RHAPSODIES OF SPRING 2024
Singapore Chinese Orchestra
Singapore Conference Hall
Friday (26 January 2023)
This review was published in The Straits Times on 29 January 2024 with the title "SCO rings in Year of the Dragon with rowdy gusto".
This year’s Chinese New Year concert by the Singapore Chinese Orchestra was simply a blast. Conducted by Quek Ling Kiong, its 110 minutes had none of the usual gimmicky and time-filling costumed skits. Instead, it offered just solid music which was far greater than the sum of its parts.
Opening the concert was Li Huanzi’s ubiquitous Spring Festival Overture arranged by Sim Boon Yew, nothing unusual about that except that this performance had an extra spark and spring in its step.
The theme of renewal continued with Lo Leung-Fai’s Spring at the Seaside with sheng virtuoso Kevin Cheng as soloist, whose long lyrical lines provided much needed contrast. This leisurely number, despite a swifter dance-like central section, luxuriated in an indolent air, closing as quietly as it began.
The coming Chinese zodiac year of the dragon was represented by three works, beginning with former SCO composer-in-residence Law Wai Lun’s Dragon, composed in 1982 but reorchestrated for this concert. Attributes like boldness, fearlessness and heroism all featured, the portrayal resembling the score of some Cantonese movie, with moments for solo dizi and guzheng to shine.
Even more spectacular was Liu Changyuan’s Dragon Leaps to the East which showcased all nine members of the orchestra’s percussion section, with pitched percussion (marimba, xylophone and tubular bells) stealing the spotlight from unpitched percussion (a wide assortment of drums). The ultra-exuberant work’s apotheosis was none other than the popular folksong Molihua (Jasmines).
There was simply no escape from more striking mayhem, when Glen Ng’s Rise of Feng (rearranged by Kevin Cheng) featured ten young drummers of the percussion collective Drum Feng, backed by four SCO percussionists, with suonas and dizis providing melodic content. This orgiastic and close-to-deafening display was matched by deftly controlled lighting which accentuated the drummers’ pugilistic choreography.
The obligatory Chinese New Year songs came in two works, including Yao Min’s Spring Returns SG (rearranged by Dayn Ng), variations on the song Da Di Hui Chun (Spring Returns to the World) with Malay and Indian ornamental elements embedded into the score.
Celebrating The New Year, a medley of three songs (often played to death as supermarket muzak) rearranged by Law Wai Lun was simply hilarious. One has not lived until one has heard Ying Chun Hua (Spring Blossom) with a bossa nova beat or the ear-worm Gong Xi Gong Xi dressed up as a seductive tango.
The third and final dragon piece was Xu Changjun’s Dragon Dance. After an extended introduction and a big melody from the huqins, the drumming to end all drumming began with a return of Drum Feng. Its members were placed in the foreground and flanked by two dagus, the father of all drums.
If the music were not enough, Taman Jurong Community Club’s Juboon Dragon Dance Troupe entered the fray with a gravity-defying glide, bringing the very rewarding concert to a suitably raucous conclusion.
WISHING ONE AND ALLA HAPPY & PROSPEROUSCHINESE NEW YEAR!
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