TUNGGU SEKEJAP: THE P.RAMLEE SUITE / Wild Rice, Julian Wong, Foo Say Ming & re:mix / Review

 

TUNGGU SEKEJAP: 

THE P.RAMLEE SUITE 

Wild Rice Ngee Ann Kongsi Theatre, 

Funan Centre 

Thursday (14 May 2025)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 17 May 2025 with the title "Virtuoso strings of Foo Say Ming and re:mix shine in P.Ramlee tribute show".

Singaporeans and Malaysians rarely agree on many issues, especially the origins of hawker food, but an exception is the musical genius of Tan Sri P.Ramlee (1929-1973). Born in Penang, he made his career as multi-talented singer, actor and film director in Singapore (with Shaw Organisation’s Malay Film Productions) during the 1950s and 60s, before dying in relative obscurity in Kuala Lumpur at the young age of 44. 

A military industrial complex has been built around his cult on both sides of the Causeway, including covers from personalities as diverse as President Tharman Shanmugaratnam, British pianist Sir Stephen Hough and countless bathroom singers. 

Photo: Ung Ruey Loon

The latest tribute is Tunggu Sekejap: The P.Ramlee Suite, a 75-minute documentary-styled musical-concert by Wild Rice, directed by Ivan Heng with nine of P.Ramlee’s songs orchestrated as a classical three-movement suite by local composer-arranger Julian Wong. 

Photo: Ung Ruey Loon

Following the successful mould set by Wong’s Don’t Call Him Mr. Mari Kita, his tribute to Zubir Said, this production had the luxury of Singapore’s crack string ensemble and purveyor of musical nostalgia, the 30-person re:mix led by Singapore Symphony Orchestra first violinist Foo Say Ming. 

Foo had already premiered the Suite in 2018, but this was to be a fully fleshed-out performance with Wong as a highly personable host in conversation with a reincarnated Ramlee, played by his uncanny doppelganger Fadhli Ramlee (no relation despite the name). As tribute artists go, this beats every Elvis impersonator ever to step on stage. 

Photo: Ung Ruey Loon

Recounting a life’s work in English and a smattering of Malay (with projected English surtitles for those who have forgotten their Bahasa Kebangsaan), this was a touching profile of career highs and lows with lots of good humour thrown in. Well-researched and illustrated with black and white footage from movies and pre-independance Singapore, much can be gleened by just paying attention. Factoid: The P in P.Ramlee stands for Puteh, his father’s name. 

Photo: Ung Ruey Loon

As a prelude, Di Tanjong Katong from Kelly Tang’s Sketches of Singapore opened the show, setting the mood for the songs to come. Wong and both Ramlees are crooners not belters, thus more sympathetic to the music’s sentimentality. The svelte strings, however, stole the show. 

Photo: Ung Ruey Loon

Foo’s solo violin part in the opening Moderato movement set hearts aflutter, doing so with no little virtuosity. The songs Azizah, Jangan Tinggal Daku and Malam Bulan Dipagar Bintang, though stirring, were not as familiar as those in the slow movement’s Adagio, coupling No.1 hit Getaran Jiwa (Soul Vibrations) with the eponymous Tunggu Sekejap (Wait A Moment). Both were moving slow numbers which have a similar beginning. 

The Vivace finale was written in Rondo form, with Anak-ku Sazali being the recurring theme. With three other songs filling the gaps, the Suite was brought to a grandstanding close with scenes of P.Ramlee’s life strung together as an apotheosis. Wong was hauled onstage for a sung encore of Tunggu Sekejap, another precious moment well worth waiting for. 

Photo: Ung Ruey Loon

This very enjoyable production runs till 31 May, with shows from Wednesdays to Sundays. 

Book your tickets here:

https://tix.wildrice.com.sg/wr/booking/ramlee0525

Director Ivan Heng acknowledges
everyone involved in this production.

MUSICAL SOUVENIRS / Koh Jia Hwei & re:mix / Review

 

MUSICAL SOUVENIRS 

Koh Jia Hwei (Organ) 

& re:mix 

Victoria Concert Hall 

Sunday (21 July 2024)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 23 July 2024 with the title "Koh Jia Hwei and re:mix give Victoria Concert Hall's Klais organ a workout".

