A CHANCE TO WIN A PAIR OF $450 TICKETS to ISRAEL PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA'S 80TH ANNIVERSARY CONCERT

The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (IPO) led by its Music Director for Life Zubin Mehta will be back in Singapore for a one-night only concert at Esplanade Concert Hall on Thursday 7 January 2016.

This year, the Israel Philharmonic celebrates its 80th anniversary. It was founded in 1936 as the Palestine Orchestra by famous violinist Bronislav Huberman and Jewish emigré musicians. It gave its first concert in Tel Aviv on 26 December 1936 under the baton of Arturo Toscanini. In 1961, the young Indian conductor Zubin Mehta substituted for Eugene Ormandy in concert and formed a life-long relationship with the orchestra. In 1977, he was named its first Music Director, which became Music Director for Life in 1981. 

An interview with Zubin Mehta on his professional life and relationship with the IPO from 2014 may be found here:
http://pianofortephilia.blogspot.sg/2014/10/a-few-words-with-zubin-mehta-music.html

The IPO gave its Singapore debut in November 2014, an event unfortunately marred by the poor acoustics and sound engineering at the Marina Bay Sands Theatre. This time, the IPO gets to perform at the Esplanade Concert Hall, where a really good sound awaits.

The programme is as follows:

BEETHOVEN Leonore Overture No.3
RAVEL La Valse
TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony No.6 
"Pathetique"

As tickets are very short in supply, and only limited gallery seats ($150) are left, the organiser is proud to give away a pair of premium tickets worth $450 each.

Here's how to win these tickets:

Go to Zubin Mehta's IPO Singapore page: 
www.facebook.com/zubinmehtainsg 
and observe the following directions:

1. Like Zubin Mehta's IPO Facebook page. 
2. Write on "what music means to you".
3. Share the photo on your own Facebook page. 

Closing date: 4 January 2016.

All the best, and enjoy the music!

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, December 2015)

NEW YEAR'S CONCERT 2015

Vienna Philharmonic / ZUBIN MEHTA

Sony Classical 88875035492 / ****1/2 

Another year passes, and another New Year's Concert by the Vienna Philharmonic thrills its well-heeled audiences and is recorded for posterity. The 2015 edition was Bombay-born conductor Zubin Mehta's fifth time on the podium, and the theme was programmed around the 200^th anniversary of the founding of the Imperial & Royal Polytechnic Institute in 1815. That explains the engineering-themed works including Johann Strauss the Younger's Accelerations Waltz (Op.234), Electromagnetic Polka (Op.110), Perpetuum Mobile (Perpetual Motion, Op.257), Explosions Polka (Op.43) and his younger brother Eduard's Mit Dampf (At Full Steam).

Studious keepers of the tradition, the orchestra performs with refinement, precision and energy. This concert also unveiled five first performances at the New Year's Concert, including the inevitable Student Polka (Op.263) and An Der Elbe (By The Elbe, Op.477), the last waltz to be premiered by Johann himself. A tribute to conductor Mehta's origins also takes the form of Fairy Tales From The Orient (Op.444), which hardly sounds exotic, to be honest. Traditions die hard, so the orchestra shouts its new year's greeting before finishing off with the Blue Danube Waltz and Radetzky March. Very enjoyable and entertaining, as usual.

BOOK IT:

ZUBIN MEHTA AND THE

ISRAEL PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA

80TH ANNIVERSARY CONCERT

Esplanade Concert Hall

7 January 2016, 7.30 pm

Limited tickets available at SISTIC

ECHOES OF CHINA

SUSAN CHAN, Piano

Naxos 8.570616 / ****1/2

There are three World Premiere recordings in this survey of contemporary Chinese piano music by Hong Kong-born pianist Susan Chan. Zhou Long's Pianobells (2012) is a play on tintinnabulation, simulating the sound of bells in ceremony and nature. Bass strings of the piano struck by the hand make startling contrasts with the tinkling of high treble keys. His Mongolian Folk-Tune Variations (1980) are more conventional in idiom, employing traditional Chinese melodies as is his wife Chen Yi's Northern Scenes (2013).

