ELEMENTS - SSO x DING YI / Singapore Symphony Orchestra & Ding Yi Music Company / Review

ELEMENTS – SSO x DINGYI

Musicians of 

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

& Ding Yi Music Company

Victoria Concert Hall

Sunday (11 January 2026)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 13 January 2026 with the title "Creative take on mainstream and avant-garde fare by SSO and Ding Yi".

In a first-ever collaboration between the Singapore Symphony Orchestra and Ding Yi Music Company, instrumental virtuosity was the order of the day. Such a programme consisting wholly of contemporary works by local and Chinese composers is not a regular part of the SSO faithful’s diet, but par for the course for Ding Yi, Singapore’s leading professional chamber ensemble playing traditional Chinese instruments.

Programme curator Dedric Wong
introduced the works to be performed.

A very well-filled house was treated to a vast array of timbres and sounds, from traditional to contemporary. Opening the evening was young Singaporean composer Sulwyn Lok’s Gathered By The Winds, an SSO commission which brought together three very popular folk songs from China. Even a neophyte will recognise Molihua (Jasmine Flower) from Jiangsu, Mu Ge (Pastoral Song) from Inner Mongolia and Xiao He Tang Shui (The Little River Flows) from Yunnan, performed in an upbeat arrangement influenced by popular music.

Photo: Clive Choo

The piquant combination of Western flute (Jin Ta) and Chinese dizi (Lyu Sih-Ying), supported by pipa, sheng, yangqin, guzheng and Western string quintet, with rhythm section of Chinese and Western percussion (Low Yik Hang and Mark Suter) was ear-catching and enjoyable.

Photo: Clive Choo

Of far sterner substance was Academy Award-winning Chinese composer Tan Dun’s Eight Colors (1986), an early work for Western string quartet, crafted when he was still experimenting with atonalism and the avant-garde. Violinists Zhao Tian and Zhang Sijing, violist Wang Dandan and cellist Christopher Mui treated this work as they would a work by Arnold Schoenberg or Elliott Carter, with utmost seriousness. The portamenti (slides) encountered kept its feeling Oriental while and brevity prevented musical interest from wearing thin.

Photo: Clive Choo

The work with most local flavour was Singapore composer Ho Chee Kong’s Shades Of Oil Lamps, commissioned by the Singapore Arts Festival and premiered by London Sinfonietta in 2008. Led by Ding Yi resident conductor Dedric Wong, this version saw some Western instruments of the original replaced by Chinese instruments, which included dizi, sheng, daruan and huqin, while retaining cello, bass, oboe, bassoon and two percussionists.

Bassist Yang Zhengyi strikes the gong,
and the story comes to an end.

Its programme centred around an itinerant storyteller of a century ago plying his trade along the Singapore River. Enthralling his listeners, the music followed the ebb and flow of tall tales being spun, reaching a climax before the inevitable plea for donations. Even audience disquiet was being captured, before a gong signalled it was time to pack up.

Photo: Clive Choo

The longest work on the programme, also directed by Wong, was Chinese composer Zhou Long’s Metal, Stone, Silk and Bamboo in the world premiere of its octet version. Its three demanding movements attempted to relive and recreate the lofty heights of Tang dynasty palace composition through contemporary perpectives.

Dizi exponent Lyu was cast as lead performer, playing dadi, qudi and bangdi, flutes of different registers. Supported by flute, clarinet, violin, cello, zhongruan and percussion, its three varied movements were a tour de force of creative imagination. A repeat performance by the combined forces of SSO and Ding Yi cannot come soon enough.

YSTOI X NUSSO / Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Orchestral Institute & National University of Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

 

YST ORCHESTRAL INSTITUTE X 

NUS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA 

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Concert Hall 

Sunday (24 March 2024)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 26 March 2024 with the title "First collaboration between Yong Siew Toh and NUS orchestras a celebratory success".

When the newly-inaugurated Yong Siew Toh Conservatory mounted its first orchestral concert in 2003, the ensemble conducted by Chan Tze Law was merely the second symphony orchestra on campus. The incumbent was the National University of Singapore Symphony Orchestra (NUSSO), formed in 1979 by the late Paul Abisheganaden. 

Strangely, the two orchestras had never collaborated over the past 21 years, even on occasion holding rivalling concerts in the same day. This joint concert marked a breakthrough, a result of Conservatory vice-dean Chan also holding the directorship of the University Centre for the Arts. 

