TUNGGU SEKEJAP: THE P.RAMLEE SUITE / Wild Rice, Julian Wong, Foo Say Ming & re:mix / Review

 

TUNGGU SEKEJAP: 

THE P.RAMLEE SUITE 

Wild Rice Ngee Ann Kongsi Theatre, 

Funan Centre 

Thursday (14 May 2025)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 17 May 2025 with the title "Virtuoso strings of Foo Say Ming and re:mix shine in P.Ramlee tribute show".

Singaporeans and Malaysians rarely agree on many issues, especially the origins of hawker food, but an exception is the musical genius of Tan Sri P.Ramlee (1929-1973). Born in Penang, he made his career as multi-talented singer, actor and film director in Singapore (with Shaw Organisation’s Malay Film Productions) during the 1950s and 60s, before dying in relative obscurity in Kuala Lumpur at the young age of 44. 

A military industrial complex has been built around his cult on both sides of the Causeway, including covers from personalities as diverse as President Tharman Shanmugaratnam, British pianist Sir Stephen Hough and countless bathroom singers. 

Photo: Ung Ruey Loon

The latest tribute is Tunggu Sekejap: The P.Ramlee Suite, a 75-minute documentary-styled musical-concert by Wild Rice, directed by Ivan Heng with nine of P.Ramlee’s songs orchestrated as a classical three-movement suite by local composer-arranger Julian Wong. 

Photo: Ung Ruey Loon

Following the successful mould set by Wong’s Don’t Call Him Mr. Mari Kita, his tribute to Zubir Said, this production had the luxury of Singapore’s crack string ensemble and purveyor of musical nostalgia, the 30-person re:mix led by Singapore Symphony Orchestra first violinist Foo Say Ming. 

Foo had already premiered the Suite in 2018, but this was to be a fully fleshed-out performance with Wong as a highly personable host in conversation with a reincarnated Ramlee, played by his uncanny doppelganger Fadhli Ramlee (no relation despite the name). As tribute artists go, this beats every Elvis impersonator ever to step on stage. 

Photo: Ung Ruey Loon

Recounting a life’s work in English and a smattering of Malay (with projected English surtitles for those who have forgotten their Bahasa Kebangsaan), this was a touching profile of career highs and lows with lots of good humour thrown in. Well-researched and illustrated with black and white footage from movies and pre-independance Singapore, much can be gleened by just paying attention. Factoid: The P in P.Ramlee stands for Puteh, his father’s name. 

Photo: Ung Ruey Loon

As a prelude, Di Tanjong Katong from Kelly Tang’s Sketches of Singapore opened the show, setting the mood for the songs to come. Wong and both Ramlees are crooners not belters, thus more sympathetic to the music’s sentimentality. The svelte strings, however, stole the show. 

Photo: Ung Ruey Loon

Foo’s solo violin part in the opening Moderato movement set hearts aflutter, doing so with no little virtuosity. The songs Azizah, Jangan Tinggal Daku and Malam Bulan Dipagar Bintang, though stirring, were not as familiar as those in the slow movement’s Adagio, coupling No.1 hit Getaran Jiwa (Soul Vibrations) with the eponymous Tunggu Sekejap (Wait A Moment). Both were moving slow numbers which have a similar beginning. 

The Vivace finale was written in Rondo form, with Anak-ku Sazali being the recurring theme. With three other songs filling the gaps, the Suite was brought to a grandstanding close with scenes of P.Ramlee’s life strung together as an apotheosis. Wong was hauled onstage for a sung encore of Tunggu Sekejap, another precious moment well worth waiting for. 

Photo: Ung Ruey Loon

This very enjoyable production runs till 31 May, with shows from Wednesdays to Sundays. 

Book your tickets here:

https://tix.wildrice.com.sg/wr/booking/ramlee0525

Director Ivan Heng acknowledges
everyone involved in this production.

A PIANO RECITAL NOT TO MISS: ZHANG HAOCHEN on Friday 23 May 2025

Here is a piano recital not to miss. The young Chinese pianist ZHANG HAOCHEN has made waves after sharing joint first prize at the 2009 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. He was the first ever Chinese pianist to garner this accolade, and at the age of 19 was the youngest pianist to do so as well.

He has performed in Singapore with the Singapore Symphony and Singapore Chinese Orchestras including Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto (2012), Mozart's Piano Concerto No.20 (2019) and The Yellow River Concerto (2011). His first solo recital in Singapore since 2011 sees him perform two great sonatas of the Romantic repertory: 

SCHUBERT Sonata in G major, D.894

LISZT Sonata in B minor

Friday, 23 May 2025

Victoria Concert Hall at 8 pm

Tickets available at SISTIC:

https://www.sistic.com.sg/events/haochen0525

Zhang Haochen with his teacher
 at Curtis Institute, Gary Graffman,
who also taught Lang Lang & Yuja Wang.