Macau-born Doming Lam's Lamentations Of Lady Chiu-Jun (1964) is an arrangement of an ancient Lingnan melody in variation form with the piano mimicking Chinese instruments like the guzheng and pipa. Canadian-Chinese Alexina Louie's Music for Piano (1982) and Tan Dun's Eight Memories in Watercolor (1979) are already fairly well-known and regularly programmed. Both are suites of short character pieces that are engaging and ear-catching.

Louie's pieces are impressionistic in feel but with pedagogy in mind, while Tan's are childhood reminiscences based on folk songs and dances from his native Hunan, bringing to mind similar compositions by Bartok. Pianist Chan is a persuasive colourist who brings a wide range of nuances from the keyboard, and this anthology deserves to be heard for its variety.  

OF MUSIC AND DANCE / Ding Yi Music Company / Review

OF MUSIC AND DANCE

Ding Yi Music Company

Esplanade Recital Studio

Sunday (27 December 2015)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 29 December 2015 with the title "Bold experiment with Tang poem".

Marrying the genres of music, voice and dance into a coherent whole is a difficult proposition and local Chinese chamber music ensemble Ding Yi Music Company should be lauded for attempting this bold experiment. Of Music And Dance is a modern interpretation of Tang Dynasty poet Bai Juyi's epic poem Pipa Xing, titled in this production as Song Of The Pipa Player.

Lasting an hour and cast in five movements with an overture, the poet (and disgraced government official) is captivated by a pipa player, whose similar fall from grace he finds common ground and a spiritual bond. The music, jointly composed by Singaporean Phang Kok Jun and Taiwanese Hsu Tzu-Chin, found a happy medium with traditional Chinese music and Western compositional techniques.

The main ensemble comprised formidable young pipa soloist Chua Yew Kok accompanied by five players on stage, who were in turn augmented by eight offstage musicians placed behind the audience, all led by conductor Wang Ya Hui. The illumination provided in the contemplative Overture was striking, with all musicians in immaculate white, and the soloist faceless, silhouetted behind a tall screen.

The 1st movement Under Moonlit Skies introduced tenor Isaac Ho and soprano Ng Jing Yun,  the latter making a first appearance as a slender shadowy form on the screen. Their voices meet but their eyes do not, and this distance and separation were not just physical but also symbolic. They sang selected passages from the 44-verse poem in Mandarin, repeating certain sentences as a form of emphasis.

The verses were not projected, and while the tiny print on the programme booklet was a strain on the eyes, the audience was guided with brief synopses onscreen. This affected the appreciation of the recitations, which came across as a relative weakness in the production. Should these have been read instead of being sung? Several Chinese scholars in the audience pointed to unidiomatic settings of the words, and one might defer to their collective wisdom.

The dancers, four from the Re:Dance Theatre in choreography by Albert Tiong, arrived in the pacy 2nd Movement, Fretful Strokes In Wistful Thoughts, which provided a needed change in dynamics. Their movements were vigorous and earthy, accompanied by insistent percussion. Unfortunately another form of choreography saw latecomers being allowed to fumble their way to empty seats, which provided an unwanted sideshow.

The 3^rd and 4^th movements constituted the heart of the work, with both pipa player and poet bringing forth their plights. The Song Of The Pipa Player featured just soprano, pipa and one dancer, whose movements were now more graceful and retiring. In the Song Of The Poet, the protagonist realises their common destiny and commiserates accordingly. The mood was one of underlying sadness and resignation.     

The Finale united all the performers and the music was both optimistic and uplifting, with voices in purposeful unison. As with all things in life, this brief sense of euphoria was shortlived. The closing sight and sound of Chua's sole pipa gently weeping in solitude and enveloping darkness was surely one for the ages.    

Photographs by the kind courtesy and permission of Ding Yi Music Company.

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, December 2015)

TCHAIKOVSKY

The Nutcracker

STEWART GOODYEAR, Piano

Steinway & Sons 30040 / ****1/2 

Here is an unusual version of Piotr Tchaikovsky's popular ballet The Nutcracker for the festive season. The entire ballet in 24 movements has been arranged for piano solo by Canadian pianist Stewart Goodyear. Some of the dances like the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, Trepak (Russian Dance) and Pas de deux, and numbers like the Miniature Overture and March are very popular and music lovers are already well-served by the extremely handy Nutcracker Suite in eight movements.

However, Goodyear’s transcription is a very pianistic one that is also highly virtuosic. Unlike Mikhail Pletnev’s famous concert suite which takes liberties by adding lots more notes or Percy Grainger’s florid version of the Waltz Of the Flowers, Goodyear is more faithful to the original orchestral score and closely follows the sequence of the story. 