Uniting soon-to-be-professionals with recreational musicians, the concert programme relived the conservatory orchestra’s maiden voyage with Chan again at its helm. Opening with Ho Chee Kong’s Fanfare, the rousing music centred on C major with brass and string flourishes portending early promise which would come to fruition with the present. 

Photo: Yong Junyi

Equally celebratory was Johannes Brahms’s Academic Festival Overture, composed for the University of Breslau where he received an honorary degree in 1881. Typical of the German’s humour, the work quoted student songs, culminating with the rowdy drinking song Gaudeamus Igitur. The young musicians were well-behaved in ensemble if not totally impeccable, but made a good fist of the music with cymbal clashes and ringing triangle at its close. 

The obligatory concertante work was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante in E flat major (K.297b), which highlighted four wind soloists. While the 2003 line-up was of faculty members (also Singapore Symphony principals), the four soloists this evening were their students Sho Yong Shuen (oboe), Chen Yan-Rung (clarinet), Shi Jiaao (bassoon) and Yeh Shih-Hsin (French horn). 

Photo: Yong Junyi

This foursome worked very well together, first as a unison unit as they entered, then separately as solo parts took a life of their own. Backed to the hilt by pared-down orchestral forces, here was true chamber music at work. Lyricism ruled in the slow movement while the folksy finale’s tricky theme and variations revealed what virtuosos they really are. 

Photo: Yong Junyi

Arguably best was to come in Antonin Dvorak’s Eighth Symphony in G major (Op.88), a work also associated with higher education. This was the Bohemian composer’s response to his admission to the Prague Academy in 1890 and receiving honours from Cambridge University. Although less famous than his Ninth Symphony (the “New World”), it scored high for its collegial spirit. 

Photo: Yong Junyi

The full-strength ensemble of both orchestras gave a performance of passion and polish. The opening melody on cellos could not have sounded more mellow, its singing tone soon transmitting to the rest. Conductor Chan kept a tight ship, yet allowed the lyrical music to flow. 

Slavonic qualities of the central movements came to the fore, the slow movement’s rusticity contrasted with the third movement’s lilting dance. Excellent brass ruled the cheerful finale, which also delighted in a celebration of counterpoint. 

Photo: Yong Junyi

The very warm audience reception was rewarded with a contemplative encore, the slow movement from Ho’s Of Passion and Passages, reflecting hope for a bright future ahead.

PROJECT RE-IMAGINING / Yong Siew Toh Orchestral Institute / Review

PROJECT RE-IMAGINING

Yong Siew Toh Orchestral Institute

Conservatory Concert Hall

Saturday (8 October 2022)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 12 October 2022 with the title "Overdue showcase of major works by home-grown composer Ho Chee Kong".

 

Ho Chee Kong was the founding Head of Composition at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory from 2003 to 2017. No less than four of his composition students have received the National Arts Council’s Young Artist Award, including Chen Zhangyi, Kahchun Wong, Emily Koh and Diana Soh. This concert was a long overdue showcase of three major orchestral works written over the last fifteen years by one of Singapore’s most notable composers.

 

Performed by the Yong Siew Toh Orchestral Institute helmed by founding conductor Chan Tze Law, all three works were heard in a 70-minute span without intermission. The retrospective sequence from most recent to earliest work was an intriguing one, united by newly-scripted verses by Ho himself. The premise was of an individual undergoing an existential crisis, having to search deep into the past in order to secure the future.      

 

A rehearsal of There and Back
with both soloists and conductor.
Note that Li Baoshun uses two huqins.
Photo: Yong Siew Toh Conservatory

The latest piece was There And Back (2019), a double concerto for gaohu / erhu and cello, originally premiered in its original version by violinist Siow Lee-Chin, cellist Qin Li-Wei and the Singapore Chinese Orchestra led by Yeh Tsung. For this new edition, the plaintive voice from huqin soloist Li Baoshun (Concertmaster of SCO) and the more throaty offerings from Qin’s cello were well matched in a gripping tug-of-war between slow and fast episodes.

 

The music evoked vast scenic landscapes and a vibrant dance of the earth, unfolding like some cinematic epic. The Sisyphean struggles, intimated by the orchestra’s toils, may be summated by Ho’s verse, “trudging forward but yet always returning”. The most moving part was its peaceable close, with house lights dimmed and orchestra silent, hearing both instruments retire together harmoniously as one voice.