Part of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra’s innovative Organ Series, local pianist-turned-organist Koh Jia Hwei pulled out the stops for an unusual recital which combined Anglo-French repertoire with music for organ and strings. For about 55 minutes without intermission, the Victoria Concert Hall’s Klais organ was given a workout to a receptive Sunday afternoon audience demonstrating that interest in the “king of instruments” is far from dead. 

20th century English composer Herbert Howells is better known for his choral music, but his take on Psalm 34 Verse 6 (The Poor Man Cried, And The Lord Heard Him) is worth hearing. Its quiet opening and slightly chromatic language soon give way to the organ’s full voice. This was best heard in Victoria Concert Hall’s circle seats, now with an unobstructed view of the organ’s glorious pipes. 

The blind French organist-composer Louis Vierne is perhaps best remembered for having collapsed and died while playing on the organ of Notre Dame Cathedral. Koh chose two short items from his 24 Pieces in Free Style, which fittingly included the Epitaphe and Postlude. The subdued chordal voices in the former and the free-wheeling flourishes of the latter were starkly contasted, amply illustrating what the instrument was capable of. 

For the concert’s second part, Koh was joined by 25 string players of re:mix, led by SSO first violinist Foo Say Ming. This crack string outfit specialises in playing modern arrangements of old standards and film music. Right up its alley was Georges Delerue’s Concerto de l’adieu, adapted from his music for the 1992 feature film Dien Bien Phu. 

This neo-baroque elegy for the loss of French Indochina to the Vietnamese in 1954, as arranged by Chen Zhangyi, resembled in spirit the famous Albinoni-Giazotto Adagio in G minor heard in the movie Gallipoli. Typical of such heart-wrenching and emotional scores, Foo’s violin played prime protagonist, his digital calisthenics and sumptuous tone overcoming all odds to emerge like a cantor in a moving confessional. 

The unequal balance of forces between mighty organ and puny strings were surprisingly not a big issue given the skilled writing. Organ bluster was mostly reserved for big chords and febrile climaxes, with muted figurations filling in the textures alongside the strings. 

Koh took a well-earned break in Xiong Meiling’s Crying For Love (Ku Sha, or Crying Sand), a 1990 Mandarin lovesong famously covered by Tracy Huang and A-Mei, also in Chen’s arrangement. Foo and his charges positively wallowed in nostalgia, with the most poignant moments coming with his solo accompanied by pizzicato strings. 

The concert closed with the familiar Chaconne in G minor attributed to Tomaso Antonio Vitali as arranged by Ottorino Respighi with the organ returning to the fray. Its series of short variations on a ground bass unfolded majestically, with each change in key adding to the music’s inevitable sense of destiny. Here, violin solo, string ensemble and pipe organ shared the spotlight, and deservedly became first among equals.

TURNING THE PAGE: FROM SCHINDLER TO FIDDLER / re:Mix / Review

TURNING THE PAGE:

FROM SCHINDLER TO FIDDLER

re:Mix & Foo Say Ming (Violin)

Esplanade Recital Studio

Sunday (6 February 2022)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 9 February 2022 with the title "Rich exploration of Jewish music".

 

The Covid-19 pandemic had wreaked havoc on the activities of many arts groups. One of the victims was string ensemble re:Mix, which had not performed live since February last year at the Huayi Chinese Festival of Arts. For self-presented events, one has to go back further to April 2018.

 

There was thus a sense of anticipation when its players took to the stage, followed by its director-leader violinist Foo Say Ming, to perform a programme wholly devoted to Jewish music. Foo led from the violin, with his seated charges surrounding him on three sides, straight into Simchas Torah (Rejoicing) from Swiss-American composer Ernest Bloch’s Baal Shem Suite. It is also known by its sub-heading Three Pictures of Chassidic Life.  

 

Ironically, this was the most cheerful music to be heard tonight, a reflection of care-free and happy times. Even this was tinged with nostalgia, as if the celebration and gaiety displayed were in the past. It was also interesting to note that the movements of the suite had been reordered to fit a narrative arc within the three linked chapters of the concert.

