MUSICAL MOSAICS: SINGAPORE UNSUNG / Asian Cultural Symphony Orchestra / Review

 

MUSICAL MOSAICS: 

SINGAPORE UNSUNG

Asian Cultural Symphony Orchestra

Victoria Concert Hall

Saturday (1 August 2026)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 3 August 2026 with the title "Asian Cultural Symphony Orchestra turns 10, celebrates with Singapore works".

When the Asian Cultural Symphony Orchestra (ACSO) gave its first concert in August 2016, it performed the popular Butterfly Lovers and Yellow River Concertos, both by Chinese composers. The mission to promote works by Asian composers had evolved such that by its 10th anniversary, the chosen repertoire was wholly Singaporean.

Led by co-music directors Dedric Wong and Adrian Chiang, the landmark concert was a celebration of the people who made and defined Singapore, not statesmen, politicians or history-makers, but good ordinary folk who risk being sidelined or forgotten. It opened with Wang Chenwei’s Samsui Women, a vigourous work song that quoted the Cantonese melody Ping Hu Qiu Yue (Autumn Moon Over A Calm Lake), later briefly and cleverly merged in counterpoint with Rasa Sayang.

A drum-set provided a driving beat to Terrence Wong’s Fortitude, where 19-year-old soloist Dante Tan let rip on soprano and alto saxophone, with the latter reveling on a long-held note at its climax. The work was a tribute to our hardworking Pioneer and Merdeka generations.

In Syafiqah ‘Adha Sallehin’s Everyday Guardians: Three Portraits Of Service, three groups of civil servants were lauded. Zulkifli Mohamed Amin’s accordion portrayed resoluteness and constancy in The Nurse – Steady Hands, contrasted with Madhavan Kalaichelvan’s swashbuckling veena in The Firefighter – Into The Flames, a show of courage and fearlessness. Finally, Joyce Poh’s dizi was calm and decorous for The Teacher – Light In The Classroom, with a modal melody that resembled a folksong.

Lyricism and tenderness came to the fore in Germaine Goh’s Pillars Of Strength: Tribute To Migrant Domestic Workers, where warm tones of the brass were reinforced by Alan Kartik’s French horn solo. Goh herself played on the grand piano, a calm and reassuring presence.

Jazz legend Jeremy Monteiro’s Fortitude was a completely different work from Wong’s earlier number. Originally scored for wind band, its orchestral version was built on a series of chorales, all in praise of Singapore’s founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew (1923-2015), a force of personality always the exception to the rule.

Founder-director of Voices of Singapore (VOS) mega-choir, Darius Lim was the soloist in his Between Heaven and Earth which received its world premiere. Using the model found in Ludwig van Beethoven’s Choral Fantasia (Op.80), his passionately Romantic piano part ushered in the 34 members of VOS Ladies Choir who sang in English, expressing his aspirations and pondering the purpose of life. This was the score that came closest to popular Disney film music.

Closing the concert was Ralph Emmanuel Lim’s Singapura Tapestries, a fantasy that brought together two very different local songs, Dick Lee’s Bunga Sayang from the musical Kampong Amber and Shabir Sulthan’s Singai Naadu (Singapore My Country) sung in Tamil.

Singapore’s racial harmony was further emphasised in the encore, which included an audience sing-along for the 2003 National Day Parade song One United People by Joshua Wan, popularised by Stefanie Sun. A nation that sings together stays together.

MUSICAL MOSAICS: IMAGINEASIAN / Asian Cultural Symphony Orchestra / Review

MUSICAL MOSAICS: IMAGINEASIAN

Asian Cultural Symphony Orchestra

Victoria Concert Hall

Sunday (10 August 2025)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 12 August 2025 with the title "Asian Cultural Symphony Orchestra's concert celebrates Asean's musical heritage".

There was a definite ASEAN flavour to the Asian Cultural Symphony Orchestra’s (ACSO) latest concert jointly conducted by Dedric Wong and Adrian Chiang. Attended by President and Mrs Tharman Shanmugaratnam, there were no less than four medleys of local and regional songs, but thankfully there was hardly any overlap with each composer having distinct voices.

