NAFA Mentorship Piano Recital @ Steinway Gallery Singapore

Steinway Gallery Singapore at Palais Renaissance has truly become a hive of piano activity, with recitals taking place ever so often that it is sometimes difficult to keep track of. The latest was a Mentorship Piano Recital on Sunday 16 October, featuring two eminent teachers of the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts and a trio of their best students.

The teachers, Rena Phua-Cheung and Boris Kraljevic opened the proceedings with a performance of Mozart's Sonata in D major for 4 hands, K.381. The faster outer movements buzzed with rhythmic exactitude and exuberance, with the slow movement being an oasis of lyrical charm and beauty. The legato they achieved was simply delicious.

Thanks to Boris, the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts has been attracting some fine musical talents from the former (and present) Communist bloc nations. Three such students featured in the recital, beginning with Ana Jovanovic (Serbia) who performed two contrasting movements from Prokofiev's Second Sonata. The slow movement saw her build a fine arch of brooding crescendo, building upwards to a cathartic climax of sorts, before unleashing a rush of adrenaline for the breathless finale. She hasn't got all the notes yet, but this is a good start.

Everyone knows the love affair between Kseniia Vokhmyanina (Ukraine) and Chopin's Fantasy in F minor. She has lived with this work for almost two years, and her every performance of this demanding masterpiece gets more and more convincing. She has begun to take ownership of this piece; her every note and phrase and gesture means something important, and there is nothing that is superfluous. Simply, she has unearthed the genius and passion of Chopin, and that is cause for celebration.

Similarly, Nguyen Tien Khai (Vietnam) has grown in confidence with her interpretation of Prokofiev's Eighth Sonata. The first movement is a blockbuster of bittersweet lyricism coloured with a violent streak. Both these contrasting elements were well brought out. The languorous melodic line of the opening soon morphing into something far more sinister and malevolent. The rumbling unheavals of the central episode were a tour de force of expressing a painful and agonising disquiet.

Mentors and students come together for a final bow.

Three virtuosas in the making.

A proud teacher Boris Kraljevic and his charges.

Piano Recital @ Steinway Gallery Singapore

Piano Recital @ Steinway Gallery Singapore

Piano Studio of Boris Kraljevic, NAFA / Thursday (12 May 2011)

The Steinway Gallery Singapore at Palais Renaissance has been open for a couple of months, and recitals have begun. Soon this will become a focal point of high musical culture in the city, countering the shopping frenzy and sleaze that is Orchard Road (and neighbouring Orchard Towers). Seven students of Montenegrin pianist Boris Kraljevic at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts were on hand to apply this new coat of paint.

The evening began with Liu Ruishan (China, above) performing Chopin’s Scherzo No.4 in E major (Op.54). She has the full measure of the notes, but something was missing in her reading of the most elusive and skittish of Chopin’s four Scherzi. A free-wheeling quality and grasp of its implicit humour is what separates the exceptional from the merely good, but she produced a nice legato in the central section which gave a gloss to the performance as a whole.

Aditya Permana (Indonesia, above) performed the first movement from Schumann’s Sonata No.1 in F sharp minor (Op.11). He gave the introduction an arresting feel, with due attention paid on the dotted rhythms. The Allegro vivace sounded over-pedalled where a crisper sound would have been preferred. The unrelenting drive that powered the movement showed he had both energy and reserve to make the music relevant.

There was something ungainly about the performance of the first two movements from Bartok’s Suite (Op.14) by the burly Fung Chuntung (Singapore, above). Under-pedalling lent the music a dry sound, and the clackity-clack of his fingernails on the keys did not help. He does have good rhythmic sense, but the second movement was undone by inaccuracies. Every note must fall in place for this work to be successful.

Cheng Choong Seng (Malaysia, above) produced a big sound from Chopin’s “Heroic” Polonaise (Op.53), but this was somewhat unevenly applied. His is a volatile spirit who goes for broke, but sometimes the music could do with less brawn and less extraneous movement. The notorious left hand octaves were steady but tended to be workmanlike, and the effect of overwhelming energy was lost.

