I STILL DON'T GET MODERN ART: THE LOFT PAVILION BY KHAIRULLAH RAHIM @ ESPLANADE CONCOURSE

Call me a plebian, but must all modern art have to do with symbolism? The latest installation at Esplanade Concourse entitled The Loft Pavilion replaces the whale skeleton of Ikan Besar Skali. It's a collection of items neatly placed within metal frames and shelves, and partially concealed by beaded curtains.

The explanatory note by visual artist Khairullah Rahim says a lot but tells you nothing, a virtual word salad that includes phrases like "interrogates the politics of visibility and counter-surveillance strategies", and "entangled relations between bodies, objects and the everyday", and "new perspectives on queerness and marginalised lived experiences within hostile environments". 

And "hypervisibility and everyday tactics of navigation", and "operating through camouflage and strategic misdirection" and "evoke aspirations toward accumulation and upward mobility", and "through excess, repetition and precarious elevation". Wow, Kamala Harris would have been mighty proud.

Can we infer that the artist feels threatened because of his race, sexual orientation and disadvantaged socio-economic status, and fears being spied upon and persecuted? And he perhaps copes and lives on by consumption, accumulating wealth and status, or so he thinks.

There is much symbolism in the installation: the pigeons, beer cans, stringed beads, durians, video screens, an odd rock, workman outfit and tennis ball. What do all these mean? This provocative exhibit greeted concertgoers attending Bela Bartok's symbolist opera Bluebeard's Castle (on 24 July), so perhaps there is some relevance here. It might even have something to do with Dick Lee's Cantopop songs (on 25 July). Who knows?

Have another read of it.
Maybe you'll understand it better now.

THE LOFT PAVILION

by Khairullah Rahim

runs till 3 January 2027

(That's a long stretch, which gives

the viewer lots more time to ponder)  

The Loft Pavilion - Esplanade

IKAN BESAR SKALI @ ESPLANADE CONCOURSE

Has one noticed a whale hanging around Esplanade over the last couple of months? That is none other than Ikan Besar Skali (translated from Malay as "fish of monstrous size") by local artist Hu Qiren. His inspiration was the beloved old blue whale skeleton that once occupied the second floor of National Museum (formerly Raffles Museum). As a kid of seven, that 13-metre-long skeleton was a marvel of natural history that I always looked forward to when visiting the museum. And it was free too!

Our old whale skeleton,
sold out by some bureaucrat!

Imagine the disappointment when I later found out that the skeleton was given away by the Singapore Science Centre during the mid-1970s because it had "no space for it". Bah, humbug bureaucrats, and while we're at it, bohong and bollocks! Anyway, a smaller sperm whale was found dead off Jurong Island in 2015, and it's 12-metre skeleton has now become the pride of the Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum (LKCNHM).

Jubi Lee, the mascot of LKCNHM
(no relation to the Lees of Oxley Road)

Anyway, this gleaming silvery exhibit at Esplanade Concourse occupies the background and serving as a backdrop to its many free concerts. After passing it many times, I decided to take a closer look and what a glorious beast it is, and here are the photographs. 

IKAN BESAR SKALI

Esplanade Concourse

On until 5 July 2026

Ikan Besar Skali - Esplanade

CATCHING UP WITH SASHA SOUPTEL

CATCHING UP 

WITH SASHA SOUPTEL

How time flies. It seemed like a short while ago when Singapore Symphony Orchestra concerts opened with the familiar figure of Alexander Souptel (everybody knows him as Sasha) emerging from the wings with his violin raised high above his head to lead a concert. The last time that happened was in 2013, when he officially retired as SSO Concertmaster at the age of 65 years old.

Sasha with his former boss,
Gennady Rozhdestvensky & Viktoria Postnikova.

Sasha first came to Singapore in 1993 as a Russian emigre, having served for many years as concertmaster in the late great Russian conductor Gennady Rozhdestvensky's orchestras. He had been head-hunted by Choo Hoey who found him a suitable replacement for the Czech violinist Pavel Prantl. Sasha had an enormous and catholic solo repertoire, and nobody would have expected his first concerto with the SSO to be Sofia Gubaidulina's Offertorium. His second concerto was not by Tchaikovsky, but Stravinsky's Violin Concerto in D major.

Sasha with star student Alan Choo.

He eventually settled down here and became a Singapore citizen, and also taught at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory. Among his students was the young Alan Choo, who became the first Singaporean violinist to win 1st prize in the Artist Category of the National Piano and Violin Competition in 2011 with Khachaturian's Violin Concerto.  That seems a complete world away from the baroque violin. 

Sasha with Masako,
from a 2016 concert at Victoria Concert Hall.

After his retirement, Sasha has taught violin privately and in the Virtuosi Music Centre with his partner Masako Suzuki White. He still gives performances, notably in the From Russia With Love concerts which showcased Russian emigres in Singapore, as well as informal gigs where he is most at home performing bonbons, improvisations and jazz.

Tuesday this week (19 September) saw Sasha entertaining a large audience at the Esplanade Concourse in a short programme called Tango For You Again, together with former SSO principal bassist Guennadi Mouzyka and pianist Aya Sakou. Pieces they performed included Matos Rodriguez's La Cumparsita, Carlos Gardel's Una Por Cabeza and Jakob Gade's Tango Jalousie, amongst other popular favourites. As always, Sasha is a total charmer, one for whom music is a natural extension of an easy and outgoing personality. Russia's loss has been Singapore's gain, and long may he continue to shine.

This is the pose which people
will remember Sasha the most.

Always play with panache and style!

Olga Alexandrova (Mrs Mouzyka),
Masako and Sasha. Just like old times!

PIANOMANIA @ Esplanade Concourse

Abigail Lim performs a Bach Prelude & Fugue.

It was pure coincidence that I stumbled onto Pianomania, a free piano concert held at the Esplanade Concourse on Sunday evening (3 March 2013), Being similarly titled as this blog was also a coincidence, but  the talent on display was something to be proud of. There were three separate concerts, held at a quarter past 5, 6 and 7, and on show were the piano students of well-known local piano pedagogue Benjamin Loh. I stayed on till the end, buoyed on by the fond memories of the 13-hour long SSO Piano Marathon of 1998 - featuring no less than 122 pianists - which I had helped to organise.    

It may be said that the audience was almost as colourful as the performances on stage. On the right, Phang Wei Jun performs Brahms's Rhapsody in G minor Op.79 No.2.

Wu Chin Ying had the requisite technique to pull off Schumann's ABEGG Variations.

There were also younger performers. Carmellia Chang (no relation) played the Toccatina by Dmitri Kabalevsky.

The second group of performers take their bow.

10-year-old Alyssa Kok was a most confident and engaging emcee. She also performed Glinka's Variations on Alyabiev's Nightingale beautifully. 

The youngest performer, Megan Lim (8 years old) played a ragtime piece by Milne called Vendetta. 

Abel Ling gave a masterful account of Tchaikovsky's Dumka.

Jonathan Chua pulled out the stops for Granados's Los Requiebros from Goyescas. How he got the melody out from the left hand so seamlessly was very admirable. 

The evening closed with a no-holds-barred account of Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No.12 from Gavin Jared Bala, winner of the Pianomania Award in last year's Performers Festival.

Applause for the marvellous young performers.