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.

SSO'S FORGOTTEN RECORDINGS: SHOSTAKOVICH SYMPHONY NO.10 on Philips Classics

 

SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No.10

LEONG YOON PIN Dayong Sampan

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Choo Hoey (Conductor)

Philips 426 228-2

This CD recording saw the Singapore Symphony Orchestra come of age. Issued in 1989 to mark the orchestra’s 10th anniversary, it was a once-off on the Dutch Philips label, a gift from the regional director of Philips Electronics, which had a factory operating in Toa Payoh. The disc was produced for local distribution by the Polygram group, but still carried the hallmarks and technology of Philips, the label of Bernard Haitink, Colin Davis et al.

By this time, the SSO under music director Choo Hoey had already developed a good reputation in 20th music. In 1980, SSO performed its first Shostakovich symphony (No.1), just five years after the composer’s death. In 1983, the Tenth Symphony received its Singapore premiere, and this was a work the orchestra returned to with much regularity, together with other contemporary staples like Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite (1919) and Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra.

Composed in 1953, after the death of Soviet dictator Stalin, Shostakovich was free to express his true feelings about the regime, encapsulated in its four unusual movements. Widely considered his greatest symphony, SSO very much regarded it as such. The long slow first movement unfolded with purposed and received a true Mahlerian catharsis it deserved. The short Scherzo was a portrait of pure Stalinist malevolence, and Choo Hoey drove his charges to a feverish frenzy. This movement was so well performed that it was shortlisted for SSO’s 21st anniversary highlights disc.

Elmira & DSCH

The final two movements were possessed with Shostakovich’s ironic sense of humour, an interplay between a mystery French horn theme (now identified as the Elmira Nazirova motif) and his own DSCH motto. Were the two secretly in love? According to Nazirova many years later, it was all in Mitya’s head. The finale is possessed with a mordant wit that makes light of all the horror that came before. It was Shostakovich’s unique way of saying, “the tyrant is dead, and the independent spirit is now freed”. SSO’s performance showed it clearly identified with Shostakovich’s idiom.

The venerated Leong Yoon Pin,
Singapore's only Nadia Boulanger student.

Leong Yoon Pin’s Dayong Sampan (1980) was the rather apt coupling. For more than thirty years, this was Singapore’s best-loved and most-performed symphonic poem, only displaced by Wang Chenwei’s The Sisters’ Islands - another maritime-themed work - during the 21st century. The Malay melody (known to the Chinese as Tian Mi Mi) emerges from an introduction of dense orchestration and counterpoint to become its main subject. The work is a sober take on the Chinese diaspora who ventured across the South China Sea to seek new lives in Malaya, a quintessential piece of Nanyang music even before the term came into being.

Wan Soon Kam's water colour painting

The orchestra plays both works with passion and conviction. SSO has Dayong Sampan pretty much to itself, and even if the Shostakovich is not quite in the same exalted level as classic Kondrashin or Mravinsky, there is still much to be proud of. There are biographical and programme notes (by Bernard Tan) in English, German and French. The cover design of Victoria Concert Hall is from a water colour painting by Wan Soon Kam. A piece of musical nostalgia well-worth owning.

This recording was one of two CDs issued by SSO in the year 1989. The other was its only Beethoven recording, of his Fourth and Fifth Piano Concertos (with John Bingham) on the Meridien label. That was reviewed here: pianomania: CD Reviews (The Straits Times, March 2014)

SUKA MAKAN: UNTER DEN LINDEN @ PORTSDOWN ROAD

Despite its name, Unter Den Linden is not a German restaurant. It's more of an Asian-Western fusion restaurant with a slight Japanese bias. So, you don't come here for pork knuckles, Bratwurst, Jager Schnitzel to be washed down with Schnapps. We learnt of its all-you-can-eat dinner buffet which had soup, appetizers, pasta and meats, so we had to try. 

Pet-friendly outdoor dining area

Portsdown Road is still the tree-lined winding road that once led from North Buona Vista Road to Ayer Rajah Road. Despite the encroachment of the skyscrapers of one-north, the old colonial buildings still exist, as well as eating places like the legendary Colbar, which was featured in the blog's first vintage eating places of Singapore. UDL is newer, but located in a restored and renovated old building, and it has a really nice ambience.

The people here are friendly, mostly local and the pleasant surprise is its pet-friendly too. Dogs and their charges sit separate from other diners, but the atmosphere is quiet and intimate. 

Wild mushroom soup

French fries

Beef ragout pasta

Squid ink risotto
with grilled octopus leg

Spicy arrabbiata pasta 

Here is what we ate, and everything is delicious - especially the squid ink risotto and rib-eye steak, for which we had multiple helpings. At $49++ per person, it was well worth the outlay. The buffet only operates from Mondays to Thursdays (except public holidays and eves).  

Honey shoyu chicken

Pork ribs and ribeye steak 

Ribeye steak - still juicy.

The pet-friendly indoor dining area.

UNTER DEN LINDEN

5B Portsdown Road #01-02

Singapore 139311

Garden Colonial Pet-Friendly European Restaurant in Portsdown | Under Der Linden

EIGHT HOURS @ SINGAPORE COMPOSERS FESTIVAL 2026: PART 1

54 Waterloo Street has Singapore's
unique Straits shophouse design.

The Singapore Composers Festival 2026, just in its second edition, was held at The Theatre Practice, 54 Waterloo Street, on Sunday 7 June 2026. Organised by the Composers Society of Singapore, it was an eight-hour affair which involved roundtable discussions with composers and performers, and two concerts of contemporary music. This year, four South Korean composers from Space For Sound, a collective that promotes contemporary music in Seoul, was invited to share in the discourse.

The event was very well attended, with important members of Singapore's composing community present to witness some history being made. There were world premieres and first hearings of new works by young Singaporean composers mentored by senior CSS members. The two concerts by Morse Percussion and SYC Ensemble Singers, two of Singapore's premier ensembles, were illuminating to say the least. It was a time for sharing and learning, and every person present was richer for the experience. 

The composers' roundtable discussion.

Singaporean composer Toh Yen Ee
speaks about her Atlas.

John Sharpley promotes his book, while
Ding Jian Han shares his composing experience.

Tools of the trade.

The Korean composers check their social media.

With composers Eric Watson & Joyce Koh.

Toh Yan Ee's Atlas and
Won Jung Lee's The Glittering Diamond Water

Two strikingly loud performances:
Somin Lee's Death of First-Borns
and Hoh Chung Shih's Rounding Round. 

Continued in Part 2:

pianomania: EIGHT HOURS @ SINGAPORE COMPOSERS FESTIVAL 2026: PART 2

Singapore Composers Festival 2026 - Composers Society of Singapore