The choice of Ervina (Indonesia, above) to play four of Shostakovich’s 24 Préludes (Op.34) was a strange one, as she neither has the technique nor sense of irony to do these deceptively tricky miniatures justice. Only in the E flat minor (No.14) number was the funereal overtones with its tolling bells well captured. The rest just lacked the requisite humour and wit.

The best performance of the evening came in Chopin’s Fantasy in F minor (Op.49) from Kseniia Vokhmyanina (Ukraine, above). The opening slow march was well-paced and wonderfully pedalled, and the aristocratic mien was maintained through the entire piece. There was no shortage of passion and pyrotechnics, and the central chorale was deeply felt, with a velvety touch that was hard to ignore.

Not to be outdone was Nguyen Tien Khai (Vietnam, above) in the first movement of Prokofiev’s Sonata No.8 in B flat major (Op.84). The least violent of the three “War Sonatas”, the Andante dolce opening had a suitably languorous feel, helped by exquisite pedalling and a well-judged control of its sonorities. The subterranean rumblings and filigreed passages of the middle section held no fears as she weathered the tempest with much flair and purpose. There were missed notes for certain, but that did little to unfaze this, a truly volcanic performance which closed the recital on a high.

A chuffed Boris Kraljevic (extreme left) 

with his students.

POOMZ! Piano Prodigies by Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts / Review

PIANO PRODIGIES
NAFA Auditorium
Tuesday (12 January 2010)

What does one make of a recital entitled Piano Prodigies? Hyperbole or mere wishful thinking? To the credit of the Department of Keyboard Studies at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Art, neither; this hour-long recital by their foreign student talents came close to the real thing.

The 16-year-old whiz from Hainan Island (China), Zhao Yang Ming Tian (above), looks every bit of a keyboard veteran. Opening with a commanding account of Granados’ Allegro de Concierto, roulades of notes flew in its fanfare-like introduction, immaculately tossed off with a facility and lightness that impressed. Blessed with the ability to relax and withhold, and later pile on the notes upon demand, he strikes the listener as a thinking and feeling musician, not an automaton. Easily negotiating a variety of tricky octave passages, and with melodic interest never lost amid the busy guitar-like figurations, these were further plusses. Refreshing in his lack of mannerism, I would much sooner hear Zhao than some chap called Lang Lang.

Mop-topped Nguyen Tien Khai from Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam, above), performed the Vivace third movement from Prokofiev’s Sonata No.8 in B flat major (Op.84). The least savage of his trilogy of War Sonatas, its finale was nonetheless a rapid-fire over barbed-wire exercise in keyboard prowess. Nguyen has the notes, and her Kalashnikov-like attack propelled the music forward with much impetus and volume. However this devilish perpetual motion needs to have more nuance and contour to mean something. A good build-up of momentum was maintained in the central goosestep of staccatos, but the grandstand ending was a mad scramble with missed notes aplenty. I would have much preferred to hear this personable young lady in the sonata’s far more expressive first movement.

All this served as the “undercard” to the “main event” from NAFA alumnus Poom Prommachart (Thailand, above), now a student at London’s Royal College of Music. With a boyish grin, he thanked the organisers of the recital and launched into Rachmaninov’s Étude-tableau in E flat minor (Op.39 No.5). Not the cleanest of readings, it nevertheless had the smouldering melodic line down pat, and reached a towering climax with the inner voice raging above the torrent of chords.

Schumann’s eight-movement Kreisleriana (Op.16) crowned a satisfying evening. A false start notwithstanding, his passionate and fearless leap into its thorny thickets showed he meant business. Combining nimble fingers and deeply felt emotions, he was deep within the heart of the hyper-Romantic music. To this, he brought wide-ranging colours and big gestures, reveling in its turbulent pages yet in always touch with a more tender side. This is a portrait of a poet madly in love, but can a mere 20-year-old be privy to that? Poom exercised that right with generosity and gusto, with the ability to quixotically shift and alternate moods being the secret to understanding this musical roller-coaster.

There were no Singaporeans featured in this recital. No matter, our schools are privileged to have been part of the musical education of these musical prodigies. POOMZ, and triple POOMZ!