FRIENDSHIP / Singapore National Youth Chinese Orchestra / Review

FRIENDSHIP

Singapore National Youth Chinese Orchestra

Singapore Conference Hall

Saturday (18 March 2023)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 20 March 2023 with the title "Friendship, camaraderie at Singapore National Youth Chinese Orchestra's 20th anniversary show".

 

This concert marked the 20^th anniversary of the Singapore National Youth Chinese Orchestra (SNYCO) as a ensemble assembled under the auspices of the Singapore Chinese Orchestra. Its 80-minute programme, featuring five works performed without an interval, was a showcase of how far the group has progressed.

 

Music Director Quek Ling Kiong, who had been at the helm since inception, was his usual bubbly best, not just as a podium maestro but also cheerleader. Friendship and camaraderie was the concert’s overall theme, also the subject of Liu Xing’s Bian Ba, named after the composer’s close Tibetan friend and colleague. The music was more reflective than exuberant, with solo and grouped erhus (Bian’s own instrument) in lyrical repose before rising to a crescendo, reflecting the blossoming of a friendship.

 

Its restrained and congenial tones could not have been more contrasted with Wang Danhong’s Strings On Yangko Dance, inspired by rural celebrations in Northern China on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month. This raucous commemoration of the equivalent of our Chap Goh Meh was characterised by the virile play of strings and incessant percussion. Standing tall amid the throng were solo and grouped suonas, resonating like the earthy voices of humanity, providing an orgiastic  climax before dissipating to nothingness.  

 

Liu Wenjin’s orchestral fantasy on Molihua (Jasmine) was more traditional, with cellos and basses opening the work and various orchestral groups taking on the popular melody. First it was the dizis, then huqins and later pipas, building up to a drum roll and somewhat overblown apotheosis. When you have a memorable tune, milking it to the max seemed to be the message.   

 

Far more exotic was Xu Jingxin and Chen Dawei’s Fei Tian (Flying Apsaras), inspired by murals in the famous Mogao caves of Dunhuang. Beginning with an air of mystery, the piercing high pitch of the whistle (from a dizi player) was particularly haunting. Its Central Asian feel was heightened with yangqin, guzheng and percussion (wood blocks, cymbals and xylophone) as the dance wound to a high before returning to an idyll of serene whistling.

 

Law Wai Lun’s tone poem Prince Sang Nila Utama and Singa provided the evening’s only example of Nanyang music, works with distinct Southeast Asia influences and inspiration. The score was a curious blend of impressionistic colour reminiscent of Ravel and Debussy and use of Indonesian scales, giving it a very local flavour. Dizi, suona and guan were used to ear-catching effect, and a stentorian melody at its close represented the prince’s encounter with the lion and the ensuing historical myth-making.  

 

That made for a suitably rowdy close, and with the slightest bit of prompting, the orchestra launched into its encore, Kuan Nai-chung’s Da Gui (Vanquishing Demons) from A Trip To Lhasa, an ear-worm of a piece if any. Cheered on by an audience filled to the rafters, one foresees in these talented young musicians a very bright future ahead for Chinese instrumental music in Singapore.