REFRACTING RITUALS / Quinnuance / Review

REFRACTING RITUALS

Quinnuance

Esplanade Recital Studio

Wednesday (27 May 2015) 

This review was published in The Straits Times on 29 May 2015 with the title "Synchronised laughter, random acts".

In Refracting Rituals, the intrepid group of local composers and performers called Quinnuance attempted to redefine the way people perceive of musical performances. Viewing through its distorting mirror and prism, a concert was no longer just an aural experience but one involving elements of performance art, theatre, acts of randomness and audience interaction.

Music of four composers was showcased, beginning with serial atonalist Bernard Lee Kah Hong's The Unfathomable Being Of Vengeance Spiral In The Existential Light Of Nucleus. This was an unusual setting of Sylvia Plath's poem A Lesson In Vengeance, read by a kebaya-clad Natalie Ng with Clarence Tan scraping a double-bass centrestage. They were joined by violinist Nanako Takata, violist Jeremy Chiew and trumpeter Christopher Yong Lin who played from the wings and then proceeded to parade onstage as a gesture of discord, symbolic of mankind's propensity for vengeful violence. Lee's dodecaphonic music continues to provoke and challenge listeners, including trying to remember the titles of his works.   

Terrence Wong was represented by two works for brass. Pentasy, compacting the words “pentatonal” and “fantasy”, for bass trombone and piano, was a conventional concert piece that stretched trombonist Jasper Tan's technique to the fullest. Accompanied by pianist Gabriel Hoe, the unremittingly tonal music hinted of the Orient, coursing through pensive moments and emotional highs before a sedate close.

The more theatrical Choices for solo trumpet saw a return of Yong, this time donning the feathered headdress of a Native American Indian and moving between stations on stage. One technique he employed was polyphonics, that was producing two different sets of notes, from the trumpet as well as gutteral vocalising. This dichotomy represented metaphorically the paths of good and evil. Putting it more simply like in those cowboy Westerns of old, were the Injuns good guys or baddies?

In between was Alicia De Silva's In Our Last for flute, soprano and piano, a contemplation of death through the Roman Catholic requiem mass. The first part, In This Darkened Valley, soprano Evelyn Ang's  sprechgesang (hovering between speech and singing) was in tormented conflict with Paul Huang's flute, which represented a soothing, even seductive prospect of death. The final acceptance of death came in the second part, Eternal Song, where both flute and voice played in unison and chanted the words, “May eternal rest and perpetual light shine upon them.”    

Completely visual was American Mark Applebaum's Tlön for three conductors which comprised six and half minutes of virtual silence. Conductors Tan, Wong and De Silva, with the aid of click tracks and ear pieces connected to a laptop, crafted an elaborate act of choreography, that of directing three imaginary orchestras before taking their bows in front of an imaginary audience.

Those in the bemused but well-behaved audience had a chance to join the the finale, which was Lu Heng's Laughter Propaganda. Here nine performers including conductor Tan were engaged in synchronised laughing, which was eventually extended to the audience. This exercise begged the question about laughter: is laughing a truly spontaneous act? Or are we programmed in our minds to laugh only at certain jokes, words or acts, and only when it is deemed appropriate? 

Between plotting retribution and unapologetic bellyaching, Quinnuance has turned the traditional concept of the concert upon its head. That is what the experience of new music is all about. 

STONES, SAND AND LIGHT / Quinnuance / Review

STONES, SAND & LIGHT

Quinnuance

Esplanade Recital Studio

Friday (30 May 2014)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 2 June 2014 with the title "A meeting of diverse minds".

The cause of new music has been well served by the contemporary music ensembles of Singapore’s tertiary music educational institutions and several intrepid independent groups. Quinnuance, formed mostly by alumni of the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, is one such collective of composers and performers. Their third concert of new local works revealed an interesting mix of diverse and sophisticated musical minds.

The composers of Quinnuance:
Bernard Lee, Alicia de Silva, Lu Heng, Terrence Wong
with Music Director Clarence Tan (from L to R)

Terrence Wong is a name which will be heard rather often for some time to come. The concert began with his (D)evolution, an electro-acoustic number based on a D flat minor scale first heard on a cello and then repeated, transformed and manipulated into an ever-expanding aural wall of sound.

Beginning with a low drone and gradually ascending into a menacing growl, it could have functioned as a piece of installation art. The hall plunged into darkness, all that was visible was a spotlight illuminating an empty chair. Its abrupt ending and the minute of uncertain silence from the audience that followed also had a certain whiff of John Cage about it.

