MUSICAL LOOKALIKES - POSITIVELY THE LAST

Just to end the year on a lighter note, here are my positively the last (that's what I said the last time) group of lookalikes from the music world...

Singaporean avant-garde composer Joyce Koh
should file a suit to the creators of cartoon character
Dora for copyright infringement.

A number of articles have described
Joyce Koh to have "cat-like" eyes.
This is probably what they meant!

Canadian pianist Anton Kuerti could write to Disney
for the images rights of The Lion King's father Mufasa.

Still on pianists, did Maurizio Pollini make an
appearance in Godfather Part III as the
mafioso Don Lucchesi?

Malaysian pianist Dennis Lee and
Chinese Premier Xi Jinping.
But can Xi play the 32 Beethoven sonatas? 

Singapore-born Pianist Melvyn Tan 
and composer Tan Dun.
Maybe they have the same grandfather?

Scottish pianist Murray McLachlan has a special set
of skills too, as does Taken actor Liam Neeson.

Pianist Yefim Bronfman has a doppelganger
in the form of former Argentina
football coach Marcelo Bielsa.

Music and football again.
Swedish conductor Herbert Blomstedt
and Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger.

THE PIANOMANIA AWARDS: BEST & WORST CONCERTS FOR 2014

BEST & WORST CLASSICAL CONCERTS OF 2014

Here are the Pianomania Awards for 2014, which follows the Three Best and One Worst listings published in The Sunday Times on 28 December 2014. The national daily decided to take a rest from these listings in 2013, which is why I started the Pianomania Awards for this blog. Since ST requested for my input this year, I was more than happy to oblige...

BEST

POSTURES

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall / 4 July 2014

The Singapore Symphony Orchestra was to make history in its BBC Proms debut on 2 September at London’s Royal Albert Hall, but Singaporean audiences had a sneak preview of the ambitious programme some two months earlier. They witnessed the World Premiere of Postures, the newly commissioned piano concerto by Pulitzer-Prize winning Chinese-American composer Zhou Long with Swiss pianist Andreas Haefliger in its pugilistic solo role. The SSO directed by Shui Lan also gave blistering accounts of Glinka’s Ruslan and Ludmilla Overture and Rachmaninov’s Second Symphony, worthy of a Proms standing ovation.

DIE FLEDERMAUS

New Opera Singapore

Victoria Theatre / 28 & 29 July 2014

For a very young local opera company just into its third year, New Opera Singapore led by Korea-born soprano Jeong Ae Ree has impressed greatly with its casting of young Singaporean vocal talent in edgy productions often updated with modern scenarios and Asian flavours. Johann Strauss the Younger’s operetta Die Fledermaus was a totally enjoyable affair, bubbling like champagne, with irrepressible sopranos Teng Xiang Ting and Rebecca Li sharing the lead role of Rosalinde. But who would have imagined Channel 8 comedienne Patricia Mok stealing the show as prison-attendant Frosch?   

TANG TEE KHOON

Esplanade Recital Studio 
19 March & 24 September 2014

ALAN CHOO

The Arts House / 10 August 2014

YANG SHUXIANG

Esplanade Recital Studio / 23 August 2014

From the "Golden Generation" of Singaporean violinists born in the mid-1980s to early 1990s, a lot has been expected but the dividends paid out have been nothing short of spectacular. All three have blossomed in different ways. Tang, who plays on the National Arts Council’s 1750 Guadagnini violin, has a chamber series of her own featuring top European talents. Choo specialises in baroque violin, while thriving on the modern version. Yang’s flamboyant, do-or-die style makes heads turn while always being true to the spirit of the music. 

BEST DEBUT

NIKOLAI SONG
Esplanade Recital Studio / 18 December 2014

He's only 12 years old, but the Russian-Korean flautist Nikolai Song (Winner of the Amadeus Prize in the Symphony 92.4FM Young Talents Project in 2013) performs like a seasoned veteran. Displaying an astounding maturity belying his youth, his recital programme of music by Debussy, Costa, Handel, Taffanel, Taktakishvili and Doppler would have made a player double his age blush, and then turn green with envy.

WORST

Israel Philharmonic Orchestra

Marina Bay Sands / 11 November 2014

Take a world class orchestra and superstar conductor but put them in a venue totally unsuited for classical music, the result will still be a disaster. This was the unkind fate that awaited the Israel Philharmonic’s debut, led by its music director for life Zubin Mehta. The amplified sound that came through the speakers was overbearing and distorted, picking up extraneous noises, thus nullifying the orchestra’s good work in music by Bach, Mozart and Tchaikovsky. This concert may be summed up in four words: Terrific orchestra, terrible acoustics.

