FINDING FINLANDIA / Yong Siew Toh Orchestral Institute / Review

 

FINDING FINLANDIA 

Yong Siew Toh Orchestral Institute 

Conservatory Concert Hall 

Saturday (25 January 2025)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 27 January 2025 with the title "Orchestral institute's young musicians offer invigorating read of Sibelius".

It seems there is not a time in history when Russia is not oppressing a smaller nation. The turn of the 20th century saw Finland flexing its own nationalist muscles as it slowly but surely found its independence from the faltering Tsarist empire. 

This concert by the Yong Siew Toh Orchestral Institute focused wholly on two major works by Finnish composer Jean Sibelius (1865-1957) which encapsulated that yearn for freedom. Led by guest conductor Ken Lam, director of orchestral studies at the Tianjin Juilliard School and resident conductor of the Tianjin Juilliard Orchestra, the concert opened with the imposing but popular tone poem Finlandia (Op.26) of 1899. 

Photo: Ong Shu Chen

Choruses of stirring brass are pivotal for this masterpiece, and from the outset, the young musicians boldly proved themselves with a lack of timidity. Intonation was spot on for most part, paving the way for the familiar Finlandia Hymn, known to most churchgoers here as Be Still, My Soul. Woodwinds followed by strings laid on the self-belief with shovel-loads of fervour. 

Photo: Ong Shu Chen

Contrary to popular belief, this was not a melody derived from folk sources but a Sibelius original, which first appeared in his Press Celebrations Music entitled Tableau VI: Finland Awakes. 

With the patriotism dialled up to the nth level, what followed without intermission was Sibelius’ Second Symphony in D major (Op.43) of 1901-02. Virtually cut from the same fabric, its opening was however more subtle. Strings provided the feeling of warmth, amid a gripping narrative seemingly illustrative of Finland’s dense woods, wintry lakes and granitic landscapes. 

Again, no folk material was quoted, instead listeners were led through the dark recesses of oppressiveness with open ears. This was best felt in the slow second movement, where pizzicato strings opened and a pall later descended on the music. At its bleakest and most desolate moment, the luminous glow of a solo trumpet registered a ray of hope. 

Photo: Ong Shu Chen

All of this heady nationalism to come was implicit, concealed for obvious reasons, yet one could feel it in the bones. By the third movement’s thrall of agitation, where accurate string prestidigitation ruled, anticipation was already in the air. 

Photo: Ong Shu Chen

This clear-headed interpretation from Lam meant one could easily follow the orchestra through difficult journey from darkness to light. The moment when nebulous D minor turned into glorious D major, it was as if billowing clouds cleared to reveal the reality of sunshine. 

With warmth returning and turned on full blast, this was the rallying cry for emancipation which the Finns needed to hear, and more importantly, feel. The young musicians responded accordingly. Needing no further encouragement, they played as if their lives depended on it and were accorded the rightful audience acclamation. 

This listener remembered the first time the Singapore Symphony Orchestra performing it, during the early 1980s, and this youthful reading felt all the more invigorating. Can one call this progress?

YSTOI X NUSSO / Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Orchestral Institute & National University of Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

 

YST ORCHESTRAL INSTITUTE X 

NUS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA 

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Concert Hall 

Sunday (24 March 2024)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 26 March 2024 with the title "First collaboration between Yong Siew Toh and NUS orchestras a celebratory success".

When the newly-inaugurated Yong Siew Toh Conservatory mounted its first orchestral concert in 2003, the ensemble conducted by Chan Tze Law was merely the second symphony orchestra on campus. The incumbent was the National University of Singapore Symphony Orchestra (NUSSO), formed in 1979 by the late Paul Abisheganaden. 

Strangely, the two orchestras had never collaborated over the past 21 years, even on occasion holding rivalling concerts in the same day. This joint concert marked a breakthrough, a result of Conservatory vice-dean Chan also holding the directorship of the University Centre for the Arts. 

Uniting soon-to-be-professionals with recreational musicians, the concert programme relived the conservatory orchestra’s maiden voyage with Chan again at its helm. Opening with Ho Chee Kong’s Fanfare, the rousing music centred on C major with brass and string flourishes portending early promise which would come to fruition with the present. 

Photo: Yong Junyi

Equally celebratory was Johannes Brahms’s Academic Festival Overture, composed for the University of Breslau where he received an honorary degree in 1881. Typical of the German’s humour, the work quoted student songs, culminating with the rowdy drinking song Gaudeamus Igitur. The young musicians were well-behaved in ensemble if not totally impeccable, but made a good fist of the music with cymbal clashes and ringing triangle at its close. 

