STEPHAN'S QUINTET / TO Ensemble / Review

STEPHAN’S QUINTET

TO Ensemble

Esplanade Recital Studio

Friday (2 September 2022)

It has been ages since I attended my last TO Ensemble concert (the pre-Covid era seemed a long time ago), and what a pleasure it was to encounter the group again. As before, its members led by founder-pianist Tze Toh (Toh Tze Chin) continue to delight and surprise. Are they a chamber ensemble, a jazz combo, or a crossover band? In reality, they are all of these, comfortably flitting between these different roles and descriptions, which tend to constrain rather than define. 

Over the years, the group has evolved. Once called TLGO (Tze n Looking Glass Orchestra), it is now TO Ensemble. Once it was the size of a chamber orchestra (sometimes with added voices), the sort that plays concerti grosso, but now it takes the form of a duo, quartet or quintet depending on  programme. Once it accompanied audio-films (short films conceived by Tze, usually with a social message), now it performs near-absolute music with the minimum of extraneous contrivances. What has never changed is the ingenuity and spontaneity that comes with each concert event.

 

The latest show, Stephan’s Quintet, was astronomically inspired, premised upon the stunning visuals seen through the James Webb Space Telescope, and the life-changing findings that will explain the origin of life/existence itself. Mind blowing stuff, and while the music did not intend to encompass all things cosmological, it at least tried to express awe-struck sensations and the wonderment to be had. Its title, referring to the five galaxies viewed from distance, also reflected the five players on stage: founding team Tze (piano/keyboard), Lazar T.Sebastine (Carnatic violin), Dai Da (erhu), Teo Boon Chye (tenor sax), and its newest member Chia Zhe Yin (alto sax).

 

The seven pieces of Tze’s conception were performed with four stunning visuals projected onscreen. Stephan’s Quintet opened with a long piano solo, Debussyan in impressionist hues, as if representing the vast cosmos. Pre-recorded sounds of strings are introduced before Teo’s sax enters followed by Lazar’s violin. What might have sounded incongruous on paper however worked unusually well aurally. A waltz-like rhythm ensued with Chia’s sax adding a further dimension, and a comforting presence.      

 

Chapter Two described Longing, inspired by the vast void that exists between celestial bodies. Lazar’s violin emerged from the emptiness, immersed in a meditation that alternated between G major and minor. Both saxophones came together and their duet continued the reflective reverie. In The Silent Sea, Dai’s erhu stood out, contrasted by Carnatic violin which amongst other things, mimicked the sound of the conch shell.

 

Dance at Star’s Edge was built on the energy of piano ostinatos, from which violin and both saxes extemporised freely. Tze admitted to a nerdy side in Twelve Dimensions, based on his ideas of string theory, which saw a keen dialogue between erhu and sax. In Voyager, recounting the travels of earth’s furthest reaching probe, an upbeat rhythm with gospel and country music style prevailed, this time with sax and violin stealing the show.

 

The final chapter Sky brought all five instrumentalists together, first as mere shards and wisps of sound, seemingly random, heard individually and separately. With the passage of time, they gradually coalesced into one whole, buoyed by a rhythmic driven theme. Like the five galaxies captured in a single image gazillions of miles and millennia away, five players (and worlds) are unified as one, closing in one soothing and comforting nebula in G major. Have we heard the music of the spheres? One just needs to imagine... 

ODYSSEYS / Tze n Looking Glass Orchestra / Review

ODYSSEYS

Tze n Looking Glass Orchestra

Esplanade Recital Studio

Sunday (2 March 2014)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 4 March 2014 with the title "Odysseys concert soars".

In this concert from Esplanade’s Spectrum series for contemporary music, there was an unexpected air of its Mosaic series for jazz, fusion and indie music about it. That was because Tze n Looking Glass Orchestra, founded by local jazz pianist and largely self-taught composer Tze Toh (below), is more a fusion band than an avant-garde instrumental ensemble.

Its present guise is in effect a 21^st century globalised manifestation of the concerto grosso ensemble from the baroque era, complete with a central nucleus of soloists, back-up musicians of strings, woodwinds and brass, with Tze helming the basso continuo including bass and electric guitar.

The concertino group is decidedly cross-cultural Asian, including Chinese erhu player Dai Da (right), Indian violinist / raga specialist Lazar T.Sebastine and jazz saxophonist Teo Boon Chye. Although improvisation plays a big part for the soloists, the music composed by Tze crosses-over comfortably between genres, with pop song idioms and film music being a considerable influence as well.

The 70-minute concert was easy-listening from start to end, opening with A Kite in the Sky, a slow and meditative number with erhu and saxophone garnering the spotlight. Next, The Odyssey launched into a pulsating allegro representing flight, with fast repetitive patterns that at points was reminiscent of Michael Nyman and Michael Torke, classical establishment minimalists. While Teo’s solos dominated, Sebastine’s violin could have had a more extended run of his own.

The major centrepiece was Gods & Ragas, a triptych of musical avatars representing the triumvirate of Hindu deities. Brahma (Creator) was the most traditional movement, serenely cast in G major featuring Sebastine’s improvisations and wordless vocalises from soprano Izumi Sado, quietly backed by strings and winds playing harmonics and glissandi.

Vishnu (Protector) was the most jazzy, with a persistent ostinato beat provided by Wendy Phua’s electric bass over which erhu and sax soared to a heady crescendo. In the final Shiva (Destroyer), the piano rumbled from an abyss, from which the concert’s only atonal bits gave way to a sort of requiem where Sebastine’s prestidigitation would make Tartini’s Devil’s Trill seem tame by comparison.         

The concert closed on an ecstatic high with In Time Love Comes, where Sado’s mellifluous lines floated with a celestial quality above the instrumental throng. Tze truly knows where to hit the right buttons when it comes to writing romantically inclined music, with this number being ample proof. Tze n Looking Glass Orchestra flies again on 26 July in the same venue. Be sure not to miss the trip.