PIANOMANIA AWARDS: BEST & WORST CDS OF 2014

Here are the Pianomania Awards for Classical Recordings for 2014, which follows the Three Best and One Worst listings published in The Sunday Times on 28 December 2014. 

BEST

RACHMANINOV Symphony No.1

Singapore Symphony Orchestra 

SHUI LAN (Conductor)

BIS 2012

The third CD in the Singapore Symphony Orchestra’s recorded cycle of Rachmaninov’s symphonies is also its finest. The Russian’s First Symphony, panned when it was first performed, was also his most original. Here it receives a performance which captures vehemence, paradoxical tenderness and vulnerability, in all its youthful and raw glory.

ELGAR / WALTON Cello Concertos

LI-WEI QIN, Cello

London Philharmonic / Zhang Yi

Decca 8896661

Any new CD release by Singapore-based Chinese-Australian cellist Li-Wei Qin is a cause for celebration. His second recording of Elgar’s Cello Concerto is imbued with an unshakeable sense of nobility, essentially a 30-minute-long epic sigh. Coupled with William Walton’s bittersweet Cello Concerto, this disc is an essential listen.     

 

AMERICAN PIANO CONCERTOS

XIAYIN WANG, Piano

Royal Scottish National Orchestra 

Peter Oundjian (Conductor)

Chandos 5128

The classical music world loves Lang Lang and Yuja Wang, but the Chinese pianist who really has it all is Shanghai-born Xiayin Wang.  Seldom have the piano concertos of Samuel Barber, Aaron Copland and George Gershwin been essayed with such authority and ravishing lustre. Her playing suggests legendary American pianists Earl Wild, Van Cliburn and John Browning all rolled into one. 

WORST

MUSIC OF THE NIGHT

André Rieu and his Johann Strauss Orchestra

Polydor 0602537536818

Some people just adore Dutch violinist André Rieu and his band, but this Richard Clayderman of the violin has the skills of a reverse alchemist. He turns hit tunes like Yesterday, Music Of The Night and La Vie En Rose from gold to base metal in arrangements that are dreadfully anodyne and soppy beyond words. Best used as elevator music, with the volume turned way down.

CLASSIQUES! CHOEUR / Philharmonic Youth Winds / Review

CLASSIQUES! CHOEUR

Philharmonic Youth Winds

Esplanade Concert Hall

Tuesday (23 December 2014)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 25 December 2014 with the title "Youth Winds show mettle".

Just two short days after The Philharmonic Winds gave its concert of light songs from the musicals, its junior counterpart Philharmonic Youth Winds performed a programme of serious classics. This was not a case of friendly rivalry, but rather a show of ambition, that the young ones could very well stand on its own.

The longer first half led by guest conductor Chan Tze Law opened with Donald Hunsberger’s transcription of J.S.Bach’s Toccata & Fugue in D minor. Its arresting beginning was spot on cue and intonation, and there was to be no timidity in the winds’ and brass’ blazing entries. Despite the reverberant acoustics and long-held pedal points, the playing was clear and articulate, best typified in the complex fugue taken at a blistering pace.

The Singapore Symphony Orchestra’s principal tuba player Hidehiro Fujita was soloist in the fiendishly tricky Bass Tuba Concerto of Vaughan Williams. How the lowest pitched and bulkiest of all blown instruments was made to sound this agile and nimble was testament to Fujita’s virtuosity. In the central Romance, he made the instrument sing and in the folkdance inspired finale, acrobatics were again on show in the cadenza before an emphatic but quick flourish to end.

His encores included a comedy-filled set of variations on The Blue Bells Of Scotland, which traversed the complete range of the tuba and a solo improvisation on the Christmas song which begins I Saw Mummy Kissing Santa Claus.

The Vocal Associates Festival Chorus joined in for Masato Sato’s arrangement of Ravel’s Daphnis And Chloe Ballet Suite No.2. Anyone who doubts that a wind band could engage its quiet, rustling evocation of dawn, filled with bird songs, will be pleasantly surprised here. The flute solos were excellent, and the playing of the ensemble sensitive to various nuances and shades building up to the orgiastic Danse Generale.

One would have hoped for an even larger choir to fill up the entire gallery section. Good as the voices were, they were no match in volume generated by the instrumentalists. This was also apparent in the Triumphal March from Verdi’s Aida, which was boosted by children’s voices. Here the trumpet section held sway in the victorious procession of General Radames. 

