SERENADES WITH
ANDREW LITTON AND CHLOE HANSLIP
Singapore Symphony Orchestra
Victoria Concert Hall
Friday (25 February 2022)
UNHEARD: CELEBRATING
SINGAPOREAN FEMALE COMPOSERS
The Arts House
Sunday (27 February 2022)
This review was published in The Straits Times on 2 March 2022 with the title "Women musicians get chance to shine".
It is no secret that classical music is male-dominated. Women musicians, especially composers (and conductors), have found it difficult to break this stranglehold. This is beginning to change as more accomplished women are increasingly being recognised on par with their male counterparts.
One of Britain’s most prodigious violinists, former child prodigy Chloe Hanslip, returned to perform Leonard Bernstein’s Serenade for Violin, Strings & Percussion with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra in a fundraising concert. Despite the deceptive title, it is a full-blown violin concerto, which received a blistering performance.
A petite physical stature was no impediment to Hanslip’s full-bodied and rich tone. With perfect intonation and ample projection, she easily cut through thickets of textures from supporting strings and a battery of percussion. Alternating between austerity and levity, she also revelled in its rhythmic elements, not least in the final movement’s jazzy swagger, bringing on a chorus of cheers. Interestingly, the 2004 Singapore premiere of this work, was given by another woman: Kam Ning.
The balance of the concert led by SSO Principal Guest Conductor Andrew Litton featured two popular and familiar serenades. The elegiac quality of Elgar’s Serenade for Strings was contrasted with a robustness of approach to Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, both revealing more facets to the string section’s virtuosity.
Unheard is a concert series founded by soprano Rachel Lim in 2019 to showcase the music of women composers, with seven Singaporean women represented in its latest edition. Their disparate voices showcased varieties of styles from popular film music influences (Sandra Lim’s Morning Memories), impressionism (Wynne Fung’s In A Quiet Grey), both works for violin with Brenda Koh accompanied by piano, and ethnic modes (Syafiqah ‘Adha Sallehin’s Fantasia Of Home for solo piano), to more modern and avant-garde trends.
Art song is a strong suit of local composers, including Koh Cheng Jin’s The Fungus (heard in an audio recording) and Time And Again, sung by soprano Akiko Otao and tenor Jonathan Charles Tay respectively. Food Street and Back Street Barber from Tan Yuting’s Chinatown Song Cycle were realised by Rachel Lim herself in evocative and idiomatic Mandarin. All’s the pity that words and text translations had not been made available.
One important aspect of Unheard was the mentorship provided by more senior composers to younger colleagues, with Young Artist Award recipient Emily Koh guiding Lee Jia Yi in the crafting of a new commission. Both composers’ works were performed, opening with Koh’s Chronoma for saxophone, piano and percussion, with Samuel Phua on alto and soprano sax as its leading voice and protagonist.
The piece de resistance had to be Lee’s emanate for two pianos, percussion and electronics, receiving its world premiere. It was curious to see pianists Jonathan Shin and Pauline Lee, and percussionists Eugene Toh and Ramu Thiruyanam all gathered around to tinkle and strike the insides of a grand piano. The overall effect ranged from ethereal and mysterious, to jarring and downright disturbing. New music is always fresh and thought-provoking, and local women composers showed they can equal or surpass the best of creative spirits.
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