SINGAPOREANA / Lion City Jazz Festival 2026 / Review

 

SINGAPOREANA -

OUR SOUND, OUR STORIES

Lion City Jazz Festival 2026

Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre

Saturday (7 March 2026)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 9 March 2026 with the title "Home-grown talent blend multi-cultural genres in Singaporeana".

Some 102 years ago, New York City’s Aeolian Hall hosted the concert An Experiment in Modern Music, which made musical history for having delivered the premiere of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. In a more modest way, this concert wholly by Singaporean creators, part of the Lion City Jazz Festival organised by the Jazz Association (Singapore), accomplished a similar feat of revitalisation.

Directed by law graduate turned jazz pianist and composer Chok Kerong, Singaporeana felt like a symbolic handing of the baton from elder statesman of jazz Jeremy Monteiro to an equally gifted junior. Appropriately, the 90-minute concert opened with Monteiro’s Ubin, arranged by Germaine Goh, a leisurely stroll through nature and history which combined elements of Chinese, Malay and Indian musical influences.

Side by Side:
Jeremy Monteiro & Chok Kerong

Variety was the spice of this showcase, which incorporated the widest possible of musical styles and genres, involving a twelve-strong band of CMIO (Chinese, Malay, Indian, Others) instruments and eight star vocalists of diverse cultures. Call it a rojak but it was a heady mix which all who attended could be fiercely proud of.

Chok and Indian singer Sushma Soma’s Shifting Ground was a dizzying display of haunting melismata which shuffled between tonal centres without sounding like Arnold Schoenberg. Malay singer Namie Rasman put a modern twist to Nada Merindu from one of National Anthem composer Zubir Said’s movie scores, while adding the gloss in English for her own song Petrichor.

Three women united in voice to sing Weish’s (Chew Wei Shan) updated treatment of traditional Hakka song Sam Kho Sung Su (Three Pine Trees), which included a rap where she was joined by Sushma and Joanna Dong. Dong’s own jazzified ode in The First Chapter from Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching sung in Mandarin to Chok’s original music was just as refreshing.

Of the purely instrumental pieces, experiments in adventurous harmonies were tried and tested. In Young Artist Award recipient flautist Rit Xu’s Desert Echoes, chromaticism fuelled exoticism, an excursion from its origin as a tango. Chok’s Renewal combined Brazilian bossa nova with a percussion duel between Sai Akileshwar’s mridangam and Riduan Zalani’s rebana, supported by Yap Ting Wei’s drumset.

In Chok’s If, Only If, erhu soloist Moses Gay took the spotlight as a brief prelude to the grand entrance of jazz veteran Alemay Fernandez, whose power vocals in the ballad Meant To Be rocked the house. Two singers dominated the higher registers of the male voice, firstly Singapore Idol Sezairi in his upbeat new song Kan Ku Nantikan, where the spirit of P.Ramlee was fondly relived.

The second was Dru Chen, whose nifty moves in Replay, co-written with Jesse Bear and Joel Tan, showed he was also light on his feet. The final singer was Tim De Cotta in Eurasian favourites Jinkli Nona and Rio, his avuncular charm also exuding in Lying Eyes.

For the grand finale, all eight singers were united for Sezairi and Petra Sihombing’s Deja Vu, which drew the loudest of cheers from the attentive and clearly absorbed audience. Another edition of Singaporeana cannot come soon enough.

All photography by Norhendra Ruslan

courtesy of Lion City Jazz Festival.

JASSO PINNACLE CONCERT 2025 / Jazz Association Singapore Orchestra / Review

 

JASSO PINNACLE CONCERT 2005 

Jazz Association Singapore Orchestra 

Capitol Theatre 

Friday (21 February 2025)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 24 February 2025 with the title "A showcase of Singapore jazz works".

In conjunction with this year’s SG60 celebrations, the Jazz Association Singapore Orchestra’s (JASSO) Pinnacle Concert was a showcase of original Singapore jazz compositions. This was a culmination of JASSO’s Build Your Legacy Through Jazz commissions where benefactors had new works composed and dedicated to persons of their choice. 

Fifteen works from seven composers, including seven by artistic director Jeremy Monteiro alone, were performed by the 18-strong jazz band of mostly brass instruments. Monteiro and his associate directors Weixiang Tan and Chok Kerong took their turns on the grand piano and conducting the orchestra. 

So what did this evening’s Singapore jazz sound like? Judging by the short single-movement works which Monteiro casually referred to as “songs” (only two had actual lyrics), the tendency was to err on the side of caution by adhering to popular and familiar idioms. One will not find edgy experimental or dissonant harmonies, nor was there reliance on local Southeast Asian or vernacular material as possible themes. 

This is not meant as criticism but an observation that when donors contribute big bucks, the results are expected to be cognitively coherent and aurally pleasing on first encounter. The scandal and fisticuffs that greeted Igor Stravinsky’s epoch-making The Rite of Spring of 1913, his conception of primal Russian music, were thus not to be found. 

Joe Lee on bass guitar.