The second half was conducted by Music Director Adrian Chiang, climaxing in Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture arranged by Yoshihiro Kimura. The chorus trained by Khor Ai Ming had more than a fighting chance in its a cappella opening God Preserve Thy People sung in Russian. They did so with requisite gusto and in the folksong At The Gate, as the battle of Borodino escalated.

Tautly knit together, this was an impressive performance that raised the roof when the French La Marseillaise and Russian anthem God Save The Tsar clashed amid the din of cannon shots and tolling bells. Ending the concert on a festive note was an audience sing-along in Leroy Anderson’s A Christmas Festival, with hymns like Joy To The World, Hark! The Herald Angels Sing and O Come All Ye Faithful filling the air. Two nights before Christmas, this made for a most appropriate and cheerful send-off.   

 

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, December 2014)

ESCAPE TO PARADISE

DANIEL HOPE, Violin

Royal Stockholm Philharmonic 

Alexander Shelley, Conductor

Deutsche Grammophon 479 2954 

*****

It has been said that the Second World War and rise of Nazism during the 1930s helped fuel the Hollywood film music industry. Persecution of European Jewry meant that many talented composers from Austria, Germany and Central Europe fled to the free world of America where they settled to compose and teach. This album by British violinist Daniel Hope celebrates the exodus and legacy of composers like Erich Korngold, Miklos Rozsa, Franz Waxman and others who helped define the romantic Hollywood sound we know and love.

The central work is Korngold’s well-loved Violin Concerto, which recycles music from four movies including The Prince And The Pauper. Hope’s sweet tone and broad sweep is a winner from start to finish. The Hungarian Rozsa is represented by themes from Ben Hur, El Cid and Spellbound, while the Italian Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco makes an entry with his popular Sea Murmurs. The latter was the teacher of John Williams, whose Theme from Schindler’s List has become ubiquitous in film-themed anthologies.

The raspy-voiced Sting makes a cameo in The Secret Marriage, which is an adaptation Hanns Eisler’s An Den Kleine Radioapparat (To A Portable Radio), a number from his Hollywood Songbook. The collection closes with an unaccompanied violin meditation on Herman Hupfeld’s Everybody’s Welcome, now better known as As Time Goes By from Casablanca. This album in a word: delicious.

NEW YEAR’S CONCERT 2014

Vienna Philharmonic 

DANIEL BARENBOIM, Conductor

Sony Classical 88883792272 (2CDs) 

****1/2

Every conductor who leads the Vienna Philharmonic’s legendary New Year Concerts tries to leave his mark on the proceedings by means of astute programming of works that best reflects his preferences and personal “credo”. In Daniel Barenboim’s second run on the podium, his work with the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra (which he co-founded with the late Edward Said in Palestine) was referenced. A number of works were broad hints on peace and reconciliation like Joseph Strauss’s Friedenspalmen (Palms Of Peace) and Johann Strauss the Younger’s Seid Umschlungen, Millionen (Receive My Embrace, Ye Millions), the latter being a quote from Schiller’s Ode To Joy. Also included was Johann’s Stormy In Love And Dance, a fast polka and the pseudo-Middle Eastern chanting in his Egyptian March. 

There is also a not-so-veiled tribute to his wife Elena in Eduard Strauss’s Helenen-Quadrille which recycles melodies from Offenbach’s operetta La Belle Helene. Biases aside, there is much to enjoy in favourites like Tales From The Vienna Woods and first performances of the Moonlight Interlude from Richard Strauss’s opera Capriccio and the Pizzicato from Delibes’s Sylvia. As usual, the Blue Danube Waltz and Johann Strauss’s the Elder’s Radetzky March closes the proceedings, which no good Neujahrskonzert at the Goldener Saal of the Wiener Singverein can do without. Wallow and enjoy!

BOOK IT:

NEW YEAR’S EVE CONCERT

The Philharmonic Orchestra 

conducted by Lim Yau

School of the Arts Concert Hall

10 pm, Wednesday 31 December 2014

Tickets available at SISTIC   

CIRCLE OF LIFE: A NIGHT OF MUSICALS / The Philharmonic Winds / Review

CIRCLE OF LIFE: A NIGHT OF MUSICALS

The Philharmonic Winds

Esplanade Concert Hall

Sunday (21 December 2014)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 23 December 2014 with the title "Expressive voices in a colourful Life".

