A LOVE TRIBUTE TO MUM / Singapore Chinese Orchestra / Review

A LOVE TRIBUTE TO MUM

Singapore Chinese Orchestra

Singapore Conference Hall

Saturday (9 May 2015)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 11 May 2015 with the title "Nostalgic musical trip for mums".

The Singapore Chinese Orchestra has laid claim to Mother's Day, the second Sunday of May, as a legitimate occasion to celebrate with a concert. Like the Singapore Symphony Orchestra's popular Christmas and Valentine's Day Concerts, these are well-subscribed and allow the players to collectively let down their hair in selections of popular classics and pop standards. Conducted by the effervescent SCO Resident Conductor Quek Ling Kiong who doubled as emcee in Mandarin and a smattering of English and Hokkien, this latest Mother's Day Concert was a sentimental hit for its mostly middle-aged audience who enjoy a leisurely variety show.

The first half was devoted to purely instrumental music, beginning with a medley of “motherly” songs entitled Dedicated To Her, arranged by Tan Kah Yong. Despite the lyrics in large typeface being projected on a screen and enthusiastic coaxing from the conductor, the audience remained resistantly taciturn, waving their arms to the music instead. Better received were the two concertante works for dizi and huqin.

SCO dizi player Tan Chye Tiong mastered four different instruments from the Chinese flute family in Liu Yuan's Capriccio of Liu San Jie, a rhapsody on popular tunes from the 1960s cult movie on Third Sister Liu of  ethnic Zhuang folklore. His virtuosity in both lyrical and lively dance passages was matched by that of Xu Wen Jing who performed on two gaohus in a truncated version of the evergreen Butterfly Lovers Concerto. The portamenti achieved on the huqin comes closer to the spirit of Chinese opera than the western violin for which the work was originally written.

Both soloists were in excellent form, backed to the hilt by the sensitive orchestral accompaniment, but had to cede centrestage to local xinyao singer Hong Shao Xuan who dominated the entire second half of the concert, which comprised mostly vocal music. He  bantered with conductor Quek and the audience and went on to croon lovesongs like a Chinese Perry Como.

The medley of Chameleon and The Brothers, and Joseph Koo's Lou Tai Hui (Meeting At The Pavilion) were sung in Cantonese, and to further display his versatility in dialects and foreign languages, rendered Mum Please Take Care in Japanese and Luo Da You's Xin Gan Bao Bei (Sweet Heart) in Hokkien.

Famous singer-songwriter Liu Jia Chang, whose songs have been immortalised by Teresa Teng and Feng Fei Fei, had six of his songs arranged by Law Wai Lun and Lincoln Lo in The Past Can Only Be Remembered, a colourful suite conceived like a young person's primer to Chinese orchestration. The narration was a voice-over provided by conductor Quek, and a high point was reached in the third song Where Is My Home with Han Lei's plaintive guan serenely accompanied by lush strings.

By this time, the mother's day theme had more or less morphed into a more general and universal form of love. Hong then dedicated his performances of Ye Lai Xiang (Evening Primrose) and Chao Yuen Zi Ye (Grassland Fantasy) to the ladies and gentleman of the audience respectively, and finished off with Cultural Medallion recipient Liang Wern Fook's xinyao hit When I Think Of You. Its rousing chorus was accompanied by an audience clap-along, and a cheerful encore brought the two-and-a-half-hour evening's fare to a happy close.

Photographs by the kind permission of the Singapore Chinese Orchestra.

THE CHARM OF SILK AND BAMBOO / Members of Singapore Chinese Orchestra / Review

THE CHARM OF SILK AND BAMBOO

Musicians of the 

Singapore Chinese Orchestra

Esplanade Recital Studio

Tuesday (16 September 2014)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 18 September 2104 with the title "Chinese chamber music that charms".

While symphonic composition for Chinese instruments is a 20^th century phenomenon, chamber music has existed for millennia, passed down by oral tradition and its practitioners from antiquity. Jiangnan si zhu is a hallowed tradition of intimate chamber music that thrived south of the Yangtze River, the reference to silk (si) and bamboo (zhu) being the bowed string and woodwind instruments used by the players.

Typically such an ensemble would feature a quartet, including the accompanying yangqin (dulcimer). This 80-minute concert by members of the Singapore Chinese Orchestra, showcasing seven virtuosos and led by its Associate Conductor Moses Gay, did not profess historical performance practice or authenticity. Adapting to modern advancements and a considerably expanded geography, each soloist was given a chance to shine in front of a very enthusiastic full-house audience.

Two popular Cantonese tunes, Blossoms of the Cotton Tree and Song of the Full Moon, were poetry in the hands of erhu player Tao Kai Li, who looked resplendent herself in an ornately embroidered red gown. A singing tone and the ability to tug at the heartstrings of nostalgia were key to their success.

Lim Kiong Pin’s Dream of Bali featured the organ-like pipes of the sheng, performed by Ong Yi Horng. The pentatonic nem scale - commonly heard on the gamelan - was employed, first as a reverie-like introduction and later as an animated finale that had the same repeated rhythmic motif as the popular 1960s song Stand By Me.

Foong Chui San’s strummed ruan (a lute resembling a banjo) and Lee Khiok Hua’s bowed gehu (with a similar timbre and range as the cello) combined sensitively in The Song of Mulan, which began with martial strains improvised by Foong that portrayed the cross-dressing lady warrior of legend.

The zhonghu played by Sim Boon Yew and banhu by Tao highlighted the different ranges occupied by the instruments, in Mongolian song Pulling the Camel and Ge Yan’s Carriage Running over the Fields respectively. The latter was a fast romp, aided by conductor Gay striking its rhythm on a ma ling, jingling bells usually associated with sleigh rides in the snow. 

Let’s Talk About The Past in Sim Boon Yew and Tan Chye Tiong’s arrangement, a medley of popular Minnan and Taiwanese songs, received its World Premiere. Here Tan performed on a series of eleven blown instruments from the dizi family, including the Japanese shakuhachi, a pair of xuns (ocarinas), paixiao (panpipes) and what appeared like a snake-charmer’s pipe. This breathless tour-de-force received the longest applause.

All seven instruments, including Qu Jian Qing’s yangqin, had equal prominence in Zhou Cheng Long’s Festival of Mountain and Forest, a rhapsody based on Yi tribal themes which brought the concert to a stirring close. A very lively post-concert discussion hosted by composer-compere Liong Kit Yeng showed that appreciation of Chinese chamber music is a well worth cultivating. Kudos to Esplanade and the Singapore Chinese Orchestra for making it happen.

    

This concert was presented as part of the Esplanade Chinese Chamber Music Series.