 

What followed was Passage – Fantasy for cello and orchestra (2012), arguably the greatest cello concerto by a Singaporean composer to date. It was composed for the 2012 Singapore Arts Festival as a prequel to Stravinsky’s ballet The Rite of Spring, premiered by cellist Qin and the Orchestra of the Music Makers conducted by Chan. This performance united both soloist and conductor, reliving its primeval outlook as dark and intensely inward-looking.

 

Bitter and dissonant, this was a study of recurring nightmares and the wasteland of the soul. Qin’s exacting solo bristled with unremitting levels of tension, countered by the orchestra’s attempts to de-stress, sounding neoclassical or jazzy at times. All this culminated with a massive cadenza, worthy of the best of Shostakovich, before the solo being left hanging in the air (and awaiting Stravinsky’s solo  bassoon to take over).  

 

Closing the trilogy was Of Passion And Passages (2008), a traditional three-movement symphony written for the 40^th anniversary of Keppel Corporation and premiered by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra under Lim Yau. This was the most optimistic sounding of the three, with a celebratory purpose in mind. Pomp and ceremony were the order of the day, but distinguished with a more reflective theme that memorably returns at the end.

 

Soothing strings coloured the slow movement while percussion dominated the finale’s perpetual motion, but it was a solo trumpet’s flourish and grandstanding close which completed the romp. That was a musical way of saying, “no matter what life throws at you, there will always be hope”.  

Professor Ho Chee Kong
takes a bow and receives the plaudits.

THE BUTTERFLY LOVERS / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

THE BUTTERFLY LOVERS

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall

Thursday (5 November 2021)

This review was published by The Straits Times on 10 November 2021 with the title "Love story tugs at heartstrings".

 

It is not often that the Singapore Symphony Orchestra performs concerts entirely devoted to 20^th century and contemporary Asian music. These are notable events, especially when works by two Singaporean composers were also receiving SSO premieres.

 

Singaporean composer Leong Yoon Pin
was a student of Nadia Boulanger.

SSO’s first Composer-in-Residence and Cultural Medallion recipient Leong Yoon Pin’s Largo and Vivace for strings (1982) opened the evening on a sombre note. While not strictly atonal, his idiom was astringent, reminiscent of twentieth century greats Bartok and Shostakovich. Conductor Joshua Tan skillfully guided the ensemble, with string textures coming through with leanness and clarity. If the Largo were a portrait of depression, the brief ensuing Vivace projected an agitated face of neurosis.

 

Chen Gang and He Zhan Hao’s evergreen Butterfly Lovers Concerto (1958) was the obvious box-office draw, which saw award-winning Singaporean violinist Loh Jun Hong helming the solo part. His voluminous tone was the highlight in this programmatic fantasy, more a tone poem than concerto, about the ill-fated lovers of Chinese folklore.

 

Unafraid to bare heart on sleeve, he pulled out all stops in this tear-jerker, also exercising wide portamenti or slides which relived Chinese opera-singing and weeping erhus. His duet with orchestral cellist Yu Jing provided moments of genuine intimacy in a work where vivid story-telling and sentimentality were strong suits.

Singaporean composer Ho Chee Kong
is the Interim Dean of Yong Siew Toh Conservatory.

 

Ho Chee Kong’s double concerto for violin and cello entitled There And Back (2019) has no such programmatic pretensions. Before it began, SSO Principal Cellist Ng Pei-Sian dedicated the performance to his recently departed first cello teacher Barbara Yelland. Violinist Chan Yoong Han opened with an impassioned solo, followed by Ng himself with no less intensity, both accompanied by Mark Suter’s slow and ominous beat on bass drum.

 

The funereal pace strongly suggested a requiem in procession. The tempo then picked up with both soloists engaged in a neck-and-neck race, the music now resembling a cinematic score depicting broad vistas and the vast outback. The alternating slow and fast sections proved both unsettling yet exciting, and the duel between instruments absorbing and exhausting.

 

That had to end sometime, doing so with the orchestra silenced, and both violin and cello in quiet beatific unison. With bass drum taps remaining an idée fixe, the work may be considered a metaphorical epic journey of life itself. Ending as it began, with ups and downs in between, it represented a perpetual cycle from “ashes to ashes, and dust to dust”.

 

First performed by violinist Siow Lee-Chin and cellist Qin Li-Wei with the Singapore Chinese Orchestra led by Yeh Tsung, it made an instant impact and named best new work of 2019 in the pages of Life! This evening’s take was no less moving.

