AND I'LL SING ONCE MORE
Singapore Symphony Children's Choir
Wong Lai Foon (Conductor)
Singapore Symphony Group / ****1/2
This
recording was conceived in celebration of the 10th anniversary of
the Singapore Symphony Children's Choir. The choir was formed in 2007 and made
its debut in the Singapore premiere of Mahler's Third Symphony.
This is
a short disc but amply displays the choir's versatility under one of its
founder conductors Wong Lai Foon. There are popular items such as Mozart's Ave
Verum Corpus (arranged by Briant Trant), Richard Rodgers' The Sound Of
Music (arr. Charles Smith), Joe
Hisaishi's Kimi Wo Nosete (Carrying You, arr. Yu Fukuzawa), and
John Rutter's It Was A Lover And His Lass. The 52-member choir sings
with purity, innocence and very good discipline.
The
longest item is Bob Chilcott's A Little Jazz Mass, which positively
swings through its five liturgical movements. High class backing is provided by
pianist Gabriel Hoe and principal musicians of the Singapore Symphony
Orchestra, including bassist Guennadi Mouzyka and Mark Suter on drums.
There
are also two Singaporean works, Lee Chin Sin's lovely A Child's Voice
and Chen Zhangyi's slightly modernistic Water. The choir's mastery of
the latter's idiom and subtle dissonances suggests it can handle Benjamin
Britten's choral scores next. A very pleasant listening experience, so more of
the same please.
No comments:
Post a Comment