STEPHAN'S QUINTET / TO Ensemble / Review

STEPHAN’S QUINTET

TO Ensemble

Esplanade Recital Studio

Friday (2 September 2022)

It has been ages since I attended my last TO Ensemble concert (the pre-Covid era seemed a long time ago), and what a pleasure it was to encounter the group again. As before, its members led by founder-pianist Tze Toh (Toh Tze Chin) continue to delight and surprise. Are they a chamber ensemble, a jazz combo, or a crossover band? In reality, they are all of these, comfortably flitting between these different roles and descriptions, which tend to constrain rather than define. 

Over the years, the group has evolved. Once called TLGO (Tze n Looking Glass Orchestra), it is now TO Ensemble. Once it was the size of a chamber orchestra (sometimes with added voices), the sort that plays concerti grosso, but now it takes the form of a duo, quartet or quintet depending on  programme. Once it accompanied audio-films (short films conceived by Tze, usually with a social message), now it performs near-absolute music with the minimum of extraneous contrivances. What has never changed is the ingenuity and spontaneity that comes with each concert event.

 

The latest show, Stephan’s Quintet, was astronomically inspired, premised upon the stunning visuals seen through the James Webb Space Telescope, and the life-changing findings that will explain the origin of life/existence itself. Mind blowing stuff, and while the music did not intend to encompass all things cosmological, it at least tried to express awe-struck sensations and the wonderment to be had. Its title, referring to the five galaxies viewed from distance, also reflected the five players on stage: founding team Tze (piano/keyboard), Lazar T.Sebastine (Carnatic violin), Dai Da (erhu), Teo Boon Chye (tenor sax), and its newest member Chia Zhe Yin (alto sax).

 

The seven pieces of Tze’s conception were performed with four stunning visuals projected onscreen. Stephan’s Quintet opened with a long piano solo, Debussyan in impressionist hues, as if representing the vast cosmos. Pre-recorded sounds of strings are introduced before Teo’s sax enters followed by Lazar’s violin. What might have sounded incongruous on paper however worked unusually well aurally. A waltz-like rhythm ensued with Chia’s sax adding a further dimension, and a comforting presence.      

 

Chapter Two described Longing, inspired by the vast void that exists between celestial bodies. Lazar’s violin emerged from the emptiness, immersed in a meditation that alternated between G major and minor. Both saxophones came together and their duet continued the reflective reverie. In The Silent Sea, Dai’s erhu stood out, contrasted by Carnatic violin which amongst other things, mimicked the sound of the conch shell.

 

Dance at Star’s Edge was built on the energy of piano ostinatos, from which violin and both saxes extemporised freely. Tze admitted to a nerdy side in Twelve Dimensions, based on his ideas of string theory, which saw a keen dialogue between erhu and sax. In Voyager, recounting the travels of earth’s furthest reaching probe, an upbeat rhythm with gospel and country music style prevailed, this time with sax and violin stealing the show.

 

The final chapter Sky brought all five instrumentalists together, first as mere shards and wisps of sound, seemingly random, heard individually and separately. With the passage of time, they gradually coalesced into one whole, buoyed by a rhythmic driven theme. Like the five galaxies captured in a single image gazillions of miles and millennia away, five players (and worlds) are unified as one, closing in one soothing and comforting nebula in G major. Have we heard the music of the spheres? One just needs to imagine...