 

All three of the evening’s soloists were united for an encore designed to cheer up the audience. That turned out to be Alexander Oon’s arrangement of Astor Piazzolla’s Oblivion, the Argentine composer’s most melancholic tango of all. Ironically, it made for a truly fitting send-off. 

The Straits Times Best Concert of 2019

At the end of each year, The Straits Times invites reviewers to nominate their "Best and Worst" concerts of the year. For 2019, the list was shared by three reviewers. Here was my pick for the "Best Classical Concert", which was published in the 22 December 2019 edition of ST in print.

HOMECOMING III
Singapore Chinese Orchestra
Singapore Conference Hall
27 April 2019

The best new work of the year is Ho Chee Kong’s There And Back, a double concerto for violin, cello and Chinese orchestra, premiered by Siow Lee-Chin, Qin Li-Wei and the Singapore Chinese Orchestra under Yeh Tsung’s direction. 

The 20-minute single movement work had a atmospheric and cinematic feel, breathtaking with both solo instruments battling the elements in a rugged and exhilarating dance of the steppes. With stage-lights dimmed, Siow and Qin in a final intimate duet of rapt stillness provided the work’s most poignant moments. Here is a rare and perfect marriage of Western and Chinese music, done right for once. 

HOMECOMING III / Singapore Chinese Orchestra / Review

HOMECOMING III

Singapore Chinese Orchestra

Singapore Conference Hall

Saturday (27 April 2019)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 29 April 2019 with the title "Rousing finale for SCO's Homecoming concert".

Singapore Chinese Orchestra’s Homecoming series of concerts is a showcase of local musical talents who have established international careers, mostly while plying their artistry overseas. Past editions have included pianist Melvyn Tan, violinist Kam Ning, wind soloists Kwok Chin-chye and Choo Boon Chong, and the T’ang Quartet. This latest concert conducted by Yeh Tsung featured three SCO percussionists and America-based violinist Siow Lee-Chin as soloists.

There were two major concertante works by Singaporean composer Ho Chee Kong, Head of Composition at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory. Both works integrated solo parts so well into the orchestral fabric that these could be considered symphonic poems rather than actual concertos. The Way Of Play (2005) saw percussionists Xu Fan, Tan Loke Chuah and Benjamin Boo placed behind the orchestra but they generated enough volume and pulse to drive this work of extreme energy.

There was also a pan-Asian air to its palette of symphonic colours, leaving one to wonder whether the inspirations were Japanese, Javanese or from Jiangnan. Notions of temple and courtly rituals were conjured, but it was when conductor Yeh stepped off the podium to admire the threesome’s cadenza that one realised this was actually a virtuoso’s paradise.

  

More Chinese in feel was There And Back, a double concerto receiving its World Premiere by Siow and cellist Qin Li-Wei. Here, Ho crafted an atmospheric and cinematic score that evoked the rigours of a journey through China’s vast loess plateau. Siow’s ethereal violin opened the slow introduction, answered by Qin’s mellower and deeper plaint.

Before long, soloists and orchestra were swept into a rugged but exhilarating dance of the steppes. The most poignant moments transpired when the lights were further dimmed, revealing only Siow and Qin in an intimate duet, one of rapt stillness and seeming finality for the ages. This new work deserves to be heard in SCO’s future overseas tours.

Tagged on after the intermission were two solo works with Siow. Despite the obvious show of bravura, Henryk Wieniawski’s famous Polonaise in D major sounded unwieldy in its guise with Chinese orchestral accompaniment. Much better was Manuel Ponce’s Estrellita, with Siow’s flowing lyricism backed by shimmering huqins in Phang Kok Jun’s excellent arrangement.

The balance of the concert was a extroverted display of the Chinese orchestra’s wealth of instrumental colours and textures. Liu Qing’s Puppetry, which began the evening, was finely balanced between modernity and tradition. Concertmaster Li Bao Shun’s jinghu solo, like some suspended character from puppet theatre, served as a focal point.    

Zhao Ji Ping’s Homeland Nostalgia from Silk Road Melody was Debussyan in mood, with Zhao Jianhua’s erhu as protagonist while including the popular melody Chai Yun Zhui Yue (Colourful Clouds Chasing The Moon) as one of its motifs. Wang Danhong’s eclectic Macau Capriccio, more Western (with ideas from Tchaikovsky and Dave Brubeck) than oriental in feel, closed the evening on a rowdy note.