Watch this video of

Zhang performing

Liszt's Transcendental Etudes:

Zhang Haochen's piano recital

is presented by Altenburg Arts.

ALEXANDER MALOFEEV Piano Recital / Review

 

ALEXANDER MALOFEEV Piano Recital 

Victoria Concert Hall 

Wednesday (14 May 2025)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 16 May 2025 with the title "Former child prodigy matures into nuanced adulthood".

There comes a point in time when a child prodigy ceases to be wunderkind, possibly dissipates into obscurity but hopefully morphs into an adult artist. 23-year old Russian pianist Alexander Malofeev, who last performed here as a teenager in 2019, has taken the latter route. While his previous recital was packed with typical virtuoso fodder, his most recent offering on a C.Bechstein grand was far more nuanced. 

Quite unusually, Franz Schubert’s Drei Klavierstucke (Three Piano Pieces, D.946), sometimes referred to as his posthumous Impromptus, opened the programme. Written in his final months in 1828, these were not published until forty years later. 

Malofeev found a wellspring of responses; restless agitation for the first piece, pure lyricism in the Lied-like centrepiece and a succession of syncopations in the last. Never for a moment did its pages sound like note-spinning, as every musical moment was made to count. 

Soviet era Russian composer Dmitry Kabalevsky’s Piano Sonata No.3 in F major (Op.46) is popular with youngsters hoping to flaunt their digital dexterity before moving on to more serious repertoire like Sergei Prokofiev’s sonatas. 

Malofeev however regarded this like the real thing, and not some throwaway virtuoso fluff. His genuine effort to make its rather thin material stand out was laudable, balancing well percussive exertions with lyrical insights and wry humour. Like the great Ukraine-born pianist Vladimir Horowitz before him, he made it sound like a real masterpiece. 

The recital’s second half highlighted more of Malofeev’s multi-faceted musicianship. Czech composer Leos Janacek’s four-movement suite In The Mists revealed introspective and melancholic sides. His mastery of its aching melodic lines and intriguing harmonies mined a wealth of feeling, the final subdued Presto movement being a true portent of tragedy. 

Without pausing for applause, he continued directly into the tolling bells of Franz Liszt’s Funerailles, which was the most appropriate and natural progression. Here was programming nous at its most canny. Instead of being bombarded with the usual barnstorming of rampaging octaves and chords, one was instead made to feel a genuine outpouring of grief. 

The same approach informed the recital’s final part, beginning with Alexander Scriabin’s Four Preludes (Op.22). These four exquisitely varied miniatures were delicately voiced, the fourth in B minor leading directly into the single-movement Fantasy (Op.28), also in the same key. 

Here was the lost art of preluding gloriously relived, the idea of preceding a major work with thematically or harmonically related shorter pieces. The Fantasy received a grandstanding performance. Like Scriabin’s mature works with a messianic complex, its soaring melodic line transcended thickets of dissonance to find an ultimate harmonic nirvana. 

Drawing loud cheers, Malofeev’s three encores were all Russian. Mikhail Glinka’s graceful Nocturne in F minor (La Separation) contrasted with the folksy charm of his Chopinesque Mazurka in C minor. In between was Prokofiev’s Toccata in D minor (Op.11), a flame-throwing performance that brought down the house.

All photography by Chen Haotian.

AN 1825 HOPSCOTCH / Tang Tee Khoon & Alasdair Beatson / Review

 

AN 1825 HOPSCOTCH 

Tang Tee Khoon, Violin 

Alasdair Beatson, Piano 

Esplanade Recital Studio 

Saturday (10 May 2025)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 13 May 2025 with the title "Virtuoso playing by Tang Tee Khoon and Alasdair Beatson".

Two hundred years ago, in 1825, the world of classical music moved well into the Romantic era. With Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony premiered the year before, musical history would never be the same again. This was the premise of a very demanding recital of German Romantic violin sonatas by local violinist Tang Tee Khoon, founder and artistic director of Chamber Music and Arts Singapore (CMAS), and excellent Scottish pianist Alasdair Beatson. 

Beethoven, Mendelssohn & Schumann.

Photo: Clarence Aw

That the duo focussed on repertoire that is not often heard in concert, a decision that would have adversely affected the box-office, was also telling. Beethoven’s Violin Sonata No.10 in G major (Op.96 from 1812), which opened the concert, is far less often performed than his Kreutzer Sonata (Op.47) and that is our loss. 

Photo: Clarence Aw

It began with a whisper from the violin, echoed by the piano, its congeniality being a far cry from the blood and guts passion of earlier sonatas. This music is for sensitive souls performing for sensitive listeners, and the chemistry between Tang and Beatson showed from the outset. When both musicians listen to each other intently, the results are immediately palpable. 

