GIOVANI 3 PIANO RECITAL / Alyssa Kok, Alexander Ronoyudo & Jonathan Chua / Review

GIOVANI 3 PIANO RECITAL

Alyssa Kok, 

Alexander Ronoyudo 

& Jonathan Chua, Piano

Esplanade Recital Studio

Sunday (5 Jan 2014)

This review was published by The Straits Times on 7 January 2014 with the title "Prize-winning prodigies show finesse".

The title of the recital was somewhat confusing. It was not a concert for 3 pianos, but one featuring three young pianists in solos, with none named Giovani. Getting that out of the way, the event was a two-hour-long show of how three prize-winning prodigies from Singapore and Indonesia have progressed.

The first half featured short recitals by the threesome. 11-year-old Singaporean Alyssa Kok was the 1^st prize winner in her age-group at the Ars Nova Piano Competition last year. The level of maturity she displayed was astounding, possessing natural poise and a crystal clear understanding of the contrapuntal complexities in Bach’s Toccata in E minor. Her view of Mozart’s Sonata in B flat major (K.333) was fluent and limpid, with none of the self-indulgent idiosyncrasies that blighted Lang Lang’s recent recital.

14-year-old Indonesian Alexander Ronoyudo, another victor of the Ars Nova, produced a big sound in Bach’s short Fantasia in C minor, one wholly suited for a grand piano rather than the original harpsichord. In Haydn’s two-movement Sonata No.18, his crispness of articulation brought out the music’s inherent humour and guilelessness.

Singaporean Jonathan Chua at 15 already appears to have his own ideas on how the music should go, which gave an added dimension to his playing. While the movement from Mozart’s “Hunt” Sonata in D major (K.576) was disciplined and chaste, there was a hot-blooded passionate response to Granados’s Requiebros (Flatteries) from Goyescas, and many thrilling moments in Liszt’s Tarantella.

In the second half, the three pianists took turns to play shorter encore-like pieces. Kok did a Margaret Leng Tan by playing the insides of the piano in Turkish pianist-composer Fazil Say’s Black Earth, producing an otherworldly sonority in this smoky jazz-like number. She brought colour and imagination to a Debussy prelude and was a model of finesse in Glinka’s Nightingale Variations.

Ronoyudo weathered an error-strewn Liszt Gnomenreigen (Dance of the Gnomes) to score in Chopin’s popular Étude in E major (Op.10 No.3), with cantabile sitting comfortably alongside virtuosity. A barnstorming account of Khachaturian’s coruscating Toccata, which sounds more difficult than it actually is, closed the recital on a high.

If there was a single performance that showed both superior technical instruction and the individuality of self-expression, that would have been Chua’s no holds barred performance of Chopin’s First Scherzo. Juxtaposing barely concealed violence with the comforts of a Polish lullaby, Chua took on its challenges in a single gulp, and this reviewer is happy to report that it generated a spontaneous Horowitzian buzz that would be hard to replicate. That is the essence of live performance for you.

Alyssa Kok, Jonathan Chua and Alexander Ronoyudo
with their teachers So Kim Wie (Indonesia)
and Benjamin Loh (Singapore).

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.

SSO Concert: PRESIDENT'S YOUNG PERFORMERS CONCERT / Review

PRESIDENT’S YOUNG PERFORMERS CONCERT

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall

Thursday (12 July 2012)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 14 July 2012 with the title "President's concert ends on breathtaking note".

For any young classical musician in Singapore, there can be no greater honour than being invited by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra to perform at the annual President’s Young Performers Concert, the concert season’s traditional opener. Previous performers like violinists Chan Yoong Han and Lee Huei Min, pianists Shane Thio and Lim Yan, conductors Darrell Ang and Tan Kang Ming have gone on to become our musical scene’s leading lights.

This year’s invitees were three young gentlemen who have it in them to go very far. Two 13-year-old pianists Jonathan Chua Yu Jing and Gavin Jared Bala, both students of Raffles Institution and piano pedagogue Benjamin Loh, shared the load of notes in Saint-Saens’s Carnival of the Animals. Through its 14 short movements, their coordination was spot on, displaying well-honed techniques as they blended well with the orchestra.

There was even some room for comic individuality, as they progressively upped the tempo with each repeat of the scales in the movement parodying The Pianists, as impatient pianists are wont to do. In The Swan, their graceful lapping of the waters paved the way for cellist Ng Pei Sian to shine, for which he received the loudest cheers.

The third artist, violinist Yang Shuxiang, a graduate student at Yong Siew Toh Conservatory, gave arguably the finest solo performance in the history of the President’s Concert series. His bright orange shirtsleeves stood out in the sea of black coats and gowns, as the pure and penetrating tone yielded from his 1753 Guadagnini violin carved out a swathe of sheer beauty through Wagnerian textures in Chausson’s Poeme.  

Seldom has there been a performance of such intensity even from established concert veterans, one that grabbed the listener by the lapels from the outset and never let go. With each sway of the body, his narrative of the music’s ridiculously melodramatic story became ever more vivid, and seemed ever more real. Yang is destined to become one of Singapore’s giants of the violin.

