RHAPSODIES OF SPRING 2026 / Singapore Chinese Orchestra / Review

 

RHAPSODIES OF SPRING 2026

Singapore Chinese Orchestra

Singapore Conference Hall

Saturday (31 January 2026)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 2 February 2026 with the title "Singapore Chinese Orchestra kicks off festive celebrations with crowd-pleasing fare".

In typical festive style, the Singapore Chinese Orchestra led by principal conductor Quek Ling Kiong pulled out all the stops for its annual Chinese New Year concert. Quite predictably, Li Huanzhi’s very popular Spring Festival Overture in Sim Boon Yew’s orchestration opened the evening, its celebratory strains never failing to rouse the spirits.

Conductor Quek Ling Kiong
with emcees Yixin & Qi Qi.

What came after that was deliberately scripted, with the Singapore premiere of Liu Chang’s Vires (Huan Ge), a yangqin concerto with SCO member Ma Huan as soloist. Given the coming Year of the Horse (Ma in Chinese), it seemed only apt to cast her (her name is literally “horse happiness”) in the leading role and she did not disappoint.

The work was a rhapsody on Guangxi folk song Rowing and Drifting, beginning serenely before a wallow of melting lyricism. As these virtuoso works go, contemplation eventually gives way to dance and a show of scintillating prestidigitation.

A show of the orchestra’s prowess came in Gu Guanren’s Spring Suite, five picture postcard views of the arriving season in the far reaches of China. A dizi solo distinguished Azalea Blooms, while a woodblock provided the rapid-fire hoofbeats for Sturdy Steeds Gallop.

The mimicry of bird song greeted Early Spring at Miaoling, while cinematic colour depicted broad vistas of Lush Green Meadows and Rivers. Finally, an infectiously vibrant Central Asian dance melody brought Grand Festival at Tianshan to a raucous close.

The second concertante work featured Zhang Shuo on guanzi in Kuan Nai-Chung’s Clouds from The Carefree Journey, a work of philosophical inspiration. Its plaintive quality, with a timbral quality resembling a saxophone, provided the short movement based on a shepherd’s song with precious moments for quiet introspection.

This sold-out concert showcased two world premieres, the first being Li Nixia’s Thousands of Galloping Horses which despite its title had its fair share of slow music. Dissonance from bowed strings and percussion waiting to be stirred made the anticipation of action all the more acute. Then it was time to completely broke loose, the ultimate musical representation of a stampede with steeds headed on a war path.

The other first performance was A Meteor Across Time, a skit with music by Sulwyn Lok, scripted by Boris Boo and directed by Judy Ngo, featuring nine disc jockeys (yet another equine reference) from Mediacorp’s Capital 958 Chinese radio station. The comedy involved a time warp with two men swapping positions and getting into scraps in the Qin dynasty and present day.

Popular trending subjects like health products in aid of longevity, social influencers, sales targets and couples delaying to tie the knot were brought up amid quickfire dialogue and dizzying changes in plot.

Needless to say, all’s well that ends well in the story. Finally, the entire cast united to sing and clap out Tan Kah Yong’s arrangement of that ubiquitous and inescapable Lunar New Year earworm: Chen Gexin’s Gongxi Gongxi.

ELEMENTS - SSO x DING YI / Singapore Symphony Orchestra & Ding Yi Music Company / Review

ELEMENTS – SSO x DINGYI

Musicians of 

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

& Ding Yi Music Company

Victoria Concert Hall

Sunday (11 January 2026)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 13 January 2026 with the title "Creative take on mainstream and avant-garde fare by SSO and Ding Yi".

In a first-ever collaboration between the Singapore Symphony Orchestra and Ding Yi Music Company, instrumental virtuosity was the order of the day. Such a programme consisting wholly of contemporary works by local and Chinese composers is not a regular part of the SSO faithful’s diet, but par for the course for Ding Yi, Singapore’s leading professional chamber ensemble playing traditional Chinese instruments.

Programme curator Dedric Wong
introduced the works to be performed.

A very well-filled house was treated to a vast array of timbres and sounds, from traditional to contemporary. Opening the evening was young Singaporean composer Sulwyn Lok’s Gathered By The Winds, an SSO commission which brought together three very popular folk songs from China. Even a neophyte will recognise Molihua (Jasmine Flower) from Jiangsu, Mu Ge (Pastoral Song) from Inner Mongolia and Xiao He Tang Shui (The Little River Flows) from Yunnan, performed in an upbeat arrangement influenced by popular music.

Photo: Clive Choo

The piquant combination of Western flute (Jin Ta) and Chinese dizi (Lyu Sih-Ying), supported by pipa, sheng, yangqin, guzheng and Western string quintet, with rhythm section of Chinese and Western percussion (Low Yik Hang and Mark Suter) was ear-catching and enjoyable.