Wong’s Morning Dances received its World Premiere by pianist You Yin Fen, oboist Leow Rui Qing and clarinettist Colin Tan Yiliang. Heralded by ostinatos from the piano, both woodwinds engaged in a contest of complex runs and riffs, later accompanied by rhythms foot-stomped by the pianist. Although the gamelan was alluded to in the composer’s programme notes, a fired up jazz band could plausibly have been an influence as well.

Alicia de Silva’s Stones, Sand and Darkness was the longest and most evocative work on the programme. Conceived in three movements, the titular objects were treated as elemental forces, represented by varying tonal sequences heard on five instruments. Sheila Pietono’s piano served as the bass over which Chan Si-Han’s cello sang its lament, contrasted by short interjections on Gabriel Lee’s violin, while oboe and clarinet added their own narratives.

The music emoted on different levels; nostalgia in long-held lingering plaints, agitation in flittering ephemeral phrases and a sense of danger in the toccata-like finale. A short but languorous drawl with the lights going off served as a fitting epilogue.  

Bernard Lee Kah Hong, a state registered nurse by profession, is the group’s dyed-in-the wool atonalist. His Let The Eyes Open in the Hour of Autumn II however has roots in China’s Jiangnan ensemble music. Using the flute, violin, viola and piano in transcription to substitute for the dizi, erhu, sanxian and pipa, he created a stirring if unsettling piece that deserves a second listen. The title refers to receiving an epiphany in one’s advancing years.

Finally, Lu Heng’s Fission for solo violin closed the concert like the way it began. Built on the premise of a single D note, the piece was an elaborate play and metamorphosis on a simple tone. Like particle rays emitting from a nuclear source, the unwavering D dominated while torrents of notes flew from Lee’s violin to its tumultuous close. This might have been a caprice by Paganini had he known Einstein.  

All photographs by courtesy of Quinnuance.

PORTRAITS OF SINGAPORE / AudioImage Wind Ensemble / Review

PORTRAITS OF HOME

AudioImage Wind Ensemble

Esplanade Concert Hall

Sunday (11 August 2013)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 13 August 2013 with the title "Xinyao tune wins over audience".

Sunday afternoon concerts at Esplanade Concert Hall are synonymous with light music and audience outreach events. In conjunction with National Day, the AudioImage Wind Ensemble conducted by Clarence Tan presented a programme of works wholly by Singaporean composers. However not all of it was light or easy going.

The concert began innocently enough with the familiar Malay tune Di Tanjung Katong wittily dressed up in joget rhythm by Bernard Lee. The three loud emphatic chords at its end seemed to recall a bygone era, one occupied by the late and venerated Leong Yoon Pin (below), whose music followed. 

Daybreak and Sunrise, his only work for wind band, was evocative with its slow introduction leading into a brass chorale and march. Chinese motifs with hints at Elgar coloured its climax before closing on a surprisingly quiet note. Then the music took on more austere tones.

There should be some rightful place for Lee’s Wind Field II, but its atonal pages and episodic character, with the instrumentalists (and listeners) seemingly grasping for straws, sounded out of place here. The audience was becoming restless, with teenagers chatting and one child crying, whether out of boredom or for respite, it is anyone’s guess. It also did not help with ushers scampering up and down the aisles in search of errant photographers, real or imagined.

Chen Zhangyi’s impressionistic Toward Dawn was atmospheric in the use of tone colour, and almost echoing Leong’s earlier effort, built to a fulsome high before ending quietly. This is a work that repays further listening. Cultural Medallion recipient Kelly Tang’s (right) Sarabande made more concession for listeners, its graceful lilt and warm Andrew Lloyd Webber-like harmonies provided a soothing aural salve.

Jeremiah Li’s Two Portraits were studies in contrasts. Solo cello, marimba and percussion provided an unusual wind-free timbre for Nuances, which played on a triplet leitmotif. The infernal dance of Clockwork’D was about jabbing ostinatos and Bernsteinesque jazzy turns.

The 75-minute long concert concluded with a return of the familiar. Unfortunately the arrangement of Count On Me, Singapore by Chen was stodgy, an over-reliance on long-held notes and resonances impeding its natural flow. The loudest cheers were reserved for Liang Wern Fook’s (left) xinyao classic Xi Shui Chang Liu, in a light-hearted clap-along with Dixieland echoes transcribed by Wong Kah Chun.

