SINGAPORE COMPOSERS FESTIVAL 2026 / Morse Percussion & SYC Ensemble Singers

 

SINGAPORE COMPOSERS FESTIVAL 2026

Morse Percussion &

SYC Ensemble Singers

The Theatre Practice, 54 Waterloo Street

Sunday (7 June 2026)

11.30 am & 4.30 pm

This review was published in The Straits Times on 9 June 2026 with the title "Singaporean and South Korean talents on display".

Only in its second edition, the Singapore Composers Festival 2026 organised by Composers Society of Singapore (CSS) was an eight-hour affair that included two public roundtable chats and two concerts of contemporary music.

Singaporean and South Korean composers
with members of Morse Percussion.

The opening concert was a showcase for CSS and South Korean composer collective Space For Sound, with eight works performed by Morse Percussion, comprising Derek Koh, Joachim Lim, Cheong Kah Yiong and Yuru Lee. Those who regard music for percussion as just “banging on cans” will be surprised by the variety of sounds generated.

Photo: Amos Poh

Toh Yan Ee’s Atlas opened the show with timpani skins being scraped before proceeding to intricate rhythms on pitched percussion (marimba and xylophone) resembling gamelan, and drumming that extolled the majesty of the eponymous star constellation. Varying the sound palette completely, Won Jung Lee’s The Glittering Diamond Water delighted in extreme high registers. Minimalist textures emanating from marimba, slung gongs and bowed vibraphone keys, created a beautifully ethereal effect that bears repeated listening.

Photo: Amos Poh

The next two works were the most violent. Somin Lee’s Death of First-Borns was some orgy of militarist might, dominated by snare-drum, cymbals, triangles and xylophone employed strictly for beats not melody. The wanton biblical slaughter of Egyptians was its depiction. Hoh Chung Shih’s Rounding Round celebrated round objects, recurrent subjects as in a rondo (round dance) and three players rotating positions around a central axis of instruments. This later erupted into a free-for-all with mallets hurled in all directions.

Photo: Amos Poh

This concert was clearly a playground for exploring new sounds and techniques. Seung-ki Hong’s Resonant Ritual continued in its vein, tinkling on metal, tribal-drumming and walking in circles, now in a counter-clockwise direction. Hye-Jeong Hwang Lee’s Percussion Sanjo was a modern-day update of the traditional Korean sanjo instrumental essay with hints of melody emerging from a marimba, amid more drumming. All four works by Korean composers were world premieres

Photo: Amos Poh

Two local composers closed the matinee, with Emily Koh’s emoyo describing the emotional yo-yo involved in getting an American green card. Judging by the lack of angst, it was probably not such an ordeal. Tan Yuting’s Kotekan revelled in the repeated harmonic patterns found in gamelan, realised with mini-cymbals, temple blocks and a drum-set.

Photo: Amos Poh

The festival’s closing concert was the CSS Young Composer Forum, where budding composers were mentored by established practitioners in the creating music for choir. The 22-member SYC Ensemble Singers led by Jennifer Tham did the honours for seven works by mentee and mentor.

Photo: Amos Poh

Anvay Mathur’s Anahata, Sanskrit word for “unstruck sound”, relied on long-held syllables, vocal drones and sliding between pitches. Thomas Kai-ren Rettig’s Greenland used his friend Elliot Chew’s poem to eloquently describe a distant and unattainable goal, unrelated to Donald Trump’s territorial designs.

Photo: Amos Poh

The very dry acoustic in the venue’s black box theatre, while excellent for percussion, was far less conducive for voices. Despite the choir’s spotless diction, the first word of Bae Jun Soo’s Luminate, bi-cheul (빛을 or light), sounded like “bitch”, an unintended consequence. The next two works, Ding Jian Han’s Silenc(E)mpty? and Estene Cheong’s Why, had long stretches of spoken words, with the voices suspended in some form of sprechgesang (speech-song), a favourite technique of polytonalists.

Photo: Amos Poh

Alicia De Silva’s Quando La Rota used words from Dante’s Divine Comedy, closing in a devotional tone with visions of paradise within sight. To close, Danny Imson’s Ama Namin or The Lord’s Prayer in Tagalog opened with a very even unison. A mixed tape was slowly unreeled linking all the performers, before they walked off stage in a procession as the music dissipated into nothingness.

Both concerts at the Singapore Composers Festival were a veritable showcase of local creative talent, and long may that continue.