Kelly Tang’s Symphonic Suite on a Set of Local Tunes, which opened the show, highlighted Dick Lee’s songs including Home and Bunga Sayang. Syafiqah ‘Adha Sallehin’s Singapura Medley was strong on Malay songs, beginning with Di Tanjong Katong, while Zechariah Goh’s Singaporean Folk Medley looked at local Eurasian culture, closing with Jinkly Nona.

Given the recent border dispute between Thailand and Cambodia, a musical truce was declared with concertante works from both nations performed one after another. Thai composer Jinnawat Mansap’s Naka, celebrating the mythological serpent (or naga as we know it) featured Prapanpong Maneewong on the khaen, a mouth organ fashioned with bamboo pipes. Its sheng-like sonority dominated this work which was filled with striding martial strains.

By contrast Cambodian composer Him Sophy’s The Way To Angkor opened plaintively with Tola Say bowing the tro sao, a Khmer spike fiddle with a timbre not unlike the zhonghu. His duet with cellist Olivia Chuang was short but touching, and despite oncoming dissonance from the orchestra, the traditional instrument was a voice not to be silenced.

Wang Chenwei’s Tekka Theka was a tribute to the Kandang Kerbau vicinity of Little India with its bustling market place. Ghanavenothan Retnam’s hauntingly beautiful bansuri (Indian flute) was the protagonist in a work which had Indian, Malay and Chinese influences. In support were Madhavan Kalaichelvan (veena), Muhammad Ansari Abdul Razak (rebana) and Soh Swee Kiat (sheng) representing three musical cultures.

Our closest neighbour across the Causeway was represented by Loh Ui Li in her Malaysian Folk Song Medley, which had Rais Iqbal resplendent on the serunai (Malay reed instrument) with its plangent and piercing tone not unlike a suona. Among the songs were Rasa Sayang and Chan Mali Chan, and before one cries foul, it should be remembered that just a little more than sixty years ago, Malaysia and Singapore were once the same nation.

Food is a subject where many a debate arises, but Eric Watson chose a Broadway idiom to frame his Gourmet Paradise, a three-movement dawn-to-dusk primer of local meals. Vocalist Juni Goh from vocal band MICappella led a rap for Nanyang Breakfast – Kopi, eggs and kaya toast / Nanyang breakfast is so shiok – before extolling the virtues of Roti Prata and Hainanese Chicken Rice.

Closing the colourful concert was the world premiere of Germaine Goh’s When Rivers Remember, uniting the four soloists from four ASEAN nations. Here was the baroque concerto grosso updated to include water-related songs Dayong Sampan, Loy Krathong, Ulek Mayang and Sarika Keo Euy, with visuals representing the Singapore, Chao Phraya, Malacca and Mekong Rivers.

Photo: Nathaniel Lim

If all governments can sort their problems as harmoniously as these instrumentalists and ACSO, lasting peace is here to stay.

Photo: Nathaniel Lim

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.   

ASCO IS 5! / Asian Cultural Symphony Orchestra / Review

ACSO IS 5!

Asian Cultural 

Symphony Orchestra

Victoria Concert Hall

Tuesday (30 August 2022)

 

The Asian Cultural Symphony Orchestra (ACSO), founded in 2016, occupies an important niche in Singapore’s music scene by performing works that merge Asian cultures and sensibilities with the western symphony orchestra. By championing music by Singaporean and Asian composers, it has complemented the good work fostered by the Singapore Chinese Orchestra and its Nanyang music projects. It also filled the gaping lacuna left by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, which had earlier in this century marketed itself as a “destination orchestra by bringing together musical cultures from the East and West”, but quietly dropped that tagline somewhere along the way.