 

Next was Vidui (Contrition), prayer-like in its beseeching quality, followed by its longest movement Nigun (Improvisation). This is repertoire that Foo positively revelled in, where long-breathed elegiac strains found the greatest resonance in his playing. His tone is full and rich, sometimes wandering into rougher edges which suited this earthy music best.

 

In this string arrangement by Dominic Sargent, the ensemble backed Foo’s solos with much sympathy and warmth. Just as good was Chen Zhangyi’s arrangement of John Williams’ familiar Suite from the multiple Oscar-winning feature film Schindler’s List. About the liquidation of the Jewish ghetto in Krakow, the music that accompanied the Steven Spielberg-directed Holocaust movie is tear-jerking yet life-affirming.

 

Its main theme in the minor key provided the DNA of the music to come, its inherent sadness later ratcheted into profound depth of feeling in Remembrances. Here, Foo’s totally heartfelt reading channelled memories of Jewish-American violinist Itzhak Perlman, who performed in the original soundtrack. With another reordering of movements, Jewish Town – with its sinuously lilting Klezmer dance – was played last in order to better align with the concert’s final work.

 

That was a short medley from Jerry Bock’s broadway musical Fiddler On The Roof, about life in a Jewish shtetl (village) in turn of the century Russia, as arranged by Julian Wong. The eponymous fiddler, famously depicted in Marc Chagall’s painting Green Violinist, is the classic representation of the heady Klezmer tradition. Foo’s irrepressible free-wheeling now paid tribute to another Jewish-American violinist, one from an even older generation: Isaac Stern.

 

A pity it had to end so soon, but Foo had one last ace up his sleeve, an encore that came like a breath of fresh midnight air: Li Jinguang’s Ye Lai Xiang (Fragrance Of The Night), a promise of better times to come.        

Photo: Pianomaniac

Photographs by Regina Setiawan, courtesy of re:Mix.

PINNACLES OF ROMANTICISM / Take 5 Piano Quintet / Review

PINNACLES OF ROMANTICISM
Take 5 Piano Quintet
Esplanade Recital Studio
Sunday (29 September 2019)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 1 October 2019 with the title "Take 5's take on Romanticism may be this year's top chamber concert".

Take 5, Singapore’s premier piano quintet, has now completed fifteen concerts in its exploration of the piano quintet (piano with string quartet) repertoire. After exhausting the popular and familiar favourites, the group has turned to the arcane territories of Philipp Scharwenka and Sergei Taneyev.

Both composers operated at the tail end of musical Romanticism, with their piano quintets arriving in 1910-11, just a couple of years before Stravinsky’s The Rite Of Spring was unleashed to the unsuspecting world. Both were academics who stoutly clung to past traditions, tenaciously defending their ground as modernism took over and irrevocably transformed the musical landscape.

The Pole Philipp Scharwenka (1847-1917) was the elder brother of pianist-composer Xaver Scharwenka, best remembered for his Polish Dances and piano concertos. His half-hour long Quintet in B minor, while maintaining a front of Teutonic objectivity and density, smouldered with Slavic passion and darkness. This was apparent in the unison voices of its opening, oozing pathos in the minor key before becoming slightly more optimistic in its second subject.

The lovely slow movement could be described a “Romance” with pianist Lim Yan’s calming opening answered by Chan Wei Shing’s cello plaint. With the other string players joining in, this love letter soon took off, fraught with tenderness and angst in equal measure. After a slow introduction, the finale became an exciting romp, with no let up in tension and energy.

The Russian Sergei Taneyev (1856-1915) was one of Tchaikovsky’s most famous students. His Quintet in G minor – in four movements and lasting some 45 minutes – could at least be called ambitious. Pianist Lim, also playing a curatorial role within the quintet, gave a short preamble to this sprawling work. Furnishing short examples and providing contexts, he struck a good balance between being theoretical and intellectual.

