TUNE IN 2020 / Ding Yi Music Company / Review

TUNE IN 2020

Ding Yi Music Company

Streamed on Sistic Live

From Friday (15 October 2020)

 

No local chamber group has done more for Singaporean music than Ding Yi Music Company. The roster of works by local composers, including commissions and premieres, is awe-inspiring and can fill a thick book. And that tome becomes even weightier with its first concert of 2020, conducted by music director Quek Ling Kiong, which showcases works by six women, five of whom are Singaporeans.

 

One should not regard this online concert as one with an agenda of female empowerment, but rather an affirmation of the sheer variety of contemporary composition offered by Chinese traditional instruments. The timbres are distinctive and the music does not even have to sound Chinese or Oriental to make sense.

 

Take for example the atonalist Joyce Koh’s Iskimmer (Shimmering Ice in Swedish), a world premiere, which opened the concert. By employing the yangqin, guzheng, sheng, double bass and percussion, she created a distinctive sound canvas in the work’s six short connected movements celebrating the variety of icy formations that may be appreciated in a Swedish winter. A chorale of sustained notes, which she titled Isskärva or ice shard chorale, was a recurring motif bringing unity to the work as a whole. With this almost reassuring fixture, the work’s atonalism became less lacerating or forbidding as its subject suggested.  

 

By contrast, Liong Kit Yeng’s Free-Spirited was unapologetically tonal, employing an unabashedly Chinese idiom in a slow-fast-slow form in what was a feel-happy work. Its general tonal radiance reflected an optimistic mood amid these uncertain times. Also fairly traditional was well-known Shanghai composer Wang Dan Hong’s Depiction of the Sea. This sea was not the watery kind but rather the landscape of sand dunes and a reflection of the ancient Mogao grottoes near Dunhuang, Gansu Province. The use of the xiao (vertical flute) and guzheng was hauntingly evocative of quiet desolation, which opened and closed the work. In between was an exhilarating fast dance in a typically Central Asian idiom.

 

Works for larger ensemble with a more modern persuasion occupied the concert’s second half. Emily Koh’s Resonate was originally conceived for Chinese ensemble and western wind ensemble to represent a confluence of  eastern and western musical cultures. Inflexions from Singlish, Mandarin and Teochew dialect, lots of portamenti, slides and slurs, were incorporated into this intoxicating blend. Piquant winds stood out amid the throng, including the dizi, sheng, and to cap it all Jacky Ng’s sonorous suona.

 

Chua Jon Lin’s Reminiscences of Yuan Xiao was the winner of Composium 2018, the international composition competition for Chinese chamber ensemble organised by Ding Yi. Although yuan xiao is the traditional eve of the Lunar New Year, this was not a work of raucous celebration but one of quiet reflection and solitude. Her source was traditional nanyin chamber music of Southern China, over which this otherworldly and beautiful nocturne was founded. The xiao, pipa, sheng and sanxian (three-stringed lute) were evocatively employed, with the last having the final word.  

 

Juilliard masters student Koh Cheng Jin’s symphonic poem Legend of Badang qualifies as an excellent example of Nanyang music. Its subject was the Herculian strong man of the Sejarah Melayu (Malay annals) and his heroic feats. The slow mystical opening brought the mellow guanzi (played by Jacky Ng) representing Badang into focus. The Indonesian influence would come in the fast martial section with furious Javanese drumming, culminating with Badang hurling an enormous boulder (later to be christened the Singapore stone) into the mouth of the Singapore River. A stirring work for certain, and premiered with the vehemence it deserved.

 

This very approachable concert is presented in Chinese (with English transliterations) and English (composers’ preambles), and is available for viewing till 1 November at live.sistic.com.sg  

SETTS #2 / South-Eastern Ensemble for Today's and Tomorrow's Sounds / Review

SETTS #2

South-Eastern Ensemble for

Today's & Tomorrow's Sounds

Esplanade Recital Studio

Sunday (24 January 2016)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 26 January 2016 with the title "Madhatter's party with serving of afternoon tea".

