SSO NATIONAL DAY CONCERT 2026 / FROM MY LIFE / Singapore Symphony Orchestra & Lynnette Seah & Friends / Review

 

NATIONAL DAY CONCERT 2026

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall

Saturday (15 August 2026)

FROM MY LIFE

Lynnette Seah (Violin) & Friends

Esplanade Recital Studio

Wednesday (19 August 2026)

This review was published by The Straits Times on 20 August 2026 with the title "Home-grown talent command stage at SSO National Day Concert & Lynnette Seah solo".

Singapore Symphony Orchestra’s annual National Day Concert has over the years become a true showcase of Singaporean composing talent. Led by Lien Boon Hua, its latest edition included five world premieres in an exceptionally well-balanced programme of original music

Low Peng Guan’s A Singapore Suite opened the show, a short overture taking listeners on a musical tour of Gardens By The Bay, Chinatown, Little India and Singapore River, skillfully blending orchestral colour and imagery with ethnic musical styles.

Sulwyn Lok’s Three Dancers, a double concerto for guitar and zhongruan, united Kevin Loh and Jonathan Ngeow from different musical traditions in a happy marriage of plucked strings. Both soloists traded solo and accompaniment roles in a virtuosic work that contrasted meditative movements with throes of ecstasy.

Wong Cheow Cai’s The Plains: Echoes, celebrating the Padang’s legacy, struck more serious notes with stirring string-writing, punctuated by percussion and Pan Yun’s plaintive oboe solo. Eruption of tense music, depicting cruel years of Japanese Occupation, eventually gave way to a calm but guarded close, with Singapore’s realisation of independence.

Kelly Tang’s Three Symphonic Movements retold different periods of Singapore history with projected images from the National Archives. A busy freeport established by Stamford Raffles was edgily described in Colony, while an idyllic Legend spun apocryphal stories of Sang Nila Utama and the founding of Temasek. Finally, a vibrant Metropolis closed the suite on an optimistic high.

Cultural Medallion recipient Edwin Thumboo’s poem Renovation was the inspiration for Germaine Goh’s Five Beginnings, its verses sung by singer-songwriter Linying with a vocoder, which augmented lines with added harmonies. This beautifully euphonious mini cantata deserves many listens.

The evening closed with The Republic, melodious finale from Singapore – Symphonic Suite by Tsao Chieh (1953-1996), late composer, engineer, defence scientist and local Internet pioneer. His clever polyphonic working of Xiao Bai Chuan, Rasa Sayang and the appearance of Majulah Singapura at its close still raises goosebumps like its 1986 Singapore Arts Festival premiere.

A performance of the National Anthem.

Photographic evidence I was at the concert.

Speaking of national treasures, Cultural Medallion recipient Lynnette Seah gave her first solo concert since retiring as SSO co-leader seven years ago. In a very demanding programme of classical and jazz works, she showed the chops that defined her illustrious career of four decades.

In Cesar Franck’s Violin Sonata in A major, a sweet but resolute tone held sway, alternating lyricism with passion through its four movements. The finale’s canon has one of classical music’s best melodies, milked for all its worth with pianist Albert Tiu who had the more technically difficult part.

They were joined by SSO principal horn Austin Larson for a second performance of Johannes Brahms’ Horn Trio in E flat major (Op.40) heard in Singapore within eleven days. Larson reprised his virtuoso role with absolute aplomb, and the very busy threesome showed what give-and-take in chamber music was about.

The other classical works, also accompanied by Tiu, included Joachim Raff’s heartrending Cavatina and the premiere of young local composer Ong Lin Wei’s With Love, a melodious outpouring with a gospel vibe about it.

Jazz legend Jeremy Monteiro took over the keyboard for the rest of the show. Jazz singer Alemay Fernandez alternated melodies with Seah in Germaine Goh’s arrangement of Irish tune Londonderry Air (Danny Boy). SSO principal cellist Ng Pei-Sian and drummer Hong Chanutr Techatananan made a foursome for Monteiro’s romantic Soul Mates and virile train piece From Paris to Segré.

That the Who’s Who of Singapore’s classical and jazz spheres all joined hands in tribute to Lynnette Seah speaks volumes of their great esteem for her.

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.

JEREMY MONTEIRO AT 65: THE STATE OF MY ART / Review

 

JEREMY MONTEIRO AT 65: 

THE STATE OF MY ART 

Esplanade Concert Hall 

Friday (14 March 2025)

This review published in The Straits Times on 17 March 2025 with the title "Jazz maestro Jeremy Monteiro's rousing gig for 65th birthday".

Since its inception in 1980, the Cultural Medallion has been awarded to only two pianists. The latest was avantgardeist Margaret Leng Tan (2015), but the first was Singapore’s “King of Swing” Jeremy Monteiro in 2002. Making his 65th birthday this year, a three-hour concert was the summation of 49 years of professional performance, 50 albums and over 700 original compositions behind him. 

Photo: Ken Cheong

With the typical candour and self-deprecating humour of a stand-up comic, he spoke about every work on the programme. The evening opened with a trio, just Monteiro on piano, Jay Anderson (bass) and Hong Chanutr Techatananan (drums). This was how jazz groups began, playing in smoke-filled lounges and clubs of yesteryear, where performances were improvised in the most free-wheeling way possible. 

In Dave Brubeck’s In Your Own Sweet Way, Monteiro’s mastery with dizzying runs on the right hand over left hand chords led the way, and thereafter almost every piece that came was an original work of his. Despite its title, Blues For Capt Hans was an upbeat fast number, contrasted with the true moody blues of Always In Love with its reflective melody transcribed on bass. 