Singapore Composers Festival 2026 - Composers Society of Singapore

A JAZZ PIANO RECITAL NOT TO MISS: UMWELTEN BY TZE TOH on 20 June 2026

 

A JAZZ PIANO RECITAL NOT TO MISS:

UMWELTEN 

BY TZE TOH on 20 June 2026

For the first time, local jazz pianist Tze Toh of TO Ensemble will perform a solo recital. Usually sharing the stage with artists like jazz saxophonist Teo Boon Chye and Carnatic violinist Lazar T.Sebastine, Tse has the floor to his own this time. At Esplanade’s Black Room on Saturday 20 June, his solo recital titled Umwelten is inspired by the life of simple organisms and how they adapt to the environments on our planet.

Streifzuge durch die Umwelten von Tieren und Menschen or A Foray into the Worlds of Animals and Humans by Baltic German biologist Johann Jakob von Uexkull (1864-1944) is the book that brought Tze into this deep dive manifested in the compositions of his recital. Motifs that are explored in his pieces are regarded like single-cell organisms, which develop a life of their own, divide by mitosis and become multi-cellular. These motifs are the building blocks of music, like cells which are the basic constitution of any living thing.

In a preview at the recording studio in Bukit Batok, Tze demonstrated how his pieces opened and developed into stand-alone works. These carry titles like Anemone, A Star Is Born, Sentio, Here With Me, Time, Machines That Fly and 12 Dimensions on Strings in Theory. These are varied, interesting and at times, thought provoking. There are themes and variations, passacaglias, and simple prayer-like meditations. Tze’s influences are many, including the works of J.S.Bach, Ryuichi Sakamoto, New Age minimalism, Carnatic and gospel music just to name a few. Curious to explore more?

UMWELTEN

TZE TOH, Solo piano

Esplanade Black Room

Saturday 20 June 2026, 8 pm

Tickets available at:

Umwelten | solo piano concert | Peatix

TITAN SCULPTORS / Singapore Chinese Orchestra / Review

 

TITAN SCULPTORS

Singapore Chinese Orchestra

Singapore Conference Hall

Saturday (6 June 2026)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 9 June 2026 with the title "SCO pays tribute to artists in dulcet blend of art and music". 

The Singapore Chinese Orchestra’s closing gala concert conducted by Quek Ling Kiong, was a tribute to four of the nation’s sculptors who were Cultural Medallion recipients, a harmonious union of visual art and music. Opening with Liu Changyuan’s Vibrant Life from Light (his Fifth Symphony), this kinetically charged toccata dominated by percussion was accompanied by many projected images of Singapore’s outdoor sculptures dotting the urban landscape.

In SCO composer-in-residence Wang Chenwei’s Samsui Women, repeated notes of a Cantonese tune heard on plucked strings symbolised the sweat and toil of the lady labourers who literally built Singapore. Lin Gao’s zhonghu and concertmaster Li Baoshun’s gaohu added to the music’s poignancy before Ping Hu Qiu Yue (Autumn Moon On Calm Lake) and Rasa Sayang were heard, a spiritual meeting of their Chinese homeland and Nanyang.

In Wang’s Winds of Affinity, Lee Jun Cheng and Ng Wei Xuan on dizis were a pair of well-balanced soloists. Playing on flutes of different registers were the aural reference to the late Ng Eng Teng’s iconic Mother and Child sculpture which stands in front of National Gallery. The tight bonds between both unions can never be severed.

For Phang Kok Jun’s Symphonic Floras, the gentle sound of tuned percussion and plucked strings suggested a leisurely walk through a tropical rainforest. The weathering of monsoons depicted by increasingly vigorous orchestral rhythms saw how the kernals of Han Sai Por’s Seeds eventually germinate into full-grown trees.

The late Chng Seok Tin lost her eyesight after complications from a fall in 1988, and rhetorical questions such as "Why Me?" and "Where is Love?" were posed in Luo Maishuo’s Compassion. The music’s more modern idiom reflected the darker and contemplative complexion of Chng’s works, with Xu Zhong’s poignant cello solo central to the ethos that “love and faith endure, even when time cannot be turned back”.

New York-based Koh Cheng Jin’s First Generation received its world premiere, the only work that exactly matched the title of the sculpture it was inspired by. The artwork in question is Chong Fah Cheong’s much-beloved tableaux of five boys frolicking on the banks of Singapore River. Strings dominated its opening, a lively work which quoted two popular melodies – Singapura and Ach, Du Lieber Augustin, better known here as The More We Are Together.

Both the sculpture, which stands by Cavenagh Bridge and Fullerton Hotel, and the music capture the spirit of a more innocent age now lost to time.

