JEREMY MONTEIRO AT 65: THE STATE OF MY ART / Review

 

JEREMY MONTEIRO AT 65: 

THE STATE OF MY ART 

Esplanade Concert Hall 

Friday (14 March 2025)

This review published in The Straits Times on 17 March 2025 with the title "Jazz maestro Jeremy Monteiro's rousing gig for 65th birthday".

Since its inception in 1980, the Cultural Medallion has been awarded to only two pianists. The latest was avantgardeist Margaret Leng Tan (2015), but the first was Singapore’s “King of Swing” Jeremy Monteiro in 2002. Making his 65th birthday this year, a three-hour concert was the summation of 49 years of professional performance, 50 albums and over 700 original compositions behind him. 

Photo: Ken Cheong

With the typical candour and self-deprecating humour of a stand-up comic, he spoke about every work on the programme. The evening opened with a trio, just Monteiro on piano, Jay Anderson (bass) and Hong Chanutr Techatananan (drums). This was how jazz groups began, playing in smoke-filled lounges and clubs of yesteryear, where performances were improvised in the most free-wheeling way possible. 

In Dave Brubeck’s In Your Own Sweet Way, Monteiro’s mastery with dizzying runs on the right hand over left hand chords led the way, and thereafter almost every piece that came was an original work of his. Despite its title, Blues For Capt Hans was an upbeat fast number, contrasted with the true moody blues of Always In Love with its reflective melody transcribed on bass. 

Three became five, when they were joined by Frenchman Nicolas Folmer (trumpet/flugelhorn) and Sean Hong Wei (tenor sax) for Jazzybelle’s Shuffle, a casual saunter down Orchard Road which turned out to be more of a parade. Monteiro’s warm crooning voice was heard in Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart’s My Romance, accompanied by Sean, closing the first half in contemplation. 

Photo: Ken Cheong

The stage got more crowded when the Jazz Association Singapore Orchestra (JASSO) came aboard with Elephant In The Room, a busily brassy number co-written with Briton Alan Barnes. Then came a sequence of what might be Monteiro’s “greatest hits”, possibly his most memorable and catchiest numbers. Carousel in a Child’s Mind, written for his son Varian, was an ear worm of a fast waltz, while Brothers highlighted the solo of Taiwanese flautist Jenni Tsai. 

More guest performers including former Singapore Symphony Orchestra co-leader Lynnette Seah (violin) and vocalist Sneha Menon, who starred in Seul a Paris (Alone In Paris), composed during Monteiro’s lowest ebb while walking through the Jardin du Luxembourg. To heighten its French sense of melancholy, further commentary was provided by him on an accordion. 

Photo: Ken Cheong

Far more cheerful was From Paris to Segres, co-written with Eugene Pao, a classic train piece with with chugging rhythms and far-reaching sense of optimism. Monteiro’s longtime mentor 83-year-old Louis Soliano was also given the spotlight in Artie Butler’s Here’s To Life, where his vocals rose above the drumming to touch hearts. 

Photo: Ken Cheong

The concert proper closed with the lively beats of Mount Olive, after which the orchestra broke out with Happy Birthday To You and a birthday cake wheeled in for good measure. 

There was time for two encores, George Gershwin’s Love Is Here To Stay (with Menon’s soul-infused vocals) and Monteiro’s most heard and best-selling hit, One People, One Nation, One Singapore in a rousing blues-gospel version. Monteiro 65 thus becomes the perfect prelude to SG 60.

HAPPY 340TH BIRTHDAY, J.S.BACH! / Soiree at Ying's with Red Dot Baroque

Happy Birthday, Papa Johann Sebastian Bach! 340 years ago, he was born in Eisenach, Thuringia on 21 March 1685, long before anyone had heard of Deutschland. What better way to celebrate his birthday than to organise a party bash with Singapore's foremost baroque group, Red Dot Baroque?

That was the idea of Huang Ying, Head of Culture, Press and Public Diplomacy at the German Embassy in Singapore, when she invited her Singapore and German friends to her lovely home in Katong for a Bach und Freunde soiree. Here are the photos from a most gemutlich evening through possible.

