SEVEN / PHOON YU, Organ / Review

SEVEN

PHOON YU, Organ

Klais Organ of Esplanade Concert Hall

Centaur Records 3926 / TT: 49’05”

 

Strange as it may seem, this is the first ever CD recording of organ music by Singaporean composers. That it comes from Singapore’s brightest young organist, the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory and Juilliard-trained Phoon Yu, who commissioned all the works in the recital, is also significant. Its title Seven comes from the programme’s two groups of seven: seven Singaporean composers with their own personal takes on J.S.Bach’s Chorale Preludes from Clavier-Ubung Book 3, and the seven angels from the Book of Revelation as envisioned in a cycle by an eighth Singaporean composer Chen Zhangyi.

 

Phoon is Anglican by faith, which partly informs this album’s overtly religious programme. It was, however, the aim of showcasing the organ’s full range of colours and dynamic capabilities that really distinguished each of the fourteen pieces. It is perhaps best to appreciate the music as two separate recitals of seven works, playing for about 25 minutes each.   

 

The seven composers’ responses to the Bach chorales either took the form of (1) paraphrases, (2) pieces based on choral melodies (cantus firmus) or (3) pieces inspired by the words (text evocations).  Opening the recital is Jonathan Shin’s Postlude to Allein Gott in der Hoh sei Ehr (Glory be to God in the highest), a jazzy paraphrase that imagined if JSB had arrived in Brooklyn and heard bluegrass.

 

The choral melodies in Tan Yuting’s Vater unser in Himmelreich (Our Father in Heaven) and Emily Koh’s Fantasia on Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir (I cry out to you in deep distress) are well hidden, embedded within the organ’s textures. The latter’s crunching and long-held chords come closest to espousing the avant-garde. In Lee Jinjun’s Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam (Christ our Lord came to Jordan), the melodic line is more transparent and thus most readily discernible.

 

The text evocation preludes gave composers the widest freedoms of expression, hence how different each work sounds. Huang Dingchao’s Fantasia on Dies sind die heilgen zehn Gebot (These are the ten holy commandments) revels in liberal dissonances. Syafiqah ‘Adha Sallehin’s We all believe in one God reflects the radiance of ecumenism, of one uniting the three Abrahamic faiths. Wynne Fung’s Jesus Christus, unser Heiland, der von uns Gotteszorn wandte (Jesus Christ, our saviour, who turned away the wrath of God from us) closes the cycle with some questions instead of a comforting benediction.

 

Olivier Messiaen has previously been cited as an influence for some of Chen Zhangyi’s music. The subject of The Seven Angels certainly has Messiaenic overtones but Chen instead finds his own voice in the seven brief and concise (and therefore un-Messianesque) utterances. Birdsong and celestial chorales are absent, instead various manifestations of trumpets take over, heralding the apocalyptic events in Revelation. It is best appreciated while perusing the texts from Chapters 8, 9 and 11 of the New Testament book of Revelation (not reproduced in the sleeve-notes) while listening to the music. A mixed sense of fearful trepidation and reverential awe may be the desired outcome.

 

There is much to marvel in this music, all hailing from a rather troubled first two decades of the early twenty-first century. Guided by the keen vision, tremendous intellect and understated virtuosity of Phoon Yu, Esplanade Concert Hall’s scandalously under-utilised Klais Organ has hardly sounded this magnificent. This album is a prime candidate for the Singapore canon, established by composing legends like Leong Yoon Pin and Phoon Yew Tien.    

This recording may be sampled / downloaded at:

Seven de Phoon Yu, Syafiqah ‘adha Sallehin, Tan Yuting, Wynne Fung, Chen Zhangyi, Emily Koh, Huang Dingchao, Jonathan Shin & Lee Jinjun en Amazon Music Unlimited

A selection of works from this album may be heard in this Youtube video from the Episcopal Church of St Ignatius of Antioch in New York City (recorded on 22 April 2022):

'SEVEN: Organ Music of Singapore' Album Showcase (Archived Livestream) - YouTube

SSO NATIONAL DAY CONCERT / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

SSO NATIONAL DAY CONCERT

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall

Saturday (11 August 2018)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 14 August 2018 with the title "Something for everyone in concert of Singaporean music".