The concert directed by SSO’s Young Associate Conductor Darrell Ang opened with Vaughan Williams’s Overture to The Wasps, which buzzed with great urgency from the strings before revealing a heart built upon the ever hummable English folksong. The English thread also closed President Tony Tan’s first concert as SSO patron, with Elgar’s Enigma Variations. 

The mystery theme and first variation were taken at a very deliberate pace, one which allowed the music’s Brahmsian orchestration to gradually unravel. Many details were revealed, often missed in swifter accounts, but all this worked building up arch-like to the glorious climax of the 9^th Variation, better known as Nimrod. The finale was no less arresting, its pomp and circumstance culminating with the entry of the pipe organ. In a word, breathtaking.

First International Chopin Piano Competition Singapore / Prizewinners Concert (Categories A & B)

FIRST

INTERNATIONAL

CHOPIN

PIANO

COMPETITION

SINGAPORE 2010

Categories A & B

Prizewinners Concert

At the First International Chopin Competition Singapore, 51 young pianists competed for Categories A (Under 10 years) & B (Under 12 years) on Wednesday. Eight of the best performed at the Prizewinners Concert, held just before Boris Kraljevic’s piano recital.

The youngest pianists from Category A opened the concert, beginning with 5th prized Juventia Ie (Indonesia) with the Étude in F minor (Op.10 No.9). Although the easiest of the 24 studies, it nevertheless requires a large stretch of the left hand. She managed quite well despite some unsteadiness and slips, but overall a good effort for someone this young.

Tuxedo-donning Luxsuwong Nattawat (Thailand), who was awarded 4th prize, coaxed a lovely legato from the little-known simple posthumous Nocturne in C minor. Not a deep piece by any rate, but playing of such innocence is always welcome.

Third prize went to Kennis Ang Wen Xi (Singapore), who obviously enjoyed the challenge of prestidigitation in the well-known posthumous Waltz in E minor. She did so with confidence and lots of gusto, closing with those big chords.

Second-placed Amanda Lee Yun Yee (Singapore, above) gave the best performance from Category A, with the vertiginous Impromptu No.1 in A flat major (Op.29), with impeccable runs and lovely sense of rubato. A pianist double her age would have been proud of this performance. She was incidentally also awarded 4th prize in Category B playing almost an identical programme. Bryce Morrison will be thrilled by her progress.

The winner of Category A was Celestine Yoong Qian Yi (Malaysia) who played a far simpler piece, the Mazurka in F sharp minor (Op.6 No.1). She had an unerring sense of lilting rhythm, shaped the music beautifully and provided adequate contrasts in the middle section. Well done!

The under-12s of Category B were altogether a cut above, and impressed with works of a more complex and technical nature. Third Prize was awarded to Gavin Jared Bala (Singapore) who played the early Polonaise in D minor (Op.71 No.1), written by Chopin when he was about the same age as him. His handling of the right hand ornamentations was delightful, capping a performance of quiet assurance.

Naomi Druskic (Bosnia-Hercegovina) won the Second Prize with the first Nocturne in B flat minor (Op.9 No.1), in a reading of wonderful smoothness and clear lines. She truly understands the bittersweet nature and pathos of Chopin’s soul, so being Slavic really helps!

Gavin Bala and Jonathan Chua

with their teacher Benjamin Loh

The sheer confidence and maturity of Jonathan Chua Yujing (Singapore) won him the coveted First Prize with the obscure Variations on a German National Air (Op. Posth), based on the bucolic melody called Der Schweizerbub (The Swiss Boy). Its introduction was florid enough and the ensuing variations were dealt with great clarity and amazing aplomb. More will be heard from Der Singapurbub in time to come

A SOIRÉE WITH BRYCE MORRISON / Part 1

The invitation to an evening 

of musical enchantment!

Three Young Virtuosi of Singapore PianoFest:
Lee Pei Ming (2006), Nicholas Loh (2009)
& Albert Lin (2007, from L)

Bryce Morrison celebrates the life 

of Australian diva of the piano Eileen Joyce 

with an illuminating illustrated talk, 

and finishing with a cautionary message.

Yao Xiaoyun, Young Virtuoso (2009) 

and 1st prizewinner of Piano Open category 2005, 

opened the evening with the
1st movement from Chopin's Sonata No.3.

Khoo Hui Ling, 1st prize winner of the 

YST Piano Concerto Competition 2009, 

performed Tchaikovsky's Dumka.

14-year-old Aileen Gozali 

gave a rare performance of Liszt's unfamiliar 

Hungarian Rhapsody No.4.

Au Kah Kay, a doctor in private practice,

polished off the Schubert-Liszt 

Soirées de Vienne No.6.

11-year-old Jonathan Chua did not find

Copland's Three Moods a great technical challenge.

Kelvin Chan, a scientist with A-Star, 

raised the roof with

Ravel's Scarbo from Gaspard de la nuit. 

BM looks more than

satisfied with his former student's work.