Ying introduces Red Dot Baroque
and violinist Alan Choo to her guests.

The musical evening opened with
J.S.Bach's Sonata No.4 in C minor (BWV.1017)

The opening movement uses the
same melody as Erbarme dich
from the St Matthew Passion.

From the living room to the dining area,
Leslie Tan introduces the baroque cello.

Leslie performs a work by
Italian composer Joseph Dell'Abaco.

Christopher Clarke on theorbo
offers a Toccata by Alessando Piccinini. 

Brenda Koh performs Fantasia No.9
by Bach's best buddy Georg Philipp Telemann.

To close the concert was a dance work
by Giovanni Fontana.

Red Dot Baroque doing what they do best,
having musical fun.

Singapore Writers Festival director 
Yong Shu Hoong meets the Meyers.

Alan Choo chats with
Singapore Symphony Orchestra
CEO Kenneth Kwok

Germans and Singaporeans meet.

Lianhe Zaobao's Zhang Heyang with
Kenneth Kwok and soprano Alison Wong.

Red Dot Baroque's harpsichordist
Gerald Lim cuts the JSB birthday cake.

Informal music-making, with
Alan and Heyang playing J.S.Bach's
 Double Violin Concerto in D minor (BWV.1043)

They finally got a real keyboardist
to complete the concerto.

Alison served as the page-turner
for the 21st century tablet.
17th century tech at work.

The Air and Gavotte from
J.S.Bach's Suite No.3 in D major
as arranged by Max Reger.

That bag's not going anywhere near
Berlin Brandenberg Airport.

We had a great time, didn't you?

BRAWL IN THE HALL / Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Chamber Music Week

BRAWL IN THE HALL

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory 

Chamber Music Week

YST Orchestral Hall

Monday (17 March 2025), 6 pm

Rumble in the Jungle, Thrilla in Manila, Brawl in the Hall. All these rhyming titles have an element of combat in them, the first two been associated with Muhammad Ali's heavyweight title bouts. The last was the title veteran cellist Leslie Tan gave to this chamber concert featuring his gang and string students of the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory whom he tutors. 

The programme was a highly unusual one, typical of the edginess that has come to define Tan's music making over the years and what the Conservatory hopes to achieve, that is to make its students think out of the box. And how to box - fly like a butterfly, and sting like a bee - bringing chamber music to the next level. Here are some photos from the concert, a record of what young people do in Conservatory these days.

The concert opened with a rare performance of Beethoven's Grosse Fuge (Op.134), rare in Singapore that is. This is classical music's equivalent of heavy metal, the truly hardcore stuff. Gone is the congeniality and niceties associated with chamber music. What we have instead is chromaticism and dissonance dressed up in extreme counterpoint. And what a gritty performance that was, gripping the listener at the lapels and refusing to let go.

Note also that the performers, violinist Yang Shuxiang and Brenda Koh, Martin Peh and cellist Leslie Tan, have been members of Singapore's chamber music vanguard. The T'ang Quartet, Concordia Quartet, Bards of Neverland and Red Dot Baroque are all represented in this foursome.

The Brawl Quartet, for want of a better name, were joined by five Conservatory students in Argentine composer Osvaldo Golijov's Last Round (1996), another boxing reference, a tribute to the great nuevo tango-meister Astor Piazzolla. Its two movements, titled Macho, Cool and Dangerous and Death of Angels say it all, a tango to end all tangos and a tango funeral march. Also notice how close the audience got to the performers, literally ringside seats.

Closing the hour-long musical showdown was Shostakovich's Two Pieces for String Octet (Op.11), essentially pitting two string quartets against each other - comprising a Prelude and Scherzo, to conclude the concert on a refreshing and invigorating high.

For the record, the students involved in the musical slugfest were: violinists Li Hao and Natalia Aureitsevich, violist Liu Xuanyu, cellist Sun Xiaoran, bassist Loewe Lim Li Tong and the Cave Quartet:  violinists Viktoria Marinova and Syu Cheng-Yi, violist Caitline Chin and cellist Ren Zhivi. You have hereby been authorised to transform and revolutionise the chamber music scene in Singapore from now on.