There was a time when the songs most people knew by heart came from the operas. Today these are more likely to be pop songs or numbers from musicals, the lighter modern form of musical theatre. In a similar vein, the wind band has evolved from the “oom-pa-pa” marching variety to the more versatile concert band, which employs woodwinds, brass and percussion like a symphony orchestra. Add the jazzy big band element, the results can be surprisingly sophisticated.

This evening’s concert by The Philharmonic Winds conducted mostly by its Music Director Leonard Tan merged all these threads for a two-and-a-half hour showcase of popular tunes from the musicals. There cannot be any persons who do not recognise songs from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera or Schonberg and Boublil’s Les Miserables.

Familiarity was key to the large audience enjoying the performances, which included medleys in slicked up arrangements by wind band specialists Johan de Meij, Marcel Peeters and local transcribers Ong Jiin Joo, Yap Sin Yee and Syawal Kassim. The playing was polished for most part, a reflection of the ensemble’s discipline and players’ prowess. A certain degree of freedom or extroversion would have also been welcome.

At times the music felt repetitious, such as the medley from Schonberg and Boublil’s Miss Saigon, conducted by veteran wind-meister Luk Hoi Yui, which seemed to go on for too long without even covering all the hit melodies.

The music also cried out for voices, and these arrived with Benjamin Kheng, Tay Kexin and Gani Karim. Kheng and Tay opened in Seasons of Love from Jonathan Larson’s Rent, and the former emoted with a fair degree of expression in Hopelessly Devoted To You from John Farrar’s Grease.  Although he was amplified, Kheng was almost drowned out in Circle of Life from Elton John’s The Lion King, with the band and 12 percussionists behind him.

Karim’s crooning in Bunga Sayang from Kampung Amber came close to cracking up given the angst invested in it, reminded by the memory of the late Iskandar Ismail who had arranged all the Dick Lee songs. Tay was just as convincing in When All The Tears Have Dried from Sing To The Dawn. The threesome united for the popular Beauty World (Cha-Cha-Cha) with its infectious Latin American beat to close in a burst of colourful ticker-tape.

A short encore, from the musical Hairspray, gave the audience a chance to clap along. This drew the most unbuttoned playing of the evening, a worthy herald to the coming festive season.  

GRADUATION / NIKOLAI SONG Flute Recital / Review

GRADUATION

NIKOLAI SONG Flute Recital

with Beatrice Lin, Piano

Esplanade Recital Studio

Thursday (18 December 2014)

This review was published in www.straitstimes.com on 19 December 2014. It did not make the print edition on 20 December because of a lack of space.

Musical child prodigies in Singapore seem like a dime a dozen these days. However they mostly tend to be pianists or violinists. A prodigious flautist is a rarity as wind players need more time for vertical growth and lung capacity to mature. Twelve years of age and having recently completed his PSLE, the cherubic Nikolai Song (whose parents are Russian and Korean) is already a relative veteran in performing.

At 6, he won 2^nd prize in the Junior category of Flute Festival Singapore. Last year, he was winner of the coveted Amadeus Prize in the Symphony 92.4 FM Young Talents Project, and is the youngest ever member of the Singapore National Youth Orchestra. A flautist double his age would have been proud to have accomplished what he did in this, his debut full-length recital.

First he humbly thanked his parents and teachers before opening the 80-minute long concert with Debussy’s Syrinx for unaccompanied flute. There could have been more mystique and mystery in its tonally ambiguous opening, but there was no doubting Song’s clarity, the warmth of his sound and ability to project.

Next, contemporary Spanish composer Eduardo Costa’s Tempo de Huida provided the opportunity for outright flashy display in its perpetual motion (its title means to “run away”). However Song’s superior musicality meant that its slower central section was treated to some truly lyrical playing, the perfect foil for dizzying virtuosity.

In Handel’s Sonata in E minor, his expert pacing and interplay with pianist Beatrice Lin prevented the four-movement work from becoming some didactic exercise. The clearly enthused audience could not help but applaud between all the movements. For Paul Taffanel’s Grande Fantasie sur Mignon, which rehashed popular melodies from Ambroise Thomas’s opera Mignon, Song weaved an enthralling yarn like some skilled storyteller before closing effortlessly on a prestissimo high.

After the interval, Georgian composer Otar Taktakishvili’s Flute Sonata provided further impressive moments, not least in the folk dance influenced finale that was a show of sheer unbridled joy. Some day, he will successfully tackle the irony-laden and interpretively more demanding Prokofiev Flute Sonata.