The obligatory concertante work was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante in E flat major (K.297b), which highlighted four wind soloists. While the 2003 line-up was of faculty members (also Singapore Symphony principals), the four soloists this evening were their students Sho Yong Shuen (oboe), Chen Yan-Rung (clarinet), Shi Jiaao (bassoon) and Yeh Shih-Hsin (French horn). 

Photo: Yong Junyi

This foursome worked very well together, first as a unison unit as they entered, then separately as solo parts took a life of their own. Backed to the hilt by pared-down orchestral forces, here was true chamber music at work. Lyricism ruled in the slow movement while the folksy finale’s tricky theme and variations revealed what virtuosos they really are. 

Photo: Yong Junyi

Arguably best was to come in Antonin Dvorak’s Eighth Symphony in G major (Op.88), a work also associated with higher education. This was the Bohemian composer’s response to his admission to the Prague Academy in 1890 and receiving honours from Cambridge University. Although less famous than his Ninth Symphony (the “New World”), it scored high for its collegial spirit. 

Photo: Yong Junyi

The full-strength ensemble of both orchestras gave a performance of passion and polish. The opening melody on cellos could not have sounded more mellow, its singing tone soon transmitting to the rest. Conductor Chan kept a tight ship, yet allowed the lyrical music to flow. 

Slavonic qualities of the central movements came to the fore, the slow movement’s rusticity contrasted with the third movement’s lilting dance. Excellent brass ruled the cheerful finale, which also delighted in a celebration of counterpoint. 

Photo: Yong Junyi

The very warm audience reception was rewarded with a contemplative encore, the slow movement from Ho’s Of Passion and Passages, reflecting hope for a bright future ahead.

AMERIGO-ROUND / Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Orchestral Institute / Review

AMERIGO-ROUND 

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory 

Orchestral Institute 

NUS University Cultural Centre 

Friday (2 February 2024)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 5 Feburary with the title "Orchestral institutes delivers classics from the Americas with exuberance".

The latest concert by the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Orchestral Institute had a decidedly American slant. Evident in its peculiar title, the name comes from Florentine explorer and navigator Amerigo Vespucci (1454-1512) whom at the turn of the 16th century voyaged from Europe to the Americas. The “New World” was a term coined by him, and the newly-discovered continents – North and South - were in turn named after him. 

The carnival atmosphere, also suggested by the title, opened with Leonard Bernstein’s Overture to Candide, his operetta based on Voltaire’s satirical novella. Conducted by Jason Lai, the orchestra leapt into its ebullient pages with a fearless abandon, bringing out its bubbly Rossinian wit. The tricky syncopations, not least in the Glitter and be Gay segment, were brilliantly pulled off. 

Next stop was George Gershwin’s very boisterous Cuban Overture, composed after a holiday in Havana, which incorporated local musical idioms particularly the rumba, and motifs from several popular songs. Percussion and brass sections were made to work overtime, their efforts paying off handsomely in this exuberant performance. 

Aaron Copland’s El Salon Mexico followed, with scents and aromas south of the border being celebrated. From indolent siesta to joyous fiesta, the music luxuriated in excellent solos from trumpet and clarinet. The work soon gathered pace and erupted into a full-blown dance, with terrific thumps on the timpani at the climaxes for good measure. 

American (Jewish) icons:
Bernstein, Gershwin & Copland.

Incidentally, all the three American composers were of Jewish ancestry, from Massachusetts (Bernstein) and Brooklyn (Gershwin and Copland) respectively. How they captured the infectious rhythms and irrepressible flavours of the vernacular with such skill and seeming authenticity, relived by this young orchestra, seemed almost incredulous. 

The concert’s second half had no borrowed music, instead opening with three dances from Spanish composer Manuel de Falla’s ballet Three Cornered Hat. It was the Spanish conquest of the New World which brought its characteristically rhythmic music over to the Americas. In the Neighbour’s Dance, Miller’s Dance and Final Dance, one soon got the essence of Latino music, and it really did not matter which side of the Atlantic it was from. 

If the last dance was hustling and bustling from the very outset, living Mexican composer Arturo Marquez’s very popular Danzon No.2 was a slow boil. Opening with just solo clarinet, piano and claves (two wooden sticks struck against each other) and quietly accompanying strings, the music seemed to emanate from some soporific cantina. 

Its gradual awakening to rude health was what made this reading tick. Soloists stood up as they performed, and with time the standing groups got larger as the music gained in volume and momentum. Eventually the entire string section that got onto its collective feet, and with a loudly-popping shower of streamers, the enjoyable Americas-themed extravaganza was brought to a sonorous close.