YONG SIEW TOH CONSERVATORY CONCERTO COMPETITION: SINGAPORE'S BEST-KEPT SECRET

 

YONG SIEW TOH CONSERVATORY’S 

CONCERTO COMPETITION: 

SINGAPORE’S BEST-KEPT SECRET 

Saturday (15 March 2025), 6 pm

Everybody knows where the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory is, and how its students and faculty regularly serve up top quality performances, yet one of its best-kept secrets is its annual concerto competition. In an institution that consistently produces the soloists who shine in concerts, this annual event is de rigeuer in finding the top soloists of tomorrow. I had the rare opportunity of attending one of this year’s concerto competition evenings and had a real treat. 

Over two evenings, ten young soloists (representing the best in high strings, low strings, piano, woodwinds and brass, and voice) displayed their prowess in ten repertoire works. And it was free to attend. I had missed the first evening (which included Liszt and Brahms piano concertos, a Prokofiev violin concerto, a Scandinavian brass concerto and Samuel Barber's Knoxville, Summer of 1915) so I was determined not to miss the second. And I was not disappointed. 

The audience was small but enthusiastic and attentive, willing to share in whatever that gets served up. How often does one get to hear a rarity as Wolfgang Erich Korngold’s single movement Cello Concerto? It will never get as popular as his Violin Concerto but soloist Chen Pei-Yi (with Liu Jia on piano) does a very good job, lapping up its lyrical lines with relish while negotiating its knotty counterpoint (who doesn’t fancy yet another fugato?) very capably. Hers was a very confident reading and now let’s hear it with orchestra for real the next time around. 

Another rarity for concertgoers is Carl Nielsen’s Clarinet Concert, a more austere work with a really quirky opening theme, almost an earworm. Chua Jay Roon’s performance was arguably even more impressive as she coped very well with its manifold twists and turns, never missing a beat, and making the cadenzas sound like child’s play. Another good reason was to witness pianist Clarisse Teo virtuosically substitute for the orchestral part, and the twosome handled the thorny bits (there were many in its four movements played as one continuous run) with great aplomb. Looking forward to witness the orchestral version sometime soon. 

Did I mention that every soloist performed their parts wholly from memory? That’s the lot of young professional musicians these days – they must know alltheir music by heart, and with no fumbling around with scores. The rest of the concert was on more familiar ground, beginning with Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations, which received a sumptuous if not revelatory reading from cellist Liu You-Yu with Liu Jia on piano. She has a good feel for its Romantic impulses, and ardour was well captured in many lyrical lines, and when it came to the more virtuosic variations, her technique held up and she delivered with aplomb. A very satisfying reading all around. 

The only vocalist this evening was soprano Zhou Wenyue (with pianist Choi Hye-Sion) in Mozart’s popular motet Exsultate Jubilate. The famous part is the Alleluia at its end but the aria and recitative that came before it was well worth hearing too. Her clear articulation of the words was admirable, even if her runs were not always immaculate. There were no extraneous gestures or hand movements, just her voice and no other distractions, and when it came to the final Alleluia, she was confident and made the best case possible. 

After a short intermission, Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto was the longest work on show. Over-familiarity has tainted this masterpiece, but Syu Cheng-Yi (with pianist Ge Xiaozhe) tried his best to keep it fresh. His technique had held up for most part, with the particularly treacherous first movement cadenza well handled. The most memorable part was in the Canzonetta in G minor, the slow movement’s melancholic mood very well judged, before leading into the Allegro vivacissimo finale where all stops were pulled, providing a riproaring close to the concert. With a few tweaks here and there, and he will be ready to take part in this year’s National Violin Competition. 

It was an enjoyable show all around judged by a panel of three international jurists, and if compelled to pick a performance I would like to hear again with an orchestra, that would be the Nielsen Clarinet Concerto with Chua Jay Roon doing the honours. Came later this year or next, my wish might just come true.

Encore, please!