NEW
YEAR'S EVE
COUNTDOWN CONCERT 2017
The
Philharmonic Orchestra
School
of the Arts Concert Hall
Saturday (31 December 2016 )
This review was published in The Straits Times on 2 January 2017 with the title "Countdown concert a boisterous start to the new year".
Now into its 6th edition, The
Philharmonic Orchestra's annual New Year's Eve Countdown Concert has become a
cherished local institution. A full-house greeted the year's final musical
event, and a formula that has served well was relived. Host-of-the-evening
William Ledbetter, sporting a gold top-hat, was his usual bubbly self and TPO
Music Director Lim Yau conducted Hector Berlioz's Roman Carnival Overture as a spirited opener.
Bernice Lee's oboe solo provided a lovely
prelude to the festivities that followed with a full-throated showing from the
brass, led by a irrepressible trio of trombones. This was a good start, and the
orchestra was just as impressive under the baton of prize-winning guest
conductor Lien Boon Hua, recently appointed Assistant Conductor of the Polish
National Radio Orchestra.
His first task was to navigate the
ensemble through two Strauss favourites, Josef Strauss' Music Of The Spheres, a waltz as lilting and graceful as any of his
famous elder brother Johann's, and the incessant chatter of Johann's Tritsch-Tratsch Polka. The latter was
accompanied by projected slides of the orchestra's favourite moments of the
year, with an inevitable salute to Joseph Schooling, Singapore
The dance rhythm was lovingly captured,
and this continued into Bedrich Smetana's Die
Moldau. A pair of flutes, skilfully helmed by Shirley Tong and Andy Koh,
teased their way through the symphonic poem's evocative opening, leading into
the broad melody which was gratefully lapped up by the orchestra.
Robust yet sensitive, the Bohemian spirit
that pulsed through the splendid showing was repeated after the intemission's
nuts and champagne, in two Slavonic
Dances by Antonin Dvorak. Taken from the Op.72 set, the first dance's
rousing fervour was contrasted with the quiet melancholy of the second dance.
Ledbetter reprised his annual circus
ringleader act by getting the audience to follow his cowboy actions in Richard
Hayman's Pops Hoedown. This year it
was a rather tame sit-down affair, for fear of patrons seated in the Circle
seats who had downed a little too much spirit. However, it was the busy
percussion section that sounded the most tipsy.
As with previous concerts, there was a
work of sobriety that gave time for reflection on the illustrious lives that
departed in 2016. Former President S.R.Nathan, Thailand
For the final countdown, Respighi's
ominous Pines Of The Appian Way was
replaced this year by Georges Bizet's more cheerful Farandole from L'Arlesienne,
now conducted by Lim Yau. Its driving beat, which got faster and more intense
by the minute, steamrolled the seconds into 2017, and a much-loved cascade of
gold and silver balloons.
There was enough time for one encore, the
ubiquitous Radetzky March by Johann
Strauss the Elder and its rounds of synchronised clapping. An auspicious new
year for more good music beckons.
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