discrete artistic entity that cannot be ignored. This joint concert by the SCO and Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts Chinese Orchestra was a showcase of this music.

The SCO conducted by Quek Ling Kiong opened with young Singaporean composer Wang Chen Wei's Confluence, a short and colourful work that utilised the gamelan pelog scale in its principal melody. First heard on the guan and later on dizi following a yangqin cadenza, the Indonesian character of its graceful sashays was unshakeable.

More subtle was Chew Jun An's Colours Of Rain with its impressionistic hues in two discernible sections. The first was dissonant, with a torrential storm looming over pelting ostinatos. This contrasted with the second which approximated light precipitation, with a plaintive melody from dizis and sheng gliding over the harp's accompaniment.

The NAFA Chinese Chamber Ensemble performed without conductor, opening with Phoon Yew Tien's Divertimento on Malay Folk Songs. Lightly scored, plucked and bowed strings sang out short motifs and whole tunes from the popular Lenggang Kangkong, Rasa Sayang and Dayong Sampan. A larger ensemble then offered Law Wai Lun's A Walk In The Rain, which is a sympathetic treatment of a Hakka folk melody.

The SCO and NAFA Chinese Orchestra joined forces for the final two works of the concert. The first was Jiang Ying's Hot Melody of Southeast Asia, a pretentious piece of kitsch that just about matched its banal title. The term “hot” referred to the jazzy Afro-American idioms that so captivated Europe during the 1920s and 30s.

What was heard was merely a watered down imitation of Leroy Anderson's various light pieces, played with little regard to jazz harmonies or nuances. And its selling point from Southeast Asia? Perhaps the music is fit for an a-go-go club in Geylang or Patpong...

Far better was Sarawakian Simon Kong's Izpirazione II, an orchestral suite inspired by three thick-skinned East Malaysian fruits. Its movements Durian, Rambutan and Tarap corresponded to a prelude, scherzo and danzon. Durian was premised on a recurring short motif that spelt anticipation of an aromatic feast, while the fast and piquant Rambutan was built on the repetitive rhythms inherent in its spelling.

For the finale, conductor Quek got the audience clapping and stamping their feet to the raucous  dance of Tarap while he filled in with guttural tribal chants. The encore was par for the course of the mid-Autumn Festival as Hua Hao Yue Yuan made for a celebratory send-off. 

TRADITIONAL MODERNITY / NAFA Chinese Orchestra / Review

TRADITIONAL MODERNITY

Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts 

Chinese Orchestra

Lee Foundation Theatre

Thursday (7 April 2016)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 9 April 2016

The oxymoron in the title of this concert by the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts Chinese Orchestra arises from the fact that Chinese orchestras of today do not just perform the classics. They have to adapt to performing new music and non-Chinese compositions. This versatility has enabled an ancient art to survive, thrive and remain relevant to today's audiences.

The concert's first half, conducted by Moses Gay, opened with two jazzy numbers. Law Wai Lun's Old Shanghai was specially composed as the prelude to music for the 1930s silent movie The Goddess starring the tragically short-lived Ruan Lingyu. Infectiously rhythmic winds were the highlight, contrasted with the rigourous beat of percussion that dominated Law and Tan Kah Yong's more sultry arrangement of One Night in Beijing.

Three familiar American numbers allowed the orchestra to relive the “big band” era. Eric Watson's arrangement of Gershwin's Strike Up The Band unfortunately saw the melody submerged  beneath an overzealous march rhythm, but it got better for Law's arrangement of W.C.Handy's St Louis Blues with a piano part added, and the more relaxed trot of Leroy Anderson's Horse and Buggy, arranged by Sim Boon Yew.

The big work was an abridged version of Law's The Celestial Web, with confident drama students Lei Jian and Kang Ying Yu narrating poetry by Cultural Medallion recipient Tan Swie Hian, with subject matter relating to the goddesses Vasumitra and Gaia, brotherhood of man and the eternal cosmos. The recitations were crisply delivered amid celebratory music, and only non-Sinophones need fret about the absence of English translations.