The second concert by the South-Eastern Ensemble for Today's & Tomorrow's Sounds (SETTS), a new music ensemble formed wholly by professional musicians, was by far a less anarchic affair than its debut last year. It nevertheless occupies an important position for the performance of new local works once undertaken by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra's New Music Forum.

The 70-minute concert presented works by seven composers, including two world premieres and two Singapore premieres. Emily Koh's Implodex! (Singapore Premiere) for six musicians opened the proceedings. Conducted by SETTS co-founder Christoph Wichert, its configuration had strings (violin, viola and cello) placed onstage, complemented by offstage woodwinds (flute, oboe and clarinet).

Its title delves upon the origin of matter and anti-matter, with fragments of sound passed around the hall, the concordant alternating with the discordant. Its climax was a solo cadenza from oboist Joost Flach who went on to tear up pieces of paper, symbolic of a point of no return, before all the musical parts coalescing in a serene C major chord.

Receiving a World Premiere was full-time National Serviceman Tan Tiag Yi's The Quiet scored for string quartet (Christina Zhou & Nanako Takata on violins, Janice Tsai on viola and Lin Juan on cello) and marimba. Iskandar Rashid's mellow marimba strikes provided a gentle counterpoint to pizzicatos and bowing from the strings in this short movement, which revealed in its subdued mood the influence of Shostakovich.

Chen Zhangyi's Lost In Order was composed ten years ago, with the vastly contrasting timbres of Roberto Alvarez's flute pitted against Iskandar's assembly of four timpanis. The work began with the ennui of routine and repetition, escalated by an increasing urgency for the instrumentalists to break out from habit. They do so with an abrupt end to the piece.

Indonesian composer Ivan Tangkalung's Morning Call for solo bassoon was virtuosically tossed off by Wichert, with his instrument the channelling a cockerel's chanticleer and the urban sounds of a city readying for a day's busyness and business.

Zechariah Goh Toh Chai's Four Taiwanese Aboriginal Songs for wind quintet will be the most often performed work of all these. The reason is simple. Like a modern-day Bartok or Kodaly, its treatment of two songs and dances from the Pai-wan and Bei-nan tribes is both idiomatic and engaging. The performance by Alvarez, Flach, Colin Tan (clarinet), Wichert and Alan Kartik (French horn) will be hard to better.

Works by two Malaysian composers completed the show. Yii Kah Hoe's Cheers (Singapore premiere) was literally a madhatter's party, with Alvarez and pianist Shane Thio punctuating their solo parts with a serving of afternoon tea, complete with the clinking of teapots and teacups, noisy stirring of spoons, obligatory slurping and a toast of “cheers!”

The World Premiere of Wong Chee Yean's Six Sketches was a complete success. The full ensemble of strings, winds and percussion engaged in its short scenes from Greek mythology, drawn from Ovid's Metamorphosis. Among its movements involved the sinuous flute as Narcissus gazing at his own shadow, a beautiful duet for oboe and clarinet representing Orpheus and Euridice, a lively Dionysian scherzo, and a string fugue as Arethusa flees before transforming into a fountain to a wind serenade.

Inventive and surprising as before, SETTS #3 on 1 May at The Arts House is keenly awaited.  

PASSPORT / Trio Concert by DAN GELOK, CHAN YOONG HAN & SHANE THIO / Review

PASSPORT

Dan Gelok, Chan Yoong Han & Shane Thio

Esplanade Recital Studio

Sunday (7 July 2013)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 9 July 2013 with the title "Passport to new music".

The medium of saxophone, violin and piano as a trio is a relatively new one, but it is a combination that works well. As it does not radically depart from the more established clarinet-violin-piano trio format successfully experimented by Brahms and Bartok, the sounds that came out from this concert were more pleasing than one might have initially expected.

Dan Gelok, Chan Yoong Han & Shane Thio (from L)
Although Yoong Han is great with French fries, he's far better on the violin.

The Singaporean-American angle of the programme was also an interesting one. American saxophonist Dan Gelok and Singaporean violinist Chan Yoong Han are related by marriage (they are brothers-in-law), and all three Singaporean and locally-based composers represented had spent time in the States. However the musical idioms explored were almost wholly American.