Photo: Clive Choo

Of far sterner substance was Academy Award-winning Chinese composer Tan Dun’s Eight Colors (1986), an early work for Western string quartet, crafted when he was still experimenting with atonalism and the avant-garde. Violinists Zhao Tian and Zhang Sijing, violist Wang Dandan and cellist Christopher Mui treated this work as they would a work by Arnold Schoenberg or Elliott Carter, with utmost seriousness. The portamenti (slides) encountered kept its feeling Oriental while and brevity prevented musical interest from wearing thin.

Photo: Clive Choo

The work with most local flavour was Singapore composer Ho Chee Kong’s Shades Of Oil Lamps, commissioned by the Singapore Arts Festival and premiered by London Sinfonietta in 2008. Led by Ding Yi resident conductor Dedric Wong, this version saw some Western instruments of the original replaced by Chinese instruments, which included dizi, sheng, daruan and huqin, while retaining cello, bass, oboe, bassoon and two percussionists.

Bassist Yang Zhengyi strikes the gong,
and the story comes to an end.

Its programme centred around an itinerant storyteller of a century ago plying his trade along the Singapore River. Enthralling his listeners, the music followed the ebb and flow of tall tales being spun, reaching a climax before the inevitable plea for donations. Even audience disquiet was being captured, before a gong signalled it was time to pack up.

Photo: Clive Choo

The longest work on the programme, also directed by Wong, was Chinese composer Zhou Long’s Metal, Stone, Silk and Bamboo in the world premiere of its octet version. Its three demanding movements attempted to relive and recreate the lofty heights of Tang dynasty palace composition through contemporary perpectives.

Dizi exponent Lyu was cast as lead performer, playing dadi, qudi and bangdi, flutes of different registers. Supported by flute, clarinet, violin, cello, zhongruan and percussion, its three varied movements were a tour de force of creative imagination. A repeat performance by the combined forces of SSO and Ding Yi cannot come soon enough.

A FOLKLORIC JOURNEY: MELODIES OF THE HOMELAND / Donald Law, Gabriel Lee & Zoi Yeh / Review

 

A FOLKLORIC JOURNEY: 

MELODIES OF THE HOMELAND 

Gabriel Lee (Violin) 

Zoi Yeh (Cello) & 

Donald Law (Piano) 

Esplanade Recital Studio 

Thursday (31 October 2024)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 4 November 2024 with the title "Chamber concert an enjoyable study of musical nationalism".

The idea of home and homesickness in music mostly came about during the Romantic era, largely due to composers traveling away from their lands of birth and the rise of nationalism. This chamber concert was an enjoyable study of musical nationalism and how composers poured their hearts out when reminded of their origins. 

The evening opened with pianist Donald Law performing Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s Dumka (Op.59) for solo piano. While he was considered too Western in style and taste by the “Mighty Handful” of Russian nationalist composers, Tchaikovsky nevertheless carved out a virtuoso showpiece from its brooding subject (Dumka comes from the Ukrainian word duma, which is a “lament”). 

Law coped well with its series of short variations and mastered its dizzying cadenza with aplomb, with its brusque concluding C minor chords echoed in the next work, Taiwanese composer Tyzen Hsiao’s Capriccio In Hakka Melody. Taiwanese cellist Zoi Tzu-Jou Yeh, who is Hakka herself, recalled hearing this tune being sung in market places during her youth. Like the earlier Tchaikovsky, its heart-rending melody, performed with much warmth and feeling, evoked genuine nostalgia. 

For solo cello was young London-based Singaporean composer Toh Yen Ee’s Ode To The Sun (2022), inspired by a painting (of the same title) and violin work (Kuang Xiang Qu) by Cultural Medallion recipient Kam Kee Yong. Its all-too-short depiction of sunrise, midday and sunset received a luminous reading from Yeh. 

Violinist Gabriel Lee accounted for two popular violin works, opening with the second piece from Bohemian composer Bedrich Smetana’s From The Homeland. Alternating between G minor and major keys, its Slavonic dance rhythms found sympathetic advocates in Lee and Law, who completed the concert’s first half with Hungarian composer Bela Bartok’s Romanian Folkdances. In the third dance (Pe Loc or On The Spot), Lee eschewed its stratospheric harmonics for an earthier sound more closely resembling Romanian gypsy fiddling. 

The concert’s major work was Smetana’s Piano Trio in G minor (Op.15), which occupied the whole second half. If one found the first half a tad polite and restrained, all three musicians went for broke in this passionate work which hit the evening’s highest points. Huge fortissimo chords on the piano were balanced by the cello’s rich expressiveness and violin’s virtuosic turns of phrase. 

The central movement delighted in syncopations and the quaint folksiness found in ethnic dances, while the finale’s rapid fire was guaranteed to send pulses racing. Smetana still had one big tune up his sleeve, which was first lovingly heard on cello, and finally milked for all its worth for a spectacular close. 

As an encore, the trio performed what could now be considered a Singaporean folksong - Dick Lee’s Home. Arranged in G major by Sulwyn Lok, any fuzzy and warm feelings engendered should not be considered embarrassing. It just means one is a dyed-in-the-wool local!