By packing all the music into the album’s 82 minutes, there is a harried and hectic quality to some of the faster movements. One would have liked more breathing space but that means having to spill onto a second disc. This is nevertheless a very good listen from a very good pianist.

CINEMA

ANDREA BOCELLI

Universal 00028948121441 / ***1/2

Never thought this pair of ears might enjoy a disc by the massively-hyped vocal superstar Andrea Bocelli. That is probably because the album is produced by David Foster, and Bocelli is not singing the classics or attempting major opera house roles, but songs made famous by movies.

His English is highly accented, such as in Leonard Bernstein's Maria (from West Side Story), Henry Mancini's Moon River (Breakfast At Tiffany's) and Andrew Lloyd Webber's Music Of The Night (Phantom Of the Opera), which does not help. He is clearly out of his depth in Jerome Kern's Ol' Man River (Show Boat), usually sung by a bass, or baritone at the very least. So it is a relief to hear the songs in Italian, despite the English versions being better known.

He is joined by popstars Ariana Grande in Ennio Morricone's (Once Upon A Time In America), Nicole Scherzinger in No Llores Por Mi Argentina (Don't Cry For Me Argentina from Evita), and Karen Mok in Irving Berlin's Cheek To Cheek (Top Hat). The orchestrations are redolent of film music and the amplified Bocelli completely dominates the airwaves. Good if you adore him, but not a disaster if you are a neutral. Easy listening, nonetheless.

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, December 2015)

ROGER-DUCASSE Complete Piano Music

MARTIN JONES, Piano

Nimbus Records 5927 (3 CDs) / ****1/2

The French composer Jean Roger-Ducasse (1873-1954), who should not be confused with Paul Dukas (composer of The Sorceror's Apprentice), was an important musical establishment during his time. Pupil of Gabriel Fauré, classmate of Maurice Ravel and close friend of Claude Debussy, his music fell into neglect thanks to the inexorable rise of modernism and atonality during the first half of the 20^th century. 

There is little that is academic, formulaic or reactionary about his piano music, composed between 1899 and 1923, and presented here complete for the first time. His style is allied to Fauré's love of melody, and progresses through dense contrapuntal mastery to the subtle dissonances of Debussy's impressionism.

Like Chopin, he favoured smaller forms like Études and Préludes, and composed three Barcarolles, the first of which was a conscious tribute to the Polish genius. Descriptive titles were shunned, which may led to this absolute music to be virtually forgotten. 

The first two discs are devoted to solo music, with the third disc featuring music for four hands, which include three books of Études.  Heard alongside Debussy's Études, composed around the same time, Roger-Ducasse sounds almost conservative by comparison. The indefatigable English pianist Martin Jones, who revels in arcane French and Spanish repertoire, is a totally musical and persuasive guide, bringing much colour and beauty to these unknown gems. 

BRAHMS Serenades

Gewandhausorchester / RICCARDO CHAILLY

Decca 478 6775 / *****

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) had to wait until he was 43 before he completed his first symphony, so daunted by the prediction that he was to become Beethoven's successor. He however had practice in symphonic writing with the two Serenades, his earliest orchestral pieces composed between 1857 and 1859. These are works in six and five movements respectively, which have models in Mozart and Haydn, but point to the very promising future of his later works. 

The First Serenade (Op.11) is longer than any of his four symphonies, and is filled with the same expressive devices to be found in those masterpieces. Its Scherzo second movement uses a similar theme that occurs in the corresponding movement of the Second Piano Concerto.

The shorter Second Serenade (Op.16) omits violins completely and has the feel of the wind serenades that Mozart so loved. Although less popular than its predecessor, the work is unique in its conception. Italian conductor Riccardo Chailly and the Gewandhausorchester of Leipzig, recipients of the Gramophone Award for Brahms' symphonies, deliver the same dedicated and refined performances that so distinguished those readings. This disc completes their Brahms orchestral cycle which is essential listening, and must be savoured in its entirety.

SSO CHRISTMAS CONCERT / Review

SSO CHRISTMAS CONCERT

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Victoria Concert Hall

Friday (11 December 2015)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 14 December 2015 with the title "Home for Christmas with the SSO at Victoria Concert Hall".