Taneyev was no dyed-in-the-wool nationalist, but the Russianess of his music still soaked through. The first movement’s opening theme, mournful and lugubrious, was worn heart-on-sleeve but tinged with Wagnerian harmonic ambiguities. A contrasting second theme, essentially a modified inversion of the first, radiated more light. The tense interplay between these two, for best part of the movement’s 20 minutes, was a catharsis of sorts.

As a change of tack, the scintillating Scherzo spun off sparks and tinsels ever so effortlessly, while the slow movement’s passacaglia was a plodding procession over a bass rhythm established by the cello. Despite the longueurs, the quintet showed little sign of toil or weariness.

The finale was skittish and filled with fantasy, and themes from the opening movement returned at a fast and furious pace. There was a moment of respite when Foo Say Ming’s violin soared to stratospheric heights, before a glorious reprise of the work’s most memorable melody. With violinist Lim Shue Churn and violist Chan Yoong-Han completing this “mighty handful”, Take 5’s take might just be this year’s top chamber concert. 

CD Review (The Straits Times, May 2018)

WILD & IN LOVE

re:mix  / FOO SAY MING

re:mix #002 / *****

Remember those suites of Beatles hits arranged and dressed up as baroque concerti grossi? Here is a new album of popular songs, golden oldies mixed with more recent ones, performed by the land's leading purveyor of musical nostalgia, the crack string ensemble re:mix led by Singapore Symphony Orchestra first violinist Foo Say Ming.

The two major works are by Hong Kong-based British composer-conductor Dominic Sargent. Sonatina headily brings together the Bee Gees' Night Fever, Lady Gaga's Bad Romance (masquerading as a Mahlerian ländler) and Michael Jackson's Billie Jean. Longer and in five movements is Sonata Latina, which recycles songs like Solamente Una Vez, Quizas Quizas Quizas, Besame Mucho and Desafinado. Whoever thought that Gloria Estefan and Miami Sound Machine's Conga could be spoofed so deliciously as the finale from Bartok's Concerto For Orchestra?

Singaporean arrangers Chen Zhangyi (Chinese evergreens Everlasting Love and Sands Of Sorrow, and the Beatles’ Eleanor Rigby) and Derek Lim (Ye Lai Xiang) also get a look in, but by no means a token one. Foo and his charges are totally into this music and they are sumptuously recorded, making this classy trip to yesteryear a most memorable one.  

RE:COMPOSED / re:mix with FOO SAY MING / Review

RE:COMPOSED

re:mix

Esplanade Recital Studio

Sunday (29 April 2018)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 1 May 2018 with the title "Sumptuous tribute to P.Ramlee".

After a hiatus of one year, the crack string ensemble re:mix led by violinist Foo Say Ming returned with a vengeance, doing what it does best: delivering nostalgia by the earful and more. Its 80-minute-long concert served up familiar music but dressed up in new garb, such that well-loved originals are viewed through lenses of many different tints.

German-British composer Max Richter found himself a hit in 2012 with The Four Seasons Recomposed, essentially Antonio Vivaldi's four most popular violin concertos brought up to speed through a quasi-minimalist update.

Without issues of copyright to worry about, all the original movements were reprised in sequence but modified by highlighting certain themes while downplaying or excising others, altering harmonies and chord progressions, switching rhythms and even throwing in a new tune or two. How Borodin's “Stranger in Paradise” melody from Prince Igor sneaked into the 3^rd movement of Spring seemed a mystery.

Foo was in his element for the virtuosic solo part, which he commanded with consummate ease alongside leading his players, which included a harpsichordist and harpist for good measure. The sound they produced was sumptuous for a relatively small group. Its core members have been together for 12 years, and that definitely has something to do with it. 

Winter threw up some surprises. Its slow movement dispensed with the rhythmic accompaniment of falling snowflakes and a crackling fireplace, instead Foo's solo was backed by string harmonics, which was bleakly ethereal. And the hypnotic minimalist last movement gave the feeling of “the end of times”, a definitive sense of finality.

Arguably better was the world premiere of young local composer Julian Wong's P.Ramlee Suite, which relived nine of the Penang-born musical icon's favourite songs in three movements. The titular suite seemed almost modest by name, as it was more like a 20-minute symphony given its classical form and architecture. It was also dedicated to Wong's composition teacher Iskandar Ismail, who like Ramlee, departed way before his time.