Three became five, when they were joined by Frenchman Nicolas Folmer (trumpet/flugelhorn) and Sean Hong Wei (tenor sax) for Jazzybelle’s Shuffle, a casual saunter down Orchard Road which turned out to be more of a parade. Monteiro’s warm crooning voice was heard in Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart’s My Romance, accompanied by Sean, closing the first half in contemplation. 

Photo: Ken Cheong

The stage got more crowded when the Jazz Association Singapore Orchestra (JASSO) came aboard with Elephant In The Room, a busily brassy number co-written with Briton Alan Barnes. Then came a sequence of what might be Monteiro’s “greatest hits”, possibly his most memorable and catchiest numbers. Carousel in a Child’s Mind, written for his son Varian, was an ear worm of a fast waltz, while Brothers highlighted the solo of Taiwanese flautist Jenni Tsai. 

More guest performers including former Singapore Symphony Orchestra co-leader Lynnette Seah (violin) and vocalist Sneha Menon, who starred in Seul a Paris (Alone In Paris), composed during Monteiro’s lowest ebb while walking through the Jardin du Luxembourg. To heighten its French sense of melancholy, further commentary was provided by him on an accordion. 

Photo: Ken Cheong

Far more cheerful was From Paris to Segre, co-written with Eugene Pao, a classic train piece with with chugging rhythms and far-reaching sense of optimism. Monteiro’s longtime mentor 83-year-old Louis Soliano was also given the spotlight in Artie Butler’s Here’s To Life, where his vocals rose above the drumming to touch hearts. 

Photo: Ken Cheong

The concert proper closed with the lively beats of Mount Olive, after which the orchestra broke out with Happy Birthday To You and a birthday cake wheeled in for good measure. 

There was time for two encores, George Gershwin’s Love Is Here To Stay (with Menon’s soul-infused vocals) and Monteiro’s most heard and best-selling hit, One People, One Nation, One Singapore in a rousing blues-gospel version. Monteiro 65 thus becomes the perfect prelude to SG 60.

JASSO PINNACLE CONCERT 2025 / Jazz Association Singapore Orchestra / Review

 

JASSO PINNACLE CONCERT 2005 

Jazz Association Singapore Orchestra 

Capitol Theatre 

Friday (21 February 2025)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 24 February 2025 with the title "A showcase of Singapore jazz works".

In conjunction with this year’s SG60 celebrations, the Jazz Association Singapore Orchestra’s (JASSO) Pinnacle Concert was a showcase of original Singapore jazz compositions. This was a culmination of JASSO’s Build Your Legacy Through Jazz commissions where benefactors had new works composed and dedicated to persons of their choice. 

Fifteen works from seven composers, including seven by artistic director Jeremy Monteiro alone, were performed by the 18-strong jazz band of mostly brass instruments. Monteiro and his associate directors Weixiang Tan and Chok Kerong took their turns on the grand piano and conducting the orchestra. 

So what did this evening’s Singapore jazz sound like? Judging by the short single-movement works which Monteiro casually referred to as “songs” (only two had actual lyrics), the tendency was to err on the side of caution by adhering to popular and familiar idioms. One will not find edgy experimental or dissonant harmonies, nor was there reliance on local Southeast Asian or vernacular material as possible themes. 

This is not meant as criticism but an observation that when donors contribute big bucks, the results are expected to be cognitively coherent and aurally pleasing on first encounter. The scandal and fisticuffs that greeted Igor Stravinsky’s epoch-making The Rite of Spring of 1913, his conception of primal Russian music, were thus not to be found. 

Joe Lee on bass guitar.

The end result was, however, a highly enjoyable two-hour concert with memorable melodies, virtuosic solo and ensemble playing dialled to maximal voltage by all on stage. Joe Lee’s The Chauffeur, which opened the concert, had a steady rhythmic drive which relived jazz of the Roaring’ Twenties. 

Julian Chan on soprano sax.

Sean Hong Wei’s Sunshine For Olivia, Weixiang Tan’s Love in All The Small Places and Ernest Tan’s My Wish for You, all inspired by love for close relatives, extended solos came to the fore. The saxophones of Julian Chan and Stephen Rufus, and Leo Jeoh’s trombone, in heady extemporisations were stand-outs. 

Stephen Rufus on alto sax.

JASSO Scholar Lee Ann Gie’s Toby Boy, composed for former MP Abdullah Tarmugi’s grandson, was a playful and highly-syncopated take on Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg’s In The Hall of the Mountain King from Peer Gynt. Chok Kerong’s Stars of My Heart had a Brazilian beat, distinguished by breathy but excellent alto-leaning vocals of Vanessa Shavonne. 

Vanessa Shavonne was a revelation.

Sean’s Struttin’ Through Life with You, with its striding pace, was most representative of the big Broadway vibe. Weixiang’s A Gift from Sweden, about a teddy bear, exhibited the warmth and fuzziness of its endearing subject and a lovely trumpet solo. 

Singapore’s “King Of Swing” Monteiro, who celebrates his 65th birthday later this year, should be saluted for his range and versatility. None of his pieces sounded alike, whether Waltz For Dolores, My Tulip, The Happiness Within, The Forever Waltz, Follow Your North Star or Together Forever: An Ode to Love. 

A lifelong student of orchestration, his attempts to vary the moods with harmonic experiments were laudable and far from predictable. For the rousing closing number, A Song for Peace and Love, meaningful words were added, and belted out with conviction and fervour by vocalist Nick Zavior.