It is that time of the year again, and there are few things more festive than the Singapore Symphony Orchestra's Christmas Concerts. A return to Victoria Concert Hall, to its cosier confines, provided that touch of nostalgia which Esplanade could never hope to replicate. This was certainly helped by SSO Associate Conductor Jason Lai, who played engaging and chatty host, and broke the ice almost immediately.

The concert began with a procession by the Singapore Symphony Children's Choir (SSCC), its little members carrying electric candles while singing Veni Veni Emmanuel. It started on a unison before splitting into rich polyphony. The orchestra then obliged with the Overture to Engelbert Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel, its Angel's Prayer segment filled with the glorious warmth of C major. 

Unlike Christmas concerts of old, the audience sing-along was not relegated to the very end, but spread out through the concert. Getting usually passive listeners to stand up to belt out the carols like Hark! The Herald Angels Sing and The First Noel was a good idea, and boredom was never an option. The children also added It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year and John Rutter's Christmas Lullaby, both sung beautifully, before closing with Leroy Anderson's sparkling Sleigh Ride.

The second half featured a narrated work with former SSO Education Officer Joseph Lee doing the honours for Philip Lane's The Night Before Christmas. Although he was amplified, some of the words were barely audible over the orchestra's maneuvers.

No such worries from the adults of the Singapore Bible College Chorale which sang in the second half. They offered Rutter's arrangements of In Dulci Jubilo, I Saw Three Ships and the best original choral work of all, Norwegian composer Ola Gjeilo's Serenity (O Magnum Mysterium). This was conducted by its choirmaster Joel Navarro, and featured a lovely solo from cellist Yu Jing. The a cappella voices rose to a sublime high, its echoes ringing in the ears even after the work had ended.

Through the course of the concert, there were also humorous projected video clips, including a Singapore version of The Twelve Days Of Christmas featuring local dishes which saw conductor Lai coming down with dyspepsia. He was also on hand to conduct a couple of games, which involved the audience and people actually winning some prizes.

When one thinks back of past Christmas concerts that programmed Handel's Messiah, Britten's A Ceremony Of Carols, Poulenc's Gloria or excerpts from Bach, Berlioz or Vaughan Williams, this concert was unusually light. Even three movements from Tchaikovsky's ballet Nutcracker, including the Dance Of The Sugar Plum Fairy, did little to expel that notion.

All that mattered was people enjoying themselves, with communal singing of Franz Gruber's Silent Night and closing with Lowell Mason's Joy To The World, the favourite carol wrongly attributed to Handel. As the audience merrily strolled out of the hall, only one nagging thought remained: where were the balloons?      

AN AFTERNOON AT THE 6TH ASEAN INTERNATIONAL CHOPIN PIANO COMPETITION

AN AFTERNOON AT THE

6TH ASEAN INTERNATIONAL 

CHOPIN PIANO COMPETITION

It isn't always a habit of mine to go stalking piano competitions, but this one held just outside Kuala Lumpur seemed to be a convenient getaway from Malaysia's busiest city after my obligatory spot of sightseeing. I had crossed the Causeway to attend the Singapore Chinese Orchestra's debut concert at the Dewan Filharmonik Petronas on Tuesday 8 December 2015 and had one extra indolent day to spend, so why not be in the company of piano music?

Getting to the Experimental Theatre of Universiti Malaya (notice the use of the nation's old name, rather than Malaysia) was the tough part. A light rail ride from Masjid Jamek in the historical heart of KL to Universiti station, a taxi ride into the laid back campus (which does remind one of the old Bukit Timah Campus in Singapore), with some help from a friendly cab driver and a young student, I finally made it to the concert venue. And not a minute too late to attend the semi-final round of the Open Category, which was the most advanced of the five categories.

Pianists practising on a "silent" keyboard.
Notice the crests of the King Edward VII
Medical College and Raffles College,
the fore-runners of Universiti Malaya.

This competition, organised by the Persatuan Chopin Malaysia (Malaysia Chopin Society), is in its sixth edition and appears to be the most prestigious of piano competitions in Malaysia. I had learnt about it during one of the breakfast meetings of the Chopin Society of Hong Kong, thanks to its regular attendee, Mrs Snezana Panovska, the Macedonian piano pedagogue who has trained some of Malaysian's top young pianists. She also happens to be the society's Music Director and founder of the competition.