What is Singaporean music? That question was partially answered in a first-ever National Day Concert by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, led by Singaporean conductor Darrell Ang. In premiering new works and reliving popular tunes, there seemed to be something for everyone this evening. 

Cultural Medallion recipient Kelly Tang's two suites on popular local melodies began each half of the concert. The Symphonic Suite On A Set Of Local Tunes had Home, Chan Mali Chan, Bunga Sayang and Singapore Heartbeat as main themes, with Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and Elmer Bernstein's Magnificent Seven as clever cameos. His Sketches Of Singapore did service to Stand Up For Singapore, Rasa Sayang, Where I Belong and Di Tanjong Katong in the flag-waving Americanised style of John Williams.

It was feel good all the way in the original works, beginning with Syafiqah 'Adha Sallehin's Bidasari, a short work based on the pan-Malayan legend of Syair Bidasari. An orchestration of the main theme from her 2016 choreographed work Ikan Girl, atmospheric piccolo and flute solos backed by lush orchestration suggested this to be the Prelude To The Afternoon Of The Fish.

The Malay and marine setting also dominated Wang Chen Wei The Sisters' Islands, based on another legend. This work sounded even more Indo-Malay with the use of the pelog scale, and had solos from a blown conch shell and ocarina as part of its storytelling. The Vienna-trained Wang's Wagnerian orchestration brought echoes of the Rhine to the Straits of Singapore. 

The longest work was Chen Zhangyi 17-minute-long Violin Concerto entitled Vanda, a tribute to the national flower (Vanda Miss Joachim) and our Garden City. The soloist was London-based Kam Ning who mastered its three movements with her usual easy-going aplomb. The first two botanically-inspired movements were slow, and the fast finale, titled A Renaissance, included a virtuosic jazz-inflected cadenza by Kam herself. Her encore relived the raucous sounds of Chinatown, a Paganinian movement from her father Kam Kee Yong's 1976 sonata Huai Ku.

Xinyao (1980s Singaporean mandarin pop) had a look in with Liang Wern Fook's This Is Singapore Medley orchestrated by Samuel Tan, Its big band arrangement that found an apotheosis in his best-known song Xi Shui Chang Liu. The legacy of Sing Singapore and NDP was revived in Phoon Yew Tien's arrangements of Zubir Said's Semoga Bahagia (May You Achieve Happiness, better known as The Children's Day Song) and S.Jesudassan's Tamil favourite Munnaeru Vaalibaa (Come Forward, Youths!), now joined by the 100-strong combined choirs of the Singapore Symphony group.

It would not be a National Day Concert without Dick Lee's ubiquitous Home, arranged by Tang, and the audience stood up for the national anthem Majulah Singapura by Zubir Said. One senses that this concert has merely scratched the surface of Singaporean music. It is imperative that there will be many more National Day Concerts by the SSO to come in the future. 

Some Photos from SONG ZILIANG's PIANO RECITAL

On Friday evening (16 December 2016) at the School of the Arts Concert Hall, Singaporean pianist Song Ziliang gave an unusual piano recital as part of the Young Virtuoso Recital Series organised by MW Events Management. It was a classical piano recital which also included performances of popular music, encompassing Japanese anime, Korean drama, Chinese oldies and Singaporean Xinyao. The World Premiere of Singaporean Malay composer Syafiqah Adha Sallehin's Mahligai, a work that melded Malay and Western idioms, was also performed.

Song Ziliang studied music at the Moscow Conservatory and later at London's Royal College of Music, where Mikhail Petukhov and Gordon Fergus-Thompson were his principal teachers respectively. He is presently a teacher at Zhonghua Secondary School, where General Music and Marketing are his main subjects.

His classical programme included the Bach-Busoni Chaconne, Schumann's Fantasy in C Op.17 and Scriabin's Sonata No.5. In between were the popular offerings, some of which were requests from his Facebook friends and followers, which he played off an iPad.