Russell Peterson’s Trio (2007) that opened the concert was the most conventional work, its three tonal and accessible movements utilised elements of popular music, jazz, blues and even a hint of klezmer. The primal ostinato dance rhythms of the opening movement made fascinating contrasts with the hymn-like slow movement and minimalist perpetual motion of the finale. In short, this was a friendly primer to the all-embracing medium that is American music.

Two Singaporean works that received World Premieres were aggressively atonal. Kawai Shiu’stwenty six eighty seven (2010) for solo saxophone, was a tribute to the American modernist composer Morton Feldman (1926-1987) of the New York School, whose birth and death years are reflected in its title. Its virtuosic soliloquy, full of animated, abrupt and sometimes violent shifts in dynamics, was settled by a few long-held notes which typified the American’s philosophy of msical economy – the fewer notes the better.

Emily Koh’s bridging: isolation (2013) treated saxophone and violin like fraternal twins, each with its own voice that could be heard separately or together. In the latter, they bonded with synergy at times yet brought out moments of conflict, with Shane Thio’s piano being an impartial observer. 

Zechariah Goh Toh Chai’s Suite (2006/2010) for saxophone and piano was a return to the realm of tonality with three contrasted movements that seemed to echo the Peterson work. As a Singaporean who studied in Kansas, Alone And Distant, the second movement palpably reflected a melancholy of being away from home. The outer movements saw the insides of the piano being played while the keys of the saxophone treated like percussion. 

The final work, Evan Chambers’s Come Down Heavy! (1994) is typical Americana in the way how pioneer Charles Ives adapted old sung melodies, bringing them up to date in a coherent and distinctive manner. Gelok’s saxophone lustily sang out the work song John Henry in Steel Driving Man, while Chan used a second violin (tuned differently) to play I Gave My Love A Cherry in the inimitable manner of Celtic fiddling. The raucous finale Drill Ye Tarriers saw another song turned from a swinging reel into a vertiginous tarantella.

Sending off the 70-minute-long concert with hearty applause, the small audience showed that the message of new music had fallen on fertile ground. 

CHAMBER.SOUNDS IN CONCERT 2012 / Review

CHAMBER.SOUNDS IN CONCERT 2012

Esplanade Recital Studio

Sunday (26 August 2012)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 28 August 2012 with the title "High scores for Singapore sounds".

It would be no understatement to assert that the Singapore’s cultural milieu is not conducive for the creation of new music. For example, the national orchestra has not commissioned a significant symphonic work from a local composer since 2004. Singapore’s latest opera Fences by John Sharpley and Robert Yeo received neither funding nor support from the National Arts Council. Composers persevere nonetheless, and it is the dedication of small groups of musicians and zealots that ensure that their music gets heard.

Chamber.Sounds is one such group, and its call for scores in 2011 saw the fruits come to bear in this varied and interesting hour-long concert. Five young composers were represented, beginning with Jeremiah Li’s Flourishes, three short movements for flute, clarinet, cello and piano.

Jeremiah Li's Flourishes

Described as “broad brush strokes”, various aspects of instrumental colour were explored. Bass clarinet and later piccolo solos opened the atonal first movement. The insides of the piano were plucked in the second movement, where the alto flute’s shakuhachi-like passages lent an Asian feel to the proceedings, while vigorous piano and cello ostinatos led the final movement.

Bertram Wee's Blurebird

Bertram Wee’s Bluebird, inspired by Charles Bukowski, was a duo for Kevin Seah’s flute and Chan Si Han’s cello, both locked in alternating intimacy and mortal combat. Flutter-tonguing on the flute produced a typically eerie and visceral sound, which contrasted with the cello’s more sustained lines. 

Derek Lim's In Darkness, Light Shines

In Darkness, Light Shines is the middle movement of a piano trio by Derek Lim. This is a journey from despair to hope, underpinned by a throbbing pulse from Wong Yun Qi’s piano, which at times resembled that of a tango. Beginning in low registers, the music traversed through a series of emotional ups and downs before arriving at a reassuring resolution in A major. Now this listener is moved and curious to hear the other movements.

