AN EVENING OF CHINESE TIMELESS CLASSICS / NAFA Chinese Orchestra / Review

 

AN EVENING OF 

CHINESE TIMELESS CLASSICS

NAFA Chinese Orchestra

Singapore Conference Hall

Sunday (28 September 2025)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 30 September 2025 with the title "Spirited performance of classic works by young talent of NAFA Chinese Orchestra".

If one wondered how professional Chinese musical ensembles like the Singapore Chinese Orchestra or Ding Yi Music Company get its members, just take a look at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts’ (NAFA) Chinese Instrumental Studies degree programme. Now part of the University of the Arts Singapore (UAS), this is the very reason why we have the highest levels of Chinese musical performances here today.

In the final concert of the 2025 Singapore Chinese Music Festival, the NAFA Chinese Orchestra led by Lim Yau provided a showcase that stands the test of time. The concert opened with the popular Dance of the Yao People by Liu Tieshan and Mao Yuan, originally conceived for western orchestra but orchestrated by Peng Xiuwen for Chinese instruments.

The music sourced from the ethnic minorities of southwest China rhapsodised with much feeling and fervour, with concertmaster Koh Yu Jie’s gaohu confidently singing its principal theme. Picking up speed, momentum and without looking back, the work made for a rousing curtain-raiser.

What followed were concertante works featuring four NAFA faculty members, two of whom are principals in the Singapore Chinese Orchestra. The old Cantonese tune Zhaojun’s Lament was elegiac in nature, wholly suited for Qu Jian Qing’s eloquent and mellow musings on the yangqin. Temperance ruled, and the orchestra piped down for the understated angsty emotions on show.

Quite different was the more demonstrative Ballade of Lan Huahua by Guan Ming, arranged as a dizi concerto by Zhan Yong Ming and Lu Chunlin, with Zhan as spirited soloist. Here, the sense of tragedy was more palpable, with the bamboo flute’s plangent tones searing a path through the dramatics. The trill-filled cadenzas made for moments for contemplation and reflection before closing on a subdued note.

The longest and arguably most virtuosic piece was Heroic Sisters of the Grassland composed by the committee of Wu Zhuqiang, Wang Yanjiao and Liu Dehai, and arranged by Peng. This work’s claim to fame was having been recorded by the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Seiji Ozawa in 1979 with the gradual opening of communist China to the West.

Yu Jia, resplendent in a stunning red outfit, was the spectacular pipa soloist who caught no breaks in its 20-minute playtime. This work of programme music recounted the escapades of two young sisters in Inner Mongolia who braved a blizzard to protect their flock of sheep. Through storms and squalls of orchestral textures, it was Yu who held firm from its pastoral opening to brilliant conclusion.

Photo: Chew Kai Xin

One often needs to separate the Socialist Realist claptrap of many Chinese works of the period from the true quality of the music. This however did not apply to Liu Wenjin’s Ballad from Northern Henan, another folk rhapsody, with Sunny Wong Sun Tat, head of NAFA’s Chinese music department, on his trusty erhu.

This was celebratory music one need not apologise for, and his excellence of execution and the orchestra’s spirited contribution were emblematic of the very bright future ahead for Chinese instrumental music in Singapore.