It certainly does not hurt to write a good and memorable tune, and this fact was not lost on its audience.    

AudioImage Wind Ensemble
conductor Clarence Tan (right)
with bilingual MC and
composer Liong Kit Yeng. 

THE MUSIC, OUR WORKS / Review

THE MUSIC, OUR WORKS

The Arts House Living Room

Thursday (24 May 2012)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 26 May 2012 with the title "Young composers show promise". 

The realm where the young composers of Singapore today inhabit looks like a vibrant and thought-provoking environment to be part of. This chamber concert showcased the diverse talents of five such individuals, all alumni of the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, who are unafraid to bare their souls and express their innermost secrets.

Chinese music with a Singaporean vibe:
Ernest Thio's Poise.

The stereotype of the unapologetic Schoenbergian or Boulez-wannabe seems to be in the minority these days, with more composers re-embracing tonality and its aural comforts. Ernest Thio, whose music opened the closed the concert, has a fine ear for harmony through exotic timbres. In I Felt a Funeral in My Brain, based on Emily Dickinson poems, he skilfully blended two voices with lush piano chords in a work that saw death as a passage of solace rather than anguish.

Ernest Thio's Nian employed
an unusual quartet of Samuel King (piano),
the composer (ukulele), Dominica Chua (erhu)
and Rozie Hoong (zhonghu).

In the brief Poise, an erhu and zhonghu played out an elegy as counterpoint to the piano’s bare theme. Most memorable was Thio’s Nian for huqins, piano and ukulele, a memory of his Hokkien-speaking grandmother who lived in a Buddhist temple which used a chant as its subject. Thio’s part on the Hawaiian guitar simulated that of a strummed Chinese instrument. This is a reminiscence of Chinese music, viewed through Singaporean lenses.

The ensemble for Luo Enning's My One True Love:
the composer (piano), Yap Pheck Chuan (violin),
Doreen Yeo (clarinet) and Bernard Yong (glockenspiel).

Luo Enning’s My One True Love was even more unusual, a 21^st century work that completely avoided dissonances and even minor chords. Scored for violin, clarinet, glockenspiel and piano, its vision of eros resembled the quasi-jazzy and deliberately simplistic dance music of Shostakovich, but minus the irony and guile.

Lu Heng's Blues of the Day was played
by the composer (piano), Christoven Tan (viola),
Clarence Chung (electric guitar)
and Shaun Soh (drums).

In Lu Heng’s Blues of the Day, a spirit of improvisation came to the fore. The electric guitar and drum-set made it sound more like a rock band rather than jazz combo. Rhythmic from start to end, one would not have been too surprised had the riffs of Lalo Schifrin’s Mission Impossible Theme burst out with guns blazing.

And then there were two solo works that showed that atonality was not completely dead. Alicia De Silva’s 12-minute-long Cadenza (from Suite for Viola), played by Christoven Tan, was almost a suite in itself as it explored a myriad of moods and responses, from its ruminative beginning to Schnittke-like pages of seething violence.

Christoven Tan (Viola) and Gabriel Lee (Violin)

Similarly, Bernard Lee Kah Hong’s And it Happens to Drop from Beneath, the work that won the 2011 National Violin Competition composition award, truly tested violinist Gabriel Lee’s mettle. Operating at a narrower range of dynamics, its understated virtuosity nevertheless probed varying degrees of psychological disquiet.     

This 70-minute snapshot of our nation’s varied compositional landscape was both an invigorating and encouraging signpost of how and where our music is heading to.

The composers' circle (from L to R):
Ernest Thio, Lu Heng, Alicia De Silva,
Donna Koh (Moderator), Bernard Lee Kah Hong
and Luo Enning.

LIVING WITH... Young Composers / Review

LIVING WITH… YOUNG COMPOSERS
Living Room @ The Arts House 

Monday (2 May 2011)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 4 May 2011 with the title "Young composers were hit and miss".

Fact: there are more composers in Singapore now than any other time in history. Who are they and what do they compose? The Arts House’s “Living With…” series provided some of the clues.

The setting was informal, and like poetry reading sessions, a means of expressing themselves and eliciting some reaction from an audience. But first, tribute was paid when one of the young composers, Jun Zubillaga-Pow performed on piano the Prelude Orientale by late doyen of Singaporean composers Leong Yoon Pin.

