TIFFANY QIU PIANO RECITAL / Review

 

TIFFANY QIU Piano Recital

Esplanade Recital Studio

Wednesday (11 February 2026)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 13 February 2026 with the title "Pianist Tiffany Qiu plays with extremes of dynamics in eclectic programme".

With Polish pianist Rafal Blechacz’s concert last week, the Singapore piano recital season has begun in earnest. This week saw the local debut of Ireland-born Chinese pianist Tiffany Qiu, whose eclectic recital built upon two Romantic era sonatas played to a small but discerning house.

To follow Blechacz in Frederic Chopin’s music was a tall order, but Qiu’s sense of rhythm and feeling for nostalgia had much to recommend in the Pole’s Five Mazurkas (Op.7). The first, in B flat major is the most familiar, being regularly played by children. She imbued it with a robust sonority, not least in the rustic drones of its central section.

She also found the requisite melancholy and sprightly spirit that occupied these short peasant dances in three-quarter time, where Chopin’s yearning patriotism was worn on the sleeve. Robert Schumann described his Mazurkas as “cannons buried in flowers”, where seemingly innocent dances concealed a burning nationalism.

All this set the stage for Chopin's Sonata No.2 in B flat minor (Op.35), better known as the “Funeral March” Sonata, which Schumann referred to as “four of Chopin’s wildest children under the same roof”. Extremes of dynamics inhabited Qiu’s view, with vehemence and violence sitting comfortably alongside lyricism and poetry.

This was most apparent in the Scherzo, which rumbled and raged, but tempered by the song-like central section. Similarly the eponymous Funeral March built up a head of steam before being tamed by some of Chopin’s most tender music. The relentless but mercifully brief Finale, redolent of cold wind sweeping over a graveyard, brought the first half to a tumultuous close.

Sergei Prokofiev’s Prelude in C major (Op.12 No.7), delighted in rippling arpeggios and glissandi. Its apparent innocence heralded the Asian premiere of Singaporean composer Elliot Teo’s Intervening Moments (2023), a suite in six movements.

Tiffany spoke about Elliot's work
and how it was far from easy to perform.

A significant addition to the small canon of Singaporean piano repertoire, it headily relived the atonalism of Arnold Schoenberg’s Sechs Kleine Klavierstucke (Op.19), except there was nothing kleine (little) about these pieces.

Bell sounds, dance rhythms and resounding chords a la French composer Olivier Messiaen occupied its pages, and there were even hints of jazz and funk colouring a score that was constantly shifting and never allowing interest to wane. The fifth movement’s passacaglia were perhaps the most memorable, a droll right hand theme (which could have become a fugue in Dmitri Shostakovich’s pen) being assailed by left hand interjections but still having the final word.

Both Tiffany and Elliot receive applause.

Qiu’s dedicated and trenchant advocacy of her husband’s new work was both moving and touching. That same passion continued into Ludwig van Beethoven’s Sonata in D minor (Op.31 No.2), or Tempest Sonata, a performance that both full-blooded and riveting. She brooded in the Sturm und Drang (storm and stress) of the opening, then articulated the slow movement with utmost clarity, before unleashing a perpetual motion that consumed the finale till its quiet end.

Reliving more bell sounds, Qiu’s encore of Franz Liszt’s La Campanella was most apt, and eagerly received by the audience.

The local community of composers and artists
came to support, including Toh Yan Ee,
Hoh Chung Shih, Jonathan Shin and Samuel Phua.

With family and friends.

RHAPSODIC STORIES: EXHIBITION / Samuel Phua Saxophone Recital / Review

RHAPSODIC STORIES: EXHIBITION

SAMUEL PHUA, Saxophone

with MERVYN LEE, Piano

Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre

Wednesday (29 November 2023)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 2 December 2023 with the title "Saxophonist Samuel Phua showcases technical prowess".

 

When it comes to classical saxophone in Singapore, one name invariably comes to mind: Samuel Phua. The young graduate from Finland’s famed Sibelius Academy was the first and only saxophonist invited to perform at the President’s Young Performers Concert in 2014, and has been a regular fixture in works requiring sax solos in Singapore Symphony Orchestra’s concerts ever since.

 

His recital partnered by pianist Mervyn Lee was an impressive showcase of technical prowess and repertoire he has inspired. No less than five Singaporean composers were represented, opening with London-based composition student Elliot Teo, whose three-movement Mixed Recital received its Singapore premiere.

 

Opening with alto sax alone, its atonal content was characterised by declamatory and seemingly improvised passages that sometimes hinted of jazz. The second movement was for piano left hand alone despite its many notes, while the third, Pas de deux, was for combined forces with the dance element being apparent later on.

 

The late Leong Yoon Pin’s Sketches (1984) was originally scored for oboe and piano. Its movements, recalling scenes in New Zealand, was heard on soprano sax, which relived the oboe’s plangency, well-suited for musical dissonance and dance-like moves. In the world premiere of pianist Mervyn Lee’s Sketches in Movements, contrasts between lyricism and playfulness were well brought out on alto sax.

 

Two rather more approachable works closed the concert’s first half. New York-based Koh Cheng Jin’s A Fleeting Perennity was inspired by a poem about Suntec City’s Fountain of Wealth. Alto sax was rewarded with lyrical moments accompanied by gentle piano ostinatos. Volume and tempos would rise, like sprayed water jets, but the work closed quietly.

 

The world premiere of Germaine Goh’s Portrait saw the first appearance of the large and unwieldy baritone saxophone. Described as a “charming” character study of Phua himself, it was good-humoured and whimsical, radiating warmth and sensitivity besides having surprises up the sleeve. That it closed theatrically with an ascending glissando wail and a loud fart also spoke volumes.

 

Starring saxophones:
Baritone, soprano, tenor & alto
(from right to left)

The concert’s second hald was devoted to one work, Jun Nagao’s arrangement of Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. Originally a piano solo, this version saw Phua playing four different saxophones. Although some of the work’s original mystique was lost, this was made up by many fiendishly difficult maneuvers demanded of a soloist.

 

Alto sax appeared most frequently, including the opening Promenade and The Old Castle, a tribute to Maurice Ravel’s famous orchestration employing the saxophone as the troubadour’s voice. Baritone sax was used for the lumbering oxcart Bydlo and imperious Polish Jew Samuel Goldenberg, while soprano sax accounted for the shrieky Schmuyle and the Ballet of The Unhatched Chicks. 

The alto saxophone’s full gamut of tricks and devices was reserved for Baba Yaga’s Hut and The Great Gate of Kiev, where Promenade would gloriously return and the evening brought to a rousing close.