The end result was, however, a highly enjoyable two-hour concert with memorable melodies, virtuosic solo and ensemble playing dialled to maximal voltage by all on stage. Joe Lee’s The Chauffeur, which opened the concert, had a steady rhythmic drive which relived jazz of the Roaring’ Twenties. 

Julian Chan on soprano sax.

Sean Hong Wei’s Sunshine For Olivia, Weixiang Tan’s Love in All The Small Places and Ernest Tan’s My Wish for You, all inspired by love for close relatives, extended solos came to the fore. The saxophones of Julian Chan and Stephen Rufus, and Leo Jeoh’s trombone, in heady extemporisations were stand-outs. 

Stephen Rufus on alto sax.

JASSO Scholar Lee Ann Gie’s Toby Boy, composed for former MP Abdullah Tarmugi’s grandson, was a playful and highly-syncopated take on Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg’s In The Hall of the Mountain King from Peer Gynt. Chok Kerong’s Stars of My Heart had a Brazilian beat, distinguished by breathy but excellent alto-leaning vocals of Vanessa Shavonne. 

Vanessa Shavonne was a revelation.

Sean’s Struttin’ Through Life with You, with its striding pace, was most representative of the big Broadway vibe. Weixiang’s A Gift from Sweden, about a teddy bear, exhibited the warmth and fuzziness of its endearing subject and a lovely trumpet solo. 

Singapore’s “King Of Swing” Monteiro, who celebrates his 65th birthday later this year, should be saluted for his range and versatility. None of his pieces sounded alike, whether Waltz For Dolores, My Tulip, The Happiness Within, The Forever Waltz, Follow Your North Star or Together Forever: An Ode to Love. 

A lifelong student of orchestration, his attempts to vary the moods with harmonic experiments were laudable and far from predictable. For the rousing closing number, A Song for Peace and Love, meaningful words were added, and belted out with conviction and fervour by vocalist Nick Zavior.

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

KALEIDOSCOPE / Jazz Association Singapore Orchestra Enthno-Jazz Ensemble / Review

KALEIDOSCOPE

JASSO Ethno-Jazz Ensemble

Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre

Sunday (30 July 2023)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 1 August 2023 with the title "Triumph of musical multiculturalism in jazz concert".

 

Following the success of its Asian Jazz Odyssey concert in December, the Jazz Association Singapore Orchestra (JASSO) and its select group, the JASSO Ethno-Jazz Ensemble, had to relive its efforts fusing Western jazz traditions with Asian elements. Kaleidoscope, led by jazz pianists Jeremy Monteiro and Chok Kerong, Music Director and Associate Music Director respectively, was another triumph of musical multi-culturalism.

 

Opening with Monteiro’s own hit Asiana, saxophone improvisation was customary but then it headed in a different direction. When Likie Low’s erhu and Indra Chen’s guzheng joined in, one knew this was going to be something different. The universally-renowned virtuoso in Monteiro had been striving to make his brand of jazz unique, and in Asian influences he found his inspirations.   

 

Little India, a joint composition by Mohamed Noor, Casey Subramaniam and Shawn Letts, was similarly inspired. With its strong rhythmic beats, undertaken by Noor, himself a percussionist, Riduan Zalani’s Indian drumming and Letts’ own tenor sax extemporisations (above), the music pulsated with energy and verve.

 

Monteiro’s younger colleagues also had their original music spotlighted. 2022 Young Artist Award recipient Rit Xu, not performing this evening, was represented by two works. Pulau Ujong (Malay for “island on the edge”) referred to Singapore’s main island, its never-ending buzz of activity distinguished by a vibrant and heavily syncopated ostinati established on electric bass. Its piquant flavour of polytonality was heightened by stunning drone footage of the Singapore skyline.

 

Just as dissonant and modern-sounding was Lion’s Roar, supposedly locally inspired, with Jacky Ng’s wistfully wailing suonas and more guzheng passages colouring the soundscape. The film screened was strangely that of rolling hills and valleys, definitely nowhere near Bukit Timah. An extended solo by drummer Tama Goh was almost showstopper until a crash of the tam tam was a signal for the music to carry on.  

 

Chok Kerong’s Asian Odyssey was the longest work on show, with spectacular views of China’s karst landscapes accompanying plaints from the Chinese instruments. Alternating between being thoughtful yet kinetically charged, the music represented a spiritual journey of sorts, with the notion of nirvana being within close reach.

 

The concert’s vocal segments were very well received, with highly versatile soprano Khor Ai Ming reliving the cabaret/getai vibe with Ru Guo Mei You Ni (If I Don’t Have You) and a crooning Rudy Djoe doing the honours for keroncong classic Gubahan Ku (My Poem), popularised by Broery Marantika and Teresa Teng.  

 

Closing the 90-minute concert was Monteiro’s Shakti Dance, a music-of-the-spheres kind of vision with a pan-Asian slant. Four drummers from Chinese percussion group Drum Feng and two dancers from the Bhaskar Arts Academy, all in traditional costumes, added to the diversity of this work. Monteiro later jested that this was an audition for the National Day Parade.

 

An encore was inevitable, and popular tune Dayong Sampan / Tian Mi Mi covered in Malay and Mandarin by both vocalists made for a perfectly Asian yet jazzy send-off.