Its pentatonic melody and eclectic quasi-American idiom (Ives and Copland come to mind) had discernible form, something which his younger colleagues could take home and learn. Then Bernard Lee Kah Hong’s Seeing Through the Unbondable Links of Hours shot the first atonal salvoes.

About people who come together for a while and then go on their own ways, four musicians – a pianist, percussionist, violinist and oboist – did just that. There were aleatorical (chance) elements and scored sections, but given the diffuse and seemingly random nature of the music, one was hard pressed to guess which was which, and whether the artists were having their listeners on.

Equally unintelligible was Zubillaga-Pow’s A Situational Conversation Happening During the Global Economic Crisis. Quite a mouthful, but the sung work with ruan (plucked Chinese instrument) accompaniment centred on a Bangladeshi immigrant worker and his “boss” with whom he also has a physical relationship. Amid the background hum of piling noises, the singer’s voice traversed too narrow a range, was indeterminate in pitch and undecipherable in content.

Alicia de Silva’s two Songs Of Night were settings of Amy Lowell and Walt Whitman, both good literary sources. Her deft use of clarinet and piano helped provide atmospheric colour for Evelyn Ang’s vocals, which had emotional heft and range – from whisper to yelp - to register a blip on consciousness. Why two of the performers painted their faces to resemble Goths or groupies at a KISS revival remained a mystery.

Finally Luo Enning’s Light And Day was a three-movement flute sonata with thematic interest which could be further developed. The finale saw Clement Lim blow his flute into the innards of Teo Li-Chin’s piano, creating an ethereal effect with harmonics for a placid close. A post-concert forum later provided lively discourse and food for thought. Hit or miss, the young composers are encouraged to continue experimenting and find their own individual voices.

SINGAPORE COMPOSE! by The Philharmonic Winds / Review

SINGAPORE COMPOSE!
The Philharmonic Winds

Zechariah Goh Toh Chai, Conductor
Esplanade Concert Hall
Saturday (10 April 2010)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 12 April 2010.

In what is likely the most significant concert of Singaporean music in recent years, The Philharmonic Winds performed ten works of local composers, including eight World Premieres. The mastermind behind this ambitious undertaking was Zechariah Goh Toh Chai (below), composer-conductor well known for his forays into new music and NAC Young Artist Award recipient, who conducted the concert.

Over 160 minutes, the varied musical tapestry that is Singapore’s growing composing fraternity was unveiled to fascinating effect. If one thought that the genre of wind music was a limiting factor, think again. Other than Kelly Tang’s Decathlon and Wang Chenwei’s Rhythm Of The City, which were more or less straightforward concert band showpieces that skillfully assimilated film music and jazz influences, the others aspired to bring the medium to parts unknown.

The two most modern-sounding works came from youngsters Chen Zhangyi and Bernard Lee Kah Hong. The former employed deft impressionist brushstrokes and colour in the gradual crescendo of Toward Dawn, while the latter revived Second Viennese School atonalism in the fancifully-titled There Is No Date Tree On The Maroon Sky. Both represent a breath of fresh air on our musical landscape.

Then came two very different concertos for tuned and untuned percussion. Conductor Goh’s own Concerto For Vibraphone++ was a subtle union of the Baroque concerto grosso and jazz. Percussionist Ramu Thiruyanam (left) eschewed virtuosity for its own sake, more intent in crafting an optimal atmosphere for this luminous music to shine. An epitome of cool, his encore of Brazilian Abreu’s Manha a Carnaval brought on the loudest cheers.

Not credited in the programme was Dennis Sim, who theatrically mastered the bass drum, Japanese taiko drum and two gongs for Robert Casteels’ Holler Across The Holler (composer left). Here, the conductorless ensemble assiduously responded to the rhetorical questions posed by each instrumental cadenza. The work closed with Seow Shu Feng’s enigmatic piccolo solo played high up in the organ loft.

Coming back to earth were two works flavoured with Southeast Asian themes. Ho Chee Kong’s Perayaan (Celebration!) carried the musk and aromas of a bustling Javanese bazaar, and Jun Wong Kah Chun’s Krakatoa was a well-structured symphonic poem about the 1883 eruption. Both utilised gamelan effects, naturally.

To pour syrup on the fine spices hitherto offered, the band finished with two medleys of popular songs by Xinyao pioneer Liang Wern Fook (left) and musical-meister Dick Lee. One almost forgot they are Singaporean composers too. A sequel to Singapore Compose! is keenly awaited.