The 8-member jury is a rather august one, comprising past winners of the Warsaw Chopin Competition (Li Mingqiang, China), Tchaikovsky Competition (Natalia Troull, Russia), Marguerite Long Competition (Jania Aubakirova, Kazakhstan) top teachers from Vietnam (Tran Thu Ha, Dang Thai Son's elder half-sister), Malaysia (Ng Chong Lim and Panovska), Italy (Flavio Turissini), and Montenegro/Singapore (Boris Kraljevic, who else?). However it seemed such a waste of pianistic and pedagogical talent to be judging only four pianists in the most advanced category. Of these four, only two seemed worthy of the competitive process.

Fifteen-year-old Hannah Shin (Australia) was a revelation. Oozing total confidence and control, she put the polish on Beethoven's Sonata in F sharp major Op.78, and its tricky repeated figurations in the second movement proved  not much of a challenge to her fingers. In Chopin's music, she found the right blend of passion and restraint with totally musical accounts of the Second Ballade and Fourth Scherzo. Nothing was vulgar or over-the-top; idiomatic and well-judged, her playing was clearly a paradigm of superior teaching. She was also the only pianist to perform the specially commissioned work, Lee Chie Tsang's atonal Sympathetic [Re]sonance, from memory.

Veronika Issajeva (Estonia) almost did not make it to the venue after making that long flight from the Baltics. Marooned in a Petaling Jaya hotel and without transport, she was fortunate to have the Chopin Society President save the day by chauffeuring her in time for the semi-finals. And I was fortunate to have heard her accounts of Chopin's Barcarolle, the rarely-programmed Bolero and a nocturne. She is tasteful and musical, although not possessing quite the utter confidence of Shin. Her programme was completed by Schumann's Second Sonata in G minor Op.22, which was more than secure despite some rough edges.

The less said about the performances by the two Malaysian pianists (both men), the better. Both were totally unprepared for the competition, with multiple wrong notes, memory lapses and just plodding through each work desperately to the end. The only relief for them was that the number of people in the audience just about equalled the number in the jury. My summary of the afternoon's fare was: Girls Good, Boys Bad. Panovska corrected me by adding: Boys Very Bad.

The jury included (from L):
 Flavio Turissini, Boris Kraljevic, Li Mingqiang
and Ng Chong Lim. I went native for the day.
Photo: Snezana Panovska

The lady jury members and Boris and Flavio
with members of the Chopin Society Malaysia.

Nightfall soon arrived, and I was invited to a lovely buffet dinner with the jury members at a neighbourhood community centre. What hospitality and neighbourliness! Panovska always assured me that in her book, Singaporean music lovers will always be made to feel welcome! New acquaintances were made, and old friendships rekindled in the happy hour, everything halal, of course. For me, it was back to Singapore the next morning, while the jury continued their quest to find the next top pianist from Malaysia and the region.

For the record, both Shin and Issajeva made it to the Grand Finals, where they performed the Chopin piano concertos with a international string quartet. No first prize was awarded. Shin won 2^nd prize with Piano Concerto No.2, while Issajeva 3^rd prize with the First Concerto. Both deserve every bit of success in their young but surely budding musical careers.  

How some jury members and music reviewers
try to relax after piano competitions!
Photo: Milan Stevanovic

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, December 2015)

BLOODY DAUGHTER

EuroArts (2 DVDs) / *****

Ever wondered what Martha Argerich's home videos were like? This beautifully-made 2012 documentary, directed by the Argentina-born piano virtuoso's third daughter, Stephanie Argerich, strips away the mystique and reveals a warts-and-all story of familial intrigue, dysfunction but ultimately tenderness. 

Its title refers to an endearing term used by Stephanie's father, the American pianist Stephen Kovacevich, as well as the complicated and sometimes fraught relationships between the Argerich women. Martha comes across as bohemian and cavalier about her daughters’ upbringing, to the point of denying their schooling, while her own mother Juanita, of Ukrainian Jewish descent, remains an enigma even to herself. 

Despite being one of the world's great pianists, Martha displays an ambivalence to a life of endless concertising. Stephanie also touches base with her elder sisters Lyda (a violist, daughter of Chinese composer-conductor Robert Chen), Annie (daughter of Swiss conductor Charles Dutoit) and her own father, who despite being a distant figure also shows a sympathetic side. A scene where all the four Argerich women, mothers and daughters, share a picnic together, painting each other’s nails, is priceless. 