Wong gave a most eloquent preamble, providing short sung passages in Malay which were totally idiomatic and engaging. The music that followed was no less enthralling, string sonorities multiplied manifold for spine-tingling effect, joined by percussionist Riduan Zalani with some authentic Malay drumming. The 1^st movement was a concertante showpiece for Foo, quoting songs like Azizah and Jangan Tinggal Daku, while turning Malam Bulan Dipagar Bintang into a Viennese waltz. Erich Korngold's Violin Concerto, which used his Hollywood movie tunes, came to mind.

The slow movement luxuriated in Ramlee's most popular song bar none, Getaran Jiwa. With no solo to helm, Foo used both his bow and violin to direct, circumscribing wide arcs in the air. The finale, which relived Anak-ku Sazali, Senandung Malam and three other songs was in rondo form and even included a short fugue. Climaxing with a virtuosic cadenza, a standing ovation greeted the work's close. No surprises what the encore was to be: Getaran Jiwa, milked to the very last tear-drop. 

THE TROUT / NAFA Music Faculty / Review

THE TROUT

Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts Music Faculty

Lee Foundation Theatre

Thursday (12 January 2017)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 14 January 2017 with the title "Chamber music with lots of heart".

Chamber music is the most pleasurable activity for musicians and listeners alike. Originating from works written for royal court musicians, this later evolved into hausmusik (house music), played by members of 19^th century middle-class households for their own entertainment. A collegial spirit exists in chamber music performance, hopefully allied by excellent techniques and refined tastes.

There were strong doses of all that in this concert featuring faculty of the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts Music Department. It opened with 20^th century Polish composer Witold Lutoslawski's Trio D'Anches for woodwinds, written during the dark years of the Second World War. Far from being a sombre work, oboist Joost Flach, clarinettist Tang Xiao Ping and bassoonist Aw Yong Tian gave a lively and ebullient reading.

There were dissonances aplenty, and a spicy brand of humour ran through its ten minutes. The fast outer movements were tautly delivered with pin-point cues and accents, contrasted with a slow and doleful central movement, housing a canon where the oboe carried its tune. A dance-like finale with a witty end completed a fine reading.

Further contrasts came in the four-movement Horn Trio by Johannes Brahms, a well-known but not often performed work here. Its paucity is due to a lack of willing French horn players and a strenuously acrobatic piano part. Thankfully hornist Marc-Antoine Robillard was a total natural. Shaping the instrument's singing lines and possessing accurate intonation are often taken for granted.

Pianist Nicholas Ong's role was jumping through musical hoops, especially in the fast 2^nd and 4^th movements, accomplished with no little confidence. Violinist Foo Say Ming completed the threesome, which galloped through the “hunting-call” finale with a fearless panache. Anything slower would have been lead-footed, so their natural impulses were to go for broke. This was very well received by a noisy audience which had far too many fidgety children for its own good.

Too many children behaving poorly and treating
Lee Foundation Theatre like their private playground.
Their parents should be sent for re-education.
Photo taken during the intermission.

Foo was joined in the second half by violist Janice Tsai, cellist Lin Juan, bassist Wang Xu and pianist Lena Ching for Franz Schubert's popular Piano Quintet in A major, nicknamed the Trout Quintet. The performance was by no means note-perfect, but it possessed that pre-requisite of chamber music: lots of heart.

A smart and brisk pace rightly dictated the 1^st movement, helmed by Ching's incisive playing that was anything but mechanical. There were lots of moments to heave a breath and savour the scents, and Ching was always alert to her partner's notes and nuances. The alternating fast and slow movements were contrasted to good effect; the 2^nd movement's congenial indolence found a foil in the punchy rhythms of the 3^rd and 5^th movements.

The work's heart was the 4^th movement, based on Schubert's lied Die Forelle (The Trout, hence the concert's title), which unfolded beautifully with each variation. Here the heart throbbed, and the warmth of camaraderie filled the hall with a glowing presence. That was, simply, the true essence of chamber music.