Tan Mei Ling's Paradigm of a Magician

 

In this flute-dominated weekend, flautist Seah was called upon as the protagonist in Tan Mei Ling’s Paradigm of a Magician, a three-movement quintet (with clarinet, violin, viola and cello) inspired by a children’s picture book project. His flight of fantasy in the unaccompanied first movement met its match in Daniel Yiau’s clarinet in the slow and calming second movement Encounter. More lovely sounds returned in the finale which saw the magical flute having the last words.

Emily Koh's Freyja

The most adventurous work was Emily Koh’s Freyja for flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano, which portrayed the changing seasonal foliage of New England. Autumn was vigourous and sprightly, giving way to the static austerity of winter before the augurs of spring brought a return to life. The astonishingly vibrant score saw the liberal use of microtones, with instruments sliding and segueing into pitches that lie between the notes. The seemingly off-pitched stances provided an unnerving and unsettling feel, which is probably the message of the piece – everything is impermanent.     

 

Chamber.Sounds has become the de facto New Music Forum of old. May its laudable endeavours continue to bring out the best of new Singaporean music.



Chamber.Sounds in Concert 2012
Performers were (from L) Jeremiah Li (conductor), Chan Si Han (cello), Ng Wei Ping (violin),  Kelvin Seah (flute), Wong Yun Qi (piano), Daniel Yiau (clarinet), and Jaryl Luo (viola).

 

100 YEARS LATER: THE FIREBIRD / The Philharmonic Orchestra / Review

100 YEARS LATER: THE FIREBIRD
The Philharmonic Orchestra

Lim Yau, Conductor
Esplanade Concert Hall
Tuesday (8 November 2010)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 11 November 2010.

The Philharmonic Orchestra (TPO) performs about three concerts a year, but that does not deter it from undertaking ambitious projects. Its latest is the first in a cycle to perform the three great ballets which Igor Stravinsky wrote on commission by Serge Diaghilev’s legendary Ballets Russes.

A hundred years after the Paris premiere of The Firebird, TPO did some major commissioning of its own. Young Singaporean composer Emily Koh’s 10-minute-long After Igor was the result. Scored for the same orchestral forces as Firebird, Koh did not attempt to imitate or recreate the Russian’s style. Instead her tone poem was a wholly original essay reflecting a mysterious sound world on the threshold of tonality.

There were some vaguely familiar moments – string reveries, brassy fanfares, evocative woodwind solos – which all made for an atmospheric and satisfying appetiser for the ballet’s main course.

The full Firebird score of 1910 is very seldom performed simply because it calls for gigantic resources including three harps, and plays for 50 minutes. The composer astutely fashioned suites in 1919 and 1945, which are a breeze at 20 and 30 minutes respectively.

It was thus a total pleasure to hear the uncut music, conducted by Singapore’s leading ballet and opera conductor Lim Yau, with narration by actor-musician William Ledbetter (below). The latter’s script was imaginatively written and delivered with cleverly timed precision, never intruding into the music’s discourse.

Rich in detail, there was much to marvel at the sumptuous Rimsky-Korsakov-inspired orchestration with young Stravinsky’s individual touches. Much of the intervening music between the familiar dances, omitted in the suites, was a revelation. One could hear how all of this later evolved into Petrushka and savage spectacles of The Rite Of Spring and even Bartok’s Miraculous Mandarin.

All of this would be moot if not for the fine playing from all departments. The Firebird’s swooping entry, the folksy Princesses’ game with golden apples and Khorovod (Round Dance) were dispatched with sensitivity and rhythmic coherence. Solos from the French horn, oboe and bassoon also stood out. Only in the wild Infernal Dance did some loss of control result in several harrowing seconds. No pain no gain, as the saying goes.

Further orchestral extravanganzas are expected from this intrepid semi-amateur group that continues to break the rules about how classical music is perceived in the 21st century.

Concert photos by Vincent Wang