 

ACSO is led by a team of two conductors, Dedric Wong Deli, well-known as a conductor of the Chinese instrumental chamber group Ding Yi Music Company, and Adrian Chiang, General Manager of re:Sound Collective and conductor of numerous ensembles thus representing the western classical music caucus. They share conducting duties in its concerts, taking turns in leading different works with the programme.

 

Wong opened the evening with Confluence by Wang Chen Wei (present Composer-in-Residence of the Singapore Chinese Orchestra), a rousing overture-like work that typified the Nanyang sound. Using the pelog scale in its lilting main theme, there is a recognisable Indo-Malayan character to the music, which also benefitted from the use of liberal portamenti and sheer colour of symphonic instruments. To seal this colourful marriage between cultures, a fugue was also thrown into the fray, livening the proceedings besides offering further proof of the composer’s academic credentials.  

 

Following this were four concertante works, more than amply demonstrating the wealth of solo instrumental talent on our shores. The first was Germaine Goh’s Kaleidoscope, a single-movement fantasy for clarinet and orchestra with Ralph Emmanuel Lim as exuberant soloist. Opening with a solo accompanied by harp ostinatos, the music opened dreamily and then came to life with a series of animated dance-like rhythms. Influences from Debussy may be discerned, as well as Copland and Bernstein in the more jazzy bits, but she does not imitate them. Much is attractive and enjoyable in this work, where the demi-mondaine world of smokey speakeasies and Hollywood glamour is not just hinted at but relived.    

 

Chinese composer Wang Dan Hong is a well-known name in Chinese orchestra circles and her guzheng concerto As Thus is as glitzy as they come. Its slow introduction with gentle string accompaniment established soloist Yvonne Tay, in an advanced antenatal state, as a sensitive protagonist. However the amplication of her guzheng was garishly overdone, with distorted sound detracting from her brilliant narrative. As with Wang’s rhapsodic and quasi-cinematic scores, the pacing hastened to an exciting climax, and a faux ending which had the audience applauding prematurely. A true apotheosis and close came later, and the payoff was no less vociferous.

 

Singapore-based Briton Eric Watson’s Dialogue for tabla and orchestra is a well-travelled work commissioned by the Singapore Chinese Orchestra. Its iteration with western instruments was no less trenchant, held together by the virtuosic drumming of Govin Tan, young tabla virtuoso who comes from a Hindu Chinese family. If one wondered what mileage could be had with a pair of drums which essentially plays single notes, one is prepared to be surprised. For the first half, the tabla provided accompaniment to a series of varied themes from the orchestra (including one resembling a motif from Stravinsky’s Firebird), then it takes a life of its own – a good four minutes or so of solo improvisation. As cadenzas go, this was simply breathtaking.

Edmund Song is better known as the double bassist of Red Dot Baroque and re:Sound. This evening, he took on duo-mantle of composer and conductor, leading the World Premiere of his Triple Concertino entitled Till The End Of Time. A work that employed a mix of Asian scales, the music emanated a variety of aromatic incenses. The soloists Niranjan Pandian (bansuri, North Indian bamboo flute), Jacky Ng (suona) and Azrin Abdullah (oud, Middle Eastern lute) had their moments in the spotlight, and how precious these were. The bansuri was positively haunting, the suona took on cor anglais tones resembling Rodrigo’s Aranjuez, while the oud could have had more air time. Some degree of counterpoint with all three together should have been the end-result but the opportunity was not taken, with heterophony prevailing instead.

 

It would still have been a totally satisfying experience had the concert ended there, but ACSO possessed several encores up its collective sleeve. Surprise celebrity cameos took the form of busker-of-the-season Jeff Ng in a medley of JJ Lin songs, while legendary songstress and 2021 Cultural Medallion recipient Rahimah Rahim irrepressibly strutted her stuff with two Malay songs and Bob Gaudio’s Can’t Take My Eyes Off You (Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons). That was mere icing on a wonderfully baked cake, and long may the Asian Cultural Symphony Orchestra thrive, and entertain.

 

All the soloists joined in the finale
Can't Take My Eyes Off You.