The second DVD features a 2010 concert in Warsaw of Argerich in Chopin's First Piano Concerto with the Sinfonia Varsovia conducted by Jacek Kaspczyk, which finds her in typically fiery form. A must-see for Argerich fans and pianophiles alike.  

WATERCOLOR

SHEN LU, Piano

Steinway & Sons 30039 / ****1/2

This is the debut recording of young Chinese pianist Shen Lu, an excellent programme that highlights a certain kinship between the aesthetics of Chinese piano music and Western impressionist repertoire. He opens with Chen Peixun's arrangement of Lu Wenchang's Ping Hu Qiu Yue (Autumn Moon on a Calm Lake), its flowing melody accompanied by the filigree of harp-like arpeggios and tremolos. This is followed by Maurice Ravel's five-movement suite Miroirs (Mirrors), with its descriptive titles: Night Moths, Sad Birds, A Boat in the Ocean, Morning Song of the Jester (the popular Alborada del gracioso) and the Oriental-influenced Valley of Bells. These are well characterised and played with sensitivity and finesse.

Although there are no titles attached to Rachmaninov's eight Études-Tableaux Op.33, the aural imagery to be found suggests secret programmes of marches, raindrops, eulogies, whirlwinds, bells, and more bells. This sense of nostalgia continues into Chinese composer Tan Dun's Eight Memories In Watercolor, based on songs and dances heard in his childhood. The folk-influenced numbers (Staccato Beans and Sunrain) are reminiscent of the Hungarian composers Bartok and Ligeti, while the mimicry of Chinese instruments and drums resounds with clarity and vividness. Lu is beautifully recorded, and this album makes enjoyable listening.

NATIONAL PIANO & VIOLIN COMPETITION 2015 / Review

NATIONAL PIANO 
& VIOLIN COMPETITION 2015

Artist Category Finals 
& Prizewinners' Concert

Saturday & Sunday (5 &6 December 2015)

Victoria Concert Hall

This review was published in The Straits Times on 8 December 2015 with the title "Sky's the limit for Goh Soon Tioe award winner".

The National Arts Council (NAC) has been manning the National Piano & Violin Competition since the mid-1990s. This edition, which marks the NAC's final run, was co-organised with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra and saw a major constitutional change. Pre-selection of all competitors meant that there were fewer performers, 64 violinists and 91 pianists in total.

The final rounds for the Artist categories of both the violin and piano involved concerto performances with the Metropolitan Festival Orchestra conducted by Chan Tze Law. Saturday evening was a violin extravaganza not unlike the final of the Singapore International Violin Competition held in January.

British-Malaysian violinist Liuyi Retallick, recent graduate of the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory, comfortably won 1^st prize with an immaculate reading of Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto, characterised by a big and gorgeous tone from start to end. She could have turned on the heat for a more exciting showing, but chose to play it safe, which was the secret of her success.  

Liuyi Retallick with her teacher Igor Yuzefovich,
concertmaster of the SSO.

With no 2^nd prize awarded, 3^rd place went to Singaporean David Loke Kai-Yuan, now studying in Yale, who seemed to engage more in Mendelssohn's E minor Violin Concerto. His totally musical reading was indelibly etched on his face, from painful grimace to sheer ecstasy, but was let down by momentary lapses of intonation.

Honorable mention went to Samuel Tan Yek Hee, all of 10-years-old and performing for the first time with an orchestra. A natural charmer on a 3/4-sized violin, he coped unusually well with the fireworks required for Wieniawski's Second Violin Concerto. All he needs is greater expressiveness, a better instrument and experience, which will no doubt come with time.

On Sunday afternoon, there were two performances of Schumann's Piano Concerto. Singaporean Jared Liew Wei, student of the Salzburg Mozarteum, gave an exceptionally polished reading, one which made time to luxuriate in its harmonies and smell the flowers. Although he could have projected further and exert his authority, it was a major surprise that his shining effort was not placed higher than 3^rd. Singaporean Joan Lynette Tay (below), long-time resident in New Zealand, provided a more assertive and tense view of the Romantic favourite, but struggled with getting all the notes in. A stumble towards the end meant only an honourable mention beckoned.

