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.

RIVER OF LIFE / NP Collective / Review

 

RIVER OF LIFE: 

AN INTERCULTURAL ODYSSEY 

NP Collective 

Esplanade Recital Studio 

Thursday (12 September 2024)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 14 September 2024 with the title" NP Collective finds unity in diversity".

Rivers are the bringers of life and civilisation, with the lands and nations of the Asian continent being chief beneficiaries of their perpetual sustenance. This was the basis of the hour-long concert by NP Collective, an ensemble under the umbrella of Brahmastra Arts House. 

Photo: Brahmastra Arts House

Its nine musicians performing a host of different instruments, conducted by Huang Ming Xiang, come from diverse musical backgrounds. Crossover and fusion might have been convenient labels for the works performed, but reality was more nuanced than that expedient pigeon-holing of musical genres. 

By placing guest sarangi player Sarfaraaz Khan as main soloist, the obvious start point was that of South Asian music. The haunting tone he coaxed from the vertically-held bowed three-stringed instrument was memorable, with a range and timbre wavering somewhere between Western violin and viola. Coloured with distinct vocal qualities, it is once heard, never forgotten. 

Further melodic interest came from creative director Niranjan Pandian on bansuri (Indian bamboo flute, above) and Bryan de Rozario on tenor saxophone, backed by cello, electronic bass and keyboard, and percussion (mridangam, traditional and modern drums, small cymbals, singing bowls and rainsticks). The possibilities seemed endless, however the five works on show were constrained by the need to utilise all the instruments such that they came across as somewhat interchangeable. 

Photo: Brahmastra Arts House

Eric Watson’s Between Two Rivers opened the show, followed by John Sharpley’s River of Light. Both composers have very different compositional idioms and styles, but it was nigh impossible to tell them apart here. Both had provided in their scores forms and themes for the musicians to work with, but much latitude was left for improvisation and ornamentation. 

Thus as each work progressed, Indian music with its sine qua non ruminative qualities (as in most ragas) soon morphed into jazzy inventions, with infectious beats provided by the battery of percussion. This was no bad thing as every work was kept light and lively, and ultimately enjoyable. 

Sharpley’s work also had the added element of movement with percussionist NJ Pravin leaving his perch to pursue drumming as an animated dance. Had this been scripted or was it all spontaneous? Jazz exponent Chok Kerong’s Rapids juxtaposed sarangi with sax - an alluring combo - and later bansuri with drums, providing an edgy feel throughout. 

Avik Chari’s Zanskar Milan dwelled on the confluence of the Indus and Zanskar rivers in the Himalayas, its leisurely pace and meditative nature enhanced with most of the illuminations turned off. Gu Wei’s To The Southern Seas, which closed the concert, expressed hopes and aspirations provided by the Yangtze River but had no distinctive Chinese themes involved. 

That would have been just too cliched, but it was the unison playing (heterophony, commonly encountered in Chinese music) of all involved which impressed most. Diversity thus became unity in this instance, as well as the concert on a whole, and was none the worse for it.

Photo: Brahmastra Arts House

A:LIVE / Morse Percussion / Review

A:LIVE

Morse Percussion

Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts

Friday (18 March 2022)

 

There is probably no better time than now for percussionists in Singapore. And there are likely more professional percussionists active here than ever before. The formation in 2020 of Morse Percussion, a professional ensemble in the mould of Kroumata or Repercussion, is a sign of these heady times. And there is no shortage of local composers to write for percussion, as illustrated in this concert of fascinating contrasts and variety.

 

Five composers were represented this evening, beginning with Tony Makarome’s Kuanzhai Xiangzi performed by four players. The title refers to a popular tourist district in Chengdu, Sichuan province known for its architecture, culture, wide and narrow streets. Rhythmically vibrant and light-hearted, it unapologetically fused Western with Eastern influences. Melodic interest was provided by vibraphone and marimba, while the slung Chinese cymbal gave it an exotic feel. Pentatonic melodies abounded, including one similar to the Oriental central section of Ravel’s Laideronette, Imperatrice des Pagodes from his Mother Goose ballet. Totally enjoyable.

 

August Lum’s A Well-Matched Fight V.2.0 featured just three percussionists on drums. Inspired by Chinese martial arts, notably the exploits of Marvel Comics’ hero Shang-Chi, this is a battle piece for unpitched percussion. A snare drum heralded a call to arms, and a showdown between two opposing players ensued. The work is not scored, and thus relying on improvisation by both drummers. Yet the work did not convey the idea of randomness, but rather something choreographed, judging by their pugilistic postures and wushu inflected movements on stage. Their mutual stares of daggers also gave the work an edge of high tension and uncertainty.   

 

Completely different was Avik Chari’s V.I.D.A., where the use of pre-recorded electronics dominated initial proceedings but gradually became a complement for the four percussionists. The title refers to life itself, but its initials spell roles played by the foursome, that of a visionary, introvert, dreamer and adventurer. The music was serene, even poetic, with a laid-back feel provided by the striking of a Tibetan bowl and stroking of a wooden frog. This is as much a nature piece as one inspired, according to the composer, by the emergence of artificial intelligence.    

 

The only aggressively atonal piece was Morsus by Chua Jon Lin, also the only woman composer among the five. Its title was partly derived from the ensemble’s name and the Latin word for bite, describing a sharp lancinating pain. Only four instruments – tam tam, marimba, vibraphone and snare-drum – were used. The tam tam was bowed rather than struck, producing a scraping timbral effect, while the snare drum struck when being laid upside down caused an unearthly buzzing sound. Call this avant garde, and it conjured up a suitably nightmarish soundscape.

 

Tour de force for the evening was Jonathan Shin’s Mad Dog Mancha, calling for seven players in all, with the composer himself at the piano. The title itself alluded to a quixotic Iberian spirit, one that is vigorous rhythmic, full of emphatic ostinatos yet totally unpredictable. Calling this West Side Story updated and on steroids would not be too far from the truth. Its grimy, inner city ghetto-like vibe coloured with a gamelan-like precision interplay (with no less than four pitched instruments) brought out the loudest cheers from a clearly enthused audience.   

 

Time just flew by in the hour-long concert, much helped by the pre-recorded interviews with the five composers. Morse Percussion, manned by virtuosos Derek Koh, Joachim Lim, Cheong Kah Yiong, Yuru Lee, Sng Yiang Shan and Tan Lee Ying, is a force for new music to be reckoned with.