Ziliang is an adept and personable speaker and fully engaged his audience with an assortment of anecdotes, and was unafraid to use a little Singlish as well. His listeners clearly warmed up to his efforts and were totally appreciative in their response. As to his concert attire, he deliberately dressed down (denim jeans included) as he did not want to make concerts a stuffy experience.

Ziliang with local composer
Syafiqah Adha Sallehin.

With cellist Loke Hoe Kit,
whose Young Virtuoso Recital takes place on
1 July 2017, at Victoria Concert Hall.

Loke Hoe Kit and pianist Heegan Lee
plugging their forthcoming concerts,
organised by MW Events Management.

PORTRAIT OF A COMPOSER / IKAN GIRL / Singapore International Festival of Music / Review

PORTRAIT OF A COMPOSER / IKAN GIRL

Singapore International Festival of Music

Chamber, The Arts House

Friday (21 October 2016)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 24 October 2016 with the title "Coherent fusion of Malay and Western music".

Malay musicians have long dominated the popular music scene in Singapore, but have recently made in-roads into Western classical music. The best example is young composer Syafiqah 'Adha Sallehin, the first Malay-Muslim graduate from the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, who was the composer-in-residence of the 2^nd Singapore International Festival of Music.

This concert was to have featured five new chamber works including two World Premieres but logistical reasons militated against that. It instead had a truncated first half that opened with two solo piano works performed by Matthew Mak. Elegy was a short and sentimental pop-inspired piece, a student work that could have come from a songbook anywhere in the world.

Syafiqah assured that no one died for it to be conceived. More complex was Surviving Love, which was also tonal but featured some dissonances, and a turbulent central section that portrayed the trials and tribulations of her parents' love. Played with feeling by Mak, all's well that ends well, as to be expected.

The first work with an authentically local idiom was Anjakan Jiwa (Movements Of The Soul) performed by an ensemble with Syafiqah on accordion, violinist Mukhriddin Sayfiddinov, flautist Zaidi-Sabtu Ramli, pianist Nabillah Jallal and percussionist Ramu Thiruyanam. With rhythmic ostinatos established on accordion and percussion, this was an lively dance that lilted like the infectious nuevo tangos of Astor Piazzolla, but with a distinctly Malay flavour. 

The group conducted by Marlon Chen performed the concert's main work Ikan Girl. To prepare the audience, a Prelude was crafted involving its main themes and presented as an attractive stand-alone concert piece.

Ikan Girl, a dance-tableaux in multiple short scenes, was adapted from a tale in the ancient Malay poem Syair Bidasari. Here, a beautiful girl's life and soul is intertwined with that of a magical fish. Producer Mohamad Shaifulbahri's conception was the eternal play of good against evil, danced by eight members of the Bhumi Collective. Amin Farid's choreography combined modern dance with Malay and Indian traditions, where grace and violence found an equal footing.

Nur Azillah Abdul Rahman and Nadia Abdul Malek mirrored each other's movements with seamless fluidity, their carefree smiles finding an implacable antagonist in Rupalavanya Subramaniam's icy Queen. Paralleling a similar plot in the Snow White story, the Queen seeks to destroy the girl but is saved by the fish's dynamism and an unlikely lackey danced by Amin.   

This feel-good quotient would have come to nought if not for Syafiqah's vivid music that closely followed the narrative. Lively and high-pitched birdsong evoked a forest waking, while heavy chords and stern harmonies represented the darker forces at work. A sense of agitation filled the air in the abduction scenes while a violin's bittersweet melody played out a happy resolution.

Like what Stravinsky's Petrushka did for Russian music over a century ago, could Syafiqah's Ikan Girl, an experimental but coherent fusion of Malay and Western classical music, be this equally momentous landmark for local music?   

Producer Mohamad Shaifulbahri,
choreographer Amin Farid and
pianist Nabillah Jalal were London-based
artists, when they first collaborated with
composer Syafiqah 'Adha Sallehin.