Photo: Clarence Aw

The hymn-like slow movement oozed lyricism, later seguing into a brief Scherzo with crisply delivered chords. It was the finale’s theme and variations on a jolly subject that surprised the most. Seldom has Beethoven sounded this disarming and non-belligerent, and it was with this good humour that the duo scored the highest marks. 

Photo: Clarence Aw

By comparison, Felix Mendelssohn’s Violin Sonata No.3 in F major (1838) was a showcase for virtuoso chops. The first movement’s main theme was resolute and heroic, a showy prelude heralding the musical sorcery to come. While the prayer-like central movement was a typical “song without words”, the finale flew on fairy wings, its feathery lightness being a hallmark of the technical prowess demanded. The twosome’s charming reading could scarcely be bettered. 

Photo: Clarence Aw

The concert’s second half was occupied by Robert Schumann’s very substantial Violin Sonata No.2 in D minor (Op.121) from 1851, more than a good half-hour of overflowing passion. A late work written at a time of psychiatric crisis, the embattled composer literally poured out his heart, and received the performance it deserved. 

Photo: Clarence Aw

From the series of slashing opening chords, both Tang and Beatson showed they clearly meant business. An overwhelming sense of agitation and urgency obsessed the music, with the Sturm und Drang (storm and stress) generated never flagging for a single moment. This tension continued into the second movement with flashy piano chords accompanying the violin’s plaints. 

Photo: Clarence Aw

Gentle violin pizzicatos opened the lyrical slow movement, its apparent quietude and simplicity later interjected with reminders from the preceding movement. Beneath the surface calm, not all is well was the intended message. The perpetual motion of the finale was a return to the maelstrom, as both performers rallied to an impressively resounding finish. It was a pity that such artistry was not witnessed by a larger audience.

STAGE & SCREEN / Singapore Armed Forces Central Band / Review

 

STAGE & SCREEN 

Singapore Armed Forces Central Band 

Esplanade Concert Hall 

Friday (9 May 2025)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 12 May 2025 with the title "SAF Band gets cinematic in successful soundtrack concert".

Imagine going to the movies and not getting to hear the music. That is simply unworkable as music written for film plays a vital role in generating moods and engendering feelings as the action rolls. The converse, however, is true as well-written music can do the same without visuals or accompanying words. 

All SAF Central Band concerts
open with the National Anthem, Majulah Singapura.

That was the premise of this 130-minute concert by the Singapore Armed Forces Central Band conducted by ME5 Ignatius Wang who also served as the concert’s very engaging and self-deprecating host. Addressing an audience of diverse age-groups, it was interesting to note what music resonated with the different generations of listeners. 

Slightly older members would instantly recognise the score of Howard Shore’s Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring (2001) which followed the journey of hobbits to Middle Earth in search of an all-powerful ring. Film music relies on bold and brassy scores, which was duly delivered with virtuosity, the perfect atmosphere being set up with gold lighting. 

A younger demographic would have enjoyed Jon Powell’s How To Train Your Dragon (2010), an animated movie classic, with music that took on the rhythmic jig of Northern folk music. As this also incorporated a battle piece, the excellent percussion section had a field day. 

It was John Williams’ Harry Potter Symphonic Suite, which used music spanning several movies of the franchise, had perhaps the widest appeal. The mysterious opening celesta solo (played by keyboardist Clarence Lee) was truly iconic. Intricate playing from the woodwinds simulated string textures, while brass fanfares at full blast were mightily impressed. 

Tickets for Joe Hisaishi’s concert conducting the Singapore Symphony Orchestra in July are selling out fast, so many will have to do with enjoying the band playing a Symphonic Suite of his popular tunes. This revealed the Japanese anime composer as a supreme melodist. The excerpts from Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke, performed with much tenderness, are not easily forgotten. 

A loud cheer erupted from the audience when the Symphonic Suite from Demon Slayer: Mugen Train (2020) with music from several composers was announced. Besides exciting train effects, the music explored a wide range of emotions with an oboe solo from Leow Rui Qing being the icing on the cake. 

Moving from anime to Broadway musicals, Claude-Michel Schonberg’s Les Miserables (1980), based on Victor Hugo’s novel, has to be one of most memorable of recent decades. Justin Chew’s oboe solo in I Dreamed a Dream was poignancy unspoken, while saxophones blew away the Thenardiers’ Master of the House dance. The suite ended with the rousing call to arms Can You Hear The People Sing. 

The devil often gets the best tunes, thus John Williams’s Imperial March from The Empire Strikes Back, imperious portrait of Sith Lord Darth Vader, closed the show with the full-house audience baying for more. The band’s life-affirming encore of the Oscar-winning song Let It Go from Disney’s Frozen by Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez did just the trick.

The band acknowledges the audience
seated in the Gallery.

Photography by Nathaniel Lim

& PianoManiac.