Josephine with her teacher Boris Kraljevic,
formerly of NAFA.

The last pianist Josephine (who goes by just one name) from Indonesia should have done much more for Saint-Saens' bubbly Second Piano Concerto. Her highly-assured account was stolid rather than spectacular. The mercurial scherzo was surprisingly earthbound, like champagne without fizz, but her steady and secure tarantella finale earned 2^nd place from an international panel of jurors. The 1^st prize went a begging for the first time since 2001.

The Prizewinners Concert saw performances from the top-placed musicians of all categories. It was also the perfect showcase for Zechariah Goh Toh Chai, the local composer commissioned for four set-pieces in the Senior and Artist Categories. His Ondeh Ondeh and Two Sketches for violin, Quinquagenarian Celebration and Jubilation for piano were varied in style, highly idiomatic and not to mention virtuosic, confirming his place among Singapore's creative elite.

Ronan Lim with his teacher Lee Shi Mei,
who looks almost as young as him.

The coveted Goh Soon Tioe Outstanding Performer Award of $10,000 went to to 16-year-old violinist Ronan Lim Ziming, who displayed astounding maturity and lyricism in Ondeh Ondeh, the first movement from Brahms' First Violin Sonata and Lutoslawski's coruscating Subito. A student of Lee Shi Mei, herself a major prizewinner in 2007, the sky's the limit. This competition just provides the wings.

Photographs from the NATIONAL PIANO & VIOLIN COMPETITION 2015

My review of the National Piano & Violin Competition 2015 Finals will come out in The Straits Times soon, but print space did not allow me to write about the performances at the Prize Winners' Concert, so I shall briefly mention them here together with my sneakily taken pictures. 

At the ceremony, there were those robotic humanoids who tried to prevent proud parents from taking photos of their talented children receiving their well-deserved prizes. I told off one usher, who subsequently retreated into a dark hole and never disturbed people again (that is until the next concert).

The concert began with the Metropolitan Festival Orchestra led by Chan Tze Law accompanying the winners of the Artist Piano & Violin categories in concertos movements by Saint-Saëns and Tchaikovsky. 

Having guaranteed their cash prizes, and without the adrenaline of competition, they performed poorly, and the Acting Minister of Education must have been wondering, "I came out on a Sunday evening for this?" For everyone's sake, hopefully he cannot tell Bach from Berg. For my part, I think some of the lower placed finalists would have performed better.    

All the prize winners of all the categories.

All the judges,and the competition's composer-in-residence
Zechariah Goh Toh Chai.

The biggest winner of them all was Ronan Lim Ziming,
who won $12,5000 in total! 

So it was left to the young ones to show how it was done, and they did so magnificently. All the judges were in total agreement that the performers in the Junior and Intermediate categories were gems in the making. Let's hope our education system does not mess them up. 

Kate Liu left Singapore at the age of 8, settled in USA and went on to win 3rd prize in the 2015 Chopin International Piano Competition. Cynical ones say she won because she did not have to worry about PSLE, O Levels, N Levels, A Levels, S Papers, IB, IP, ABRSM, SYF, NDP and all that jazz. Now that's one lesson to be learnt.

Paganini's Caprice No.16 lasts only one minute, but
Tricia Ng En Lin (Violin Junior) made it sparkle.

Yap Sheng Hwa (Piano Junior) displayed a
crisp and rhythmically precise technique in
Albeniz's Castilla (Seguidillas).

Ronan Lim Zhiming (Violin Senior) showed why he won
the GST Award with a soaring lyrical account
of Brahms' Violin Sonata No.1(1st movement)
with pianist Lim Yan in support.

This guy's a genius.
Mervyn Lee (Piano Senior) giving an enthralling account
of Goh Toh Chai's Quinquagenarian Celebration.

Jordan Alexandra Jun Yi Hadrill (Violin Intermediate)
played the longest piece on the programme, but there
was not a single dull moment in her swashbuckling
reading of Wieniawski's Variations on an Original Theme.

Wang Hua Hao Jia (Piano Intermediate) was all
brilliant fingers in Debussy's Feux d'artifice
and Filipenko's Toccata.

The last piece in the 3-hour long concert saw
Ronan Lim Ziming and Lim Yan in
Lutoslawski's Subito, which saw the audience
applauding before the work ended!