YAN HUICHANG & SCO / Singapore Chinese Orchestra / Review

 

YAN HUICHANG & SCO 

Singapore Chinese Orchestra 

Singapore Conference Hall 

Saturday (23 November 2024)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 25 November 2024 with the title "Yan Huichang dazzles in guest conductor stint with SCO".

Every concert needs to be special. That seems to be the credo of Cultural Medallion recipient Yan Huichang, who is the Artistic Director and Principal Conductor for Life of the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra. The festive spirit of his HKCO concerts at Esplanade’s Huayi Chinese Festival of Arts in recent years was replicated as the Singapore Chinese Orchestra’s guest conductor this evening. 

Photo: Singapore Chinese Orchestra

Opening with Da De Sheng (Triumph), as arranged by Zhang Shiye, antiphonal drumming and a chorus of suonas provided a raucous atmosphere, and one wondered whether the sheer excess of decibels generated could be topped. In a word, yes. 

Yan’s considerable prowess as a composer were demonstrated in two original works. Charms of Hainan, inspired by a 1981 visit to China’s southernmost island, had nothing to do with beach resorts, naval bases or culinary delights, but ethnic folk music of its indigenous Hlai hilltribes. 

The slow opening movement, Stroll, was impressionist in colour and evocatively so. Cottage, a romance between courting couples, paired the distinctive timbres of Zhang Shuo’s sax-like guanzi with Zhang Li’s lute-like xiaoruan in a beautiful duet like no other. This tender serenade could have gone on forever and nobody would have objected. The closing Gathering, recounting bull-fighting scenes, had more festive dancing than blood-letting. 

Photo: Singapore Chinese Orchestra

Yan’s second work, Rhapsody of String Puppets, was more personal as it celebrated the art of Heyang string puppetry from his home province of Shaanxi. This also showcased the multi-faceted talents of 23-year-old Wang Kun whose mastery of gubanhuai (an ancient drumset), pixianhu (a huqin unique to Shaanxi, played with an outsized bow) and vocalisation may be modestly described as a veritable one-man-band. 

A fiddler’s dexterity, jazz-drummer’s rhythmicity and story-teller’s theatricality make for a rare combination. All of these came to a vivid confluence in the central movement entitled Dazzle: Presto of Guxian. Yan hailed Wang as one of two such virtuosi in the Chinese musical world, and the audience was witnessing the better one this evening. 

Photo: Singapore Chinese Orchestra

The other significant concertante work was Kuan Nai-Chung’s four-movement Peacock, featuring SCO’s sheng principal Guo Changsuo on a 36-reed sheng. Colourful in extremis might just sum up its contents, which opened with a leisurely song, later quickening in pace for a lilting Dance of Peacock Maidens. 

Then came the big surprise with Peacock in the Cage, taking a serious turn in a form of a Baroque passacaglia followed by a rather idiomatic transcription of the E minor Fugue from Book One of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. One has not truly lived without witnessing Bachian counterpoint on a sheng accompanied by huqins. 

The closing work was the battle classic Shi Mian Mai Fu (Ambush From All Sides) arranged by Liu Wenjin and Zhao Yongshan, where one could hear the frenzy of warfare, charging steeds and the clash of metal with sparks flying. Loud and prolonged applause yielded a high octane encore, Sai Ma (Horse Racing), complete with the obligatory whinnying and neighing.

Photo: Singapore Chinese Orchestra