The concluding work, four movements from Tan Dun’s Crouching Tiger Concerto, adapted from the score of Academy Award winning Ang Lee movie, seemed almost superfluous. This, however provided an opportunity to showcase the virtuosity of associate principal gaohu Zhou Ruoyu on two huqins.

The movie’s main title finally accompanied images of Singapore’s 139 Cultural Medallion recipients over the decades, including two SCO conductors and three composers-in-residence, a tribute to artists who have indelibly enriched Singapore’s cultural life.

SYMPHONY BEYOND TIME / TARANTELLA - DANCE IN SYMPHONY / Music For People Festival Orchestra & NTU Symphony Orchestra / Review

SYMPHONY BEYOND TIME

Music For People Festival Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall

Wednesday (3 June 2026)

TARANTELLA – DANCE IN SYMPHONY

NTU Symphony Orchestra

SOTA Concert Hall

Friday (5 June 2026)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 8 June 2026 with the title "Music For People Festival Orchestra delivers an all-Beethoven spectacle".

The Singapore Symphony Orchestra’s season is officially over, but large-scale orchestral music continues unabated. Just last week, the Orchestra of the Music Makers performed Mahler’s Seventh Symphony, and this week’s blockbuster was Beethoven’s Choral Symphony, delivered by the not-for-profit Music For People Festival Orchestra led by young Sarawak-born conductor Audrey Chung.

The all-Beethoven evening opened with the Triple Concerto in C major (Op.56), with Elite Artists Trio from Taiwan as soloists, comprising violinist Qin-Yun Du, cellist Limu Ya and pianist Sherry Chen. This unusual work casts the cello in the lead, and Ya’s song-like solos held up, well-balanced by her partners with the trio functioning like a united team all through its three tuneful movements.

The orchestra supported the enterprise well, and it should be no surprise as the majority of its professional players are stalwarts of the Singapore Symphony, re:mix, re:Sound, Concordia Quartet and Red Dot Baroque. Thus, Beethoven’s Symphony No.9 in D minor (Op.125) felt like a breeze in its fairly swift 65 minutes, led from memory by Chung. There were no extremes in tempi in the first two fast movements, while the Adagio unfolded magisterially with much aural beauty.

Who was not waiting for the famous choral finale? Notwithstanding inappropriate applause in between movements, the faux pas inexcusably repeated while the Ode To Joy was well underway, this epic sing out was still a spectacle. The excellent quartet of soloists, well-known for appearances with the Singapore Lyric Opera, comprised soprano Jessica Chen, mezzo-soprano Anna Koor, tenor Lee Jae-wook and bass William Lim.

The 220-member choir (Nicholas Tham, chorusmaster), the largest assembled for such a work in recent years, created the biggest sound possible, ensuring this was a truly memorable event. Proceeds of ticket sales went to palliative care organisations and music education programmes for underprivileged communities.

On Friday, it was the turn of the students from the Nanyang Technological University Symphony Orchestra (NTUSO), directed by Chan Wei Shing, to strut their stuff. Central to the dance-themed programme were Singapore premieres of two 20th century cello concertos performed by Loke Hoe Kit, a specialist in performing unusual repertoire.

Photo: Loke Chee Meng

Frenchman Darius Milhaud’s Cello Concerto No.1 (1934) has its serious and light-hearted sides. A darkly elegiac slow movement was starkly contrasted by the opening’s nonchalant lilt, like an insouciant stroll along the Seine, and the finale’s carnival atmosphere in the form of a tarantella. The fast Italian dance in 12/8 rhythm gave the concert its title.

Virtuosity on the cello continued into Austrian composer Erich Korngold’s single-movement Cello Concerto (1946), reliving the opulence of Hollywood as it was an expansion of music from the movie Deception (1946) starring Bette Davis. Reveling in lyrical gifts and contrapuntal novelties, both soloist and orchestra provided a memorable first outing for this underrated mini-masterpiece.

The concert began with Mexican composer Arturo Marquez’s very popular Danzon No.2, generating a terrific crescendo and momentum from its quietly sedate opening pages. The main work was Bohemian composer Antonin Dvorak’s Symphony No.8 in G major, which provided the young musicians with their toughest technical and musical challenges.

Listening beyond the rough edges, it was a performance of much commitment and enthusiasm. Although beginning tentatively, the ensemble grew in confidence with each phrase. With the dance and folk-inspired third and fourth movements finally clicking into motion for a spirited finish, one senses much more will be heard from this outfit in time to come.