ECONCERT / Ding Yi Music Company / Review

 

ECONCERT 

Ding Yi Music Company 

Esplanade Recital Music 

Wednesday (23 October 2024)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 25 October 2024 with the title "Eco-themed concert a wake-up call about waste".

Some of Ding Yi Music Company’s most interesting concerts over the years have focused on Singapore’s history and disappearing local culture, but more recently the ensemble has turned to highlighting environmental issues. 

The second of its ECOncerts, directed by resident conductor Dedric Wong De Li, was about the high toll exacted by the generation of waste. Stage-directed by Ang Xiao Ting, with music composed by Malaysian Yii Kah Hoe and Singaporean Avik Chari, the 75-minute concert was inspired by the documentary feature Wasted (www.wasted.film) by Eco-Business which highlighted a modern-day dilemma resulting from rampant consumerism. 

Much of the concert’s first third was devoted to accompanying film excerpts featuring vast vistas and mountains of garbage from rising Asian economies, including Vietnam, South Korea and India. “Nature creates no waste. Waste is a human invention” was the overriding message, and so was, “What we throw away doesn’t go away”. The music was dissonant, depicting a bleak landscape with ultimate despair being the foreseeable future. 

The chamber ensemble of Chinese instruments performed within an arts installation created by Alecia Neo, which include an amorphous pile of plastic flakes and fake rocks, and a barren tree in the foreground, a la Samuel Beckett’s Waiting For Godot. The play of darkness and light, representing futility and hope, by lighting designer Liu Yong Huay also provided a suitable ambience for the action to take place. 

Some hard truths about recycling were presented, including the stark statistic that less than ten percent of waste discarded in recycle bins was actually recyclable. Depressing. The concert’s second third had no projected visuals, instead allowing more of the music to be better appreciated. 

In Nature’s Realm – Sounds Of Waste, Chin Yen Choong’s jinghu and Tan Yong Yaw’s yangqin was heard over a cacophonous counterpoint provided by rustling of bags and wrappings, banging of bottles and crushing of cups, all plastic, of course. 

Symbolism was also strong, with composer Yii emerging from within the audience to rake the plastic flakes, forming a Zen sand garden in the process, and playing tunes on the xiao (vertical flute, crafted from bamboo) before disappearing offstage. All this while accompanied by zhongruan and bowed strings, most likely a sign of regeneration. 

In Humans Produce Waste: Recycling Concerto came the concert’s much-awaited climax, with Bekhzod Oblayorov and Wong Wai Kit playing on a sustainable cello and zhongruan respectively. These instruments were created from recycled cardboard, designed by the team of Alvin Chea Hong Shen and Chea Wei Xian from Trio Packaging. While not quite as sonorous as originals of wood, these were obviously works in progress. 

As the score moved ever so gradually from discordance to concordance, from dark desolation to bright illumination, its denouement was an optimistic but guarded conclusion. As long as we pay heed to our environment and better manage our resources, the wake-up call provided by this thought-provoking concert should not go to waste.