Song was joined by present teacher Roberto Alvarez (from the Singapore Symphony Orchestra) in Franz and Karl Doppler’s Rigoletto-Fantasie, after Verdi’s famous opera. It was a case of what the master can do, the pupil can also equal. The unison opening was totally seamless and when the duo broke into different parts, it was still difficult to separate either of them.

One could only marvel at how the florid variations on Gilda’s aria Caro Nome unfolded, and the ensuing Quartet where both flautists alternated playing melody and filigreed accompaniment. As an encore, Song offered Henry Mancini’s Pennywhistle Jig, a fun piece popularised by no less than Sir James Galway. It boggles the mind what this natural and phenomenal talent is capable of in ten year’s time.

DAYS OF BEING YOUNG & RESTLESS: THE UMBRELLA REVOLUTION IN HONG KONG / Part 1

Not the real sit-in. These are Filipino domestic workers
enjoying their Sunday outing in Central.
The real demonstration is
taking place in the streets below.

We knew it wouldn't last, but we were surprised that it even lasted this long. The so-called "Umbrella Revolution" was a civil rights movement in Hong Kong which started in late September 2014 as the Hong Kong people's response to the lack of autonomy as to their choice of government. 

Ever since Hong Kong's return from the United Kingdom of Great Britain to the Central Kingdom of People's Republic of China (has there been a more ironic name to one of the world's most autocratic nations?) in 1997, the Special Autonomous Region has been governed by a series of Chief Executives appointed and approved by Beijing. The Hong Kong people did not have much of a say, and that looks to continue in 2017 when the next election takes place. 

That was the bone of contention for thousands of Hong Kong's students, who were hoping for more autonomy and the dream of universal suffrage. The demonstrations began as an extension of the Occupy Central movement but spread to include more sites. The sit-in was opposed with excessive force by the HK police (who used tear gas, pepper spray and physical violence) and that galvanised the movement into something more widespread.

My visit to HK was originally to attend the HK International Piano Competition, but the event was postponed to 2016 because of the demonstrations which took place a stone's throw away from HK City Hall. Here are some photos I took on 26 October 2014 on my way to the Thank You Recitals hosted by the Chopin Society of Hong Kong.

With the dismantling of all demonstration sites, the young agitators may be down (for now), but definitely not out.  

The demonstration on Harcourt Road in full swing.
Its actually more peaceful and quiet than it looks.
I dare call it Hong Kong's latest tourist attraction.

Umbrellas have been replaced by tents
and camping equipment.

Thousands of goodwill messages
in the form of Post-Its.

The iconic Umbrella Man.

...and Umbrella Woman!

Taking a breather.

The advertisements in Central add a
surrealistic feel to the whole scene.

Present Chief Executive C.Y.Leung
(we know what he'll be called in Hokkien)
was a lightning rod for the people's ire.
The sign says something like,
"Rather dead with a voice than to live in silence". 

The carnage just outside City Hall.
That's how close the demonstrators got to
Vladimir Ashkenazy and Co. 

DAYS OF BEING YOUNG & RESTLESS: THE UMBRELLA REVOLUTION IN HONG KONG / Part 2

Here are more photographs of Hong Kong's "Umbrella Revolution", taken on 27 October 2014 at the Mongkok district. According to reports, this was the most active of the demonstration sites where there were even scenes of violence between demonstrators and disgruntled Hongkongers. A long stretch of Nathan Road - from Argyle Street to Waterloo Road - had been closed, with all traffic diverted to collateral thoroughfares. In the place of cars and buses, were people. The atmosphere was less tense than expected, and there was even a carnival feel about things.  

The yellow umbrella has become
an icon of the demonstrations.

The loudest section on the street
where people make speeches.

Will the Umbrella Revolution lead
to any real reforms in Hong Kong?

The much-maligned Chief Executive CY Leung
has become a pantomime villain,
and is portrayed as a wolf.

The creative side to Hongkongers.

A more peaceful demonstration could not be expected.
Here students discuss about democracy,
and distribute ribbons and tokens.

A spiritual aspect to the protests.
A Taoist shrine had been erected here,
complete with offerings of Toblerone
white chocolate. Only in Hong Kong!

A Christian outpost.
Pray for HK, the people implore.

Even Wang Lee Hom has a vista on the proceedings.

Premier Xi Jinping makes an appearance,
albeit in cardboard.

A final view of the Mongkok demonstrations.

DOES DEMOCRACY STAND A CHANCE IN HONG KONG?

OR WILL IT BE A CASE OF

"LET'S SHUT UP AND MAKE MONEY"?

(To quote the title of a book by HK cartoonist Larry Feign)