HOMETOWN COMPANIONS. CONTEMPORARY VOICES / Ding Yi Music Company / Review

 

HOMETOWN COMPANIONS -

CONTEMPORARY VOICES

Ding Yi Music Company

Esplanade Recital Studio

Thursday (15 December 2022)

 

One of the highlights of the Chinese music calendar is the annual three-day Chinese Chamber Music Festival organised by Ding Yi Music Company, which usually showcases Chinese instrumental groups from the Asia-Pacific region. This year’s offerings were scaled down because of the Covid pandemic, but the trade-off was a chance to feature more local groups. The first evening of the festival did just that by involving musicians from three homegrown ensembles, namely the Singapore National Youth Chinese Orchestra (SNYCO), The Purple Symphony and Ding Yi Music Company itself.

 

The impressive concert opened with eight musicians from SNYCO with Ding Yi composer-in-residence Phang Kok Jun’s Storytellers on Ann Siang Road. The original version of this fusion piece scored erhu and bansuri (Indian flute) as soloists in a duel of two Asian cultures. This evening’s performance had instead two erhus playing within the ensemble, and while the Indian element was attenuated, the end result was no less lively.

 

Jiang Ying’s Dunhuang featured nine musicians, with solo dizi in lead role. The Xinjiang-inspired rhapsody, as expected, had a Central Asian flavour which worked itself from a slow plaint to a rigourous fast dance. Another colourful number, Li Bo Chun’s Tea Horse (Cha Ma) also occupied the fast lane, its dynamics portraying trains of tireless stallions plying ancient tea-trading routes.   

 

The Purple Symphony is purportedly Singapore’s largest and most inclusive musical ensemble, with members numbering into the hundreds. The acceptance of special needs, differently-abled and neuro-atypical individuals within its ranks makes this group all the more special as no concessions needed to be made for its performances. 22 players appeared from young local composer Sulwyn Lok’s Neo / Pipa Voices, a very engaging arrangement of film themes with a distinctly popular orientation. Its serene and sentimental opening featured a dizi solo before the entry of the titular pipa.

 

Phang Kok Jun’s symphonic poem Frosted Bridge (Jie Shuang Qiao) about the now-defunct Sungai Road flea market (popularly known as Thieves’ Market) was conducted by Ding Yi music director Quek Ling Kiong. This work needed a conductor as its opening chords and impressionist textures were difficult to bring out without a leader. The ensemble persevered nonetheless, with a sheng solo being the highlight before the raucous sound effects with mini-tambourines and shaken plastic nettings taking over. Despite the tendency for percussion to dominate, the work drew to a quiet close.

 

The combined ensemble of both groups joined by Ding Yi Music Company’s soloists numbered well over thirty players. Together, the orchestra (pushing the limits of a chamber group to breaking point) performed well-known Chinese composer Wang Dan Hong’s Heavenly Grassland and Zhang Yi Ma’s Delight. The former saw lovely dizi and erhu solos before erupting into an exuberant dance with much drumming and tambourine-slapping. The latter was a light-hearted, easy-going tune with the quality of a folk ballad.

 

Judging by the many happy faces among the players, and the encouragement given by conductor Quek and the audience, this was 75-minutes of feel good music well spent. Simply put, Ding Yi has enabled community music-making at its most sincere and heart-rending. Long may this continue.

All photographs by courtesy of 

Ding Yi Music Company.