The second half was conducted Quek Ling Kiong, who exuded the same exuberant energy as Yeo Puay Hian's Hard Rock 2002, which basked in a drum set and electric bass. He also introduced the familiar strains of Watson's Mahjong Kakis, a most congenial original work about friends indulging in a favourite pastime which evoked no little memories of 1980s television series themes.

Almost an overdose of nostalgia arrived in Sim's arrangement of Jim Lim's music for the short film Xiao Zhi Tiao (Little Note) by Royston Tan. The orchestra accompanied a screening of the movie about the mutual love of mother and child through the years, a tearjerker that invariably gets viewers clutching onto their Kleenex.

This concert of variety closed with Wang Dan Hong's Colours of Jiangnan, a single-movement triple concerto featuring soloists Sunny Wong (Head of Chinese Instrumental Studies, on erhu), Yu Jia (pipa) and Yin Zhi Yang (dizi). Arguably the most traditional of the works, it was veritable showcase for the varied timbres and techniques of all three instruments in solo and not too complicated polyphony.

The orchestra's accompaniment was both sensitive and non-intrusive, allowing the soloists to stand out in the limelight. Its most important achievement, however, was its mastery of different styles and genres, which will stand the players in good stead for future performing careers.

NAFA 75TH ANNIVERSARY CONCERT / NAFA Orchestras / Review

NAFA 75^TH ANNIVERSARY CONCERT

The NAFA Orchestras

Esplanade Concert Hall

Friday (12 April 2013)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 15 April 2013 with the title "Beethoven's classic played light and fresh".

As the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA) commemorates the 75^th anniversary of its founding, it took the opportunity to reflect upon its roots as a Chinese community-based institution that was unafraid to look to the West for inspiration. Both the NAFA Chinese Orchestra and the NAFA Orchestra had half a concert to itself.

Quek Ling Kiong conducted the Chinese orchestra in three widely contrasting works. The opener Theme of the Patriots by Yu Hui Yong and Hu Deng Tiao was typical of 1950s flag-waving socialism Red Chinese-style, highlighting the orchestra’s six suona players to maximum effect.

Far less strident was Phoon Yew Tien’s newly commissioned Blossoms, which incorporated two old songs Selling Flowers (1940s) and Blooming Flowers (1960s), including taped voices and rhythmic figures that were repeated with a touch of the minimalists. The light textured sounds sat well with Eric Watson’s Pearls, its likeable melody already familiar with several outings on record and in concert. Despite their different backgrounds, both works qualified to be called Nanyang music, that is music conceived in and inspired by matters Southeast Asian.

The young orchestra impressed with its technical prowess and discipline, breathing a hale and hearty sound tempered with more than several degrees of subtlety. Just as commendable were the larger NAFA Orchestra and Chorus led by Lim Yau in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.    

Lim holds the record of having conducted this immortal classic the most times in Singapore. Yet he has always found ways of making it sound fresh and unhackneyed. Taking a leaf from his last outing of the work with The Philharmonic Orchestra, also in Esplanade, orchestral excesses were pared down and tempos were kept on the brisk side.

The fast first two movements were kept on a tight leash, straining and snapping with defiance as the playing was kept on a razor’s edge throughout. There was to be no relaxation in the slow movement, but its majesty gradually unfolded like a red carpet surely and seamlessly rolled out. Decidedly short winded, it clocked in faster than the first movement!

And to the choral finale, its rapturous quality was captured brilliantly by the 150-strong chorus which did not fail to elicit that spine-tingling effect whenever it was called upon. The quartet of soloists, led by bass-baritone Roderick Earle’s moving opening exhortation, was better than the foursome which sang the same work in NAFA’s 70^th anniversary. The Turkish march episode bristled with tenor Justin Lavender’s heroics, and each fugue negotiated by the orchestra and chorus produced a succession of visceral thrills.

With soprano Janis Kelly and mezzo Jessica Chen completing the group, this was an Ode To Joy to remember. And who could forget the most distracting of audiences in the circle seats, whose eagerness to applaud at the most inopportune moments bordered on the desperate. They did so dutifully after each movement, and not once in the middle of the finale but thrice, even as Beethoven paused for a breath. Newcomers they may be, but concert etiquette lessons are in order, yet again.