A TALE OF TWO CITIES / By Candlelight Series / Review

A TALE OF TWO CITIES

Roberto Alvarez (Flute) with

Kseniia Vokhmianina (Piano) 

& Katryna Tan (Harp)

Living Room @ The Arts House

Friday (25 May 2018)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 28 May 2018 with the title "A musical tale of two countries".

Despite its catchy Dickensian title, this concert, part of The Arts House's By Candlelight chamber music series, was more a “tale of two countries”, namely Singapore and Spain. Commemorating 50 years of diplomatic relations between the nations, the music of three Singaporean composers and five Spanish composers were celebrated by three musicians who could justly be described as our brightest foreign talents.

The first half featured works for flute and piano, opening with Low Shao Suan's By the Fireplace (left). A warm glow emanated from Spanish flautist Alvarez's instrument in this totally melodious work which included such influences as Debussy and the Disney musical Beauty and the Beast. Her twin sister Shao Ying's Dance of Spring (right) was a jolly and easy-going waltz with a Parisian air about it. Both would pass as classy mood music for a romantic movie.

These served as bookends for two Spanish works. Federico Moreno Torroba is better known for his guitar works, and his Dedicatoria similarly inhabited the world of dance and song, alternating between rhythmic and lyrical before closing with a brilliant flourish.

The big work was Salvador Brotons' Flute Sonata (1979) in two continuous movements where the use of tone rows and dissonance, de rigeuer in atonal music, was merely a means to an end. These devices and a phenomenal flute technique contrived to make this a demanding but most attractive work. It began quietly, and following a virtuosic cadenza, blazed into a mercurial and playful finale that had both Alvarez and Ukrainian pianist Kseniia Vokhmianina stretched to their limits.

Malaysia-born harpist Katryna Tan joined Alvarez for the second half, which saw Chen Zhangyi's aurally luscious Five Constellations (left) as the first piece. More astrologically than astronomically inclined, these were short fantasies which conjure phantasmagorical imagery through a skilful play of colour and timbre. Premiered and recorded on compact disc by the duo in 2011, they practically own the work. 

  

Jesus Guridi's Tirana was dance-inspired and a homage to the Spanish violin virtuoso Pablo Sarasate, hence its elegant and yet showy turns balanced by a graceful lilt. There was one further Singaporean connection, specifically in Fernando Agüeria's Moonlight, which attempted to depict our tropical night scene, buzzing frenetically with activity and an underlying unease.

The 90-minute concert closed with two varied but familiar Spanish works from Isaac Albeniz's Suite Española. Granada was gentle and melancholic, while Asturias was busy and vigorous, pulsing with an energised flamenco beat.

A Spanish encore united all the three performers. According to Alvarez, Suspiros de Espana (Sighs of Spain) by Antonio Alvarez Alonso (no relation) is a pasodoble or bull-fighting dance beloved of all Spaniards. His cheerful and upbeat arrangement for flute, harp and piano ensured that it was also enjoyed by Singaporeans as well.

Composers and performers (L to R):
Low Shao Suan, Low Shao Ying, Chen Zhangyi,
Roberto Alvarez, Katryna Tan
& Kseniia Vokhmianina.

CHANSON DE LA BRISE / Roberto Alvarez & Katryna Tan / Review

CHANSON DE LA BRISE

ROBERTO ALVAREZ, Flute

KATRYNA TAN, Harp

Chijmes Hall

Sunday (19 April 2015)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 21 April 2015 with the title "Skilful marrying of flute and harp".

The flute and harp make a dynamic duo much like the violin and piano, except the timbres of the former are more gentle, softer and milder compared the latter's bowing and striking on metal strings. This lovely recital by Spanish flautist Roberto Alvarez and Malaysia-born harpist Katryna Tan was a showcase of this combo's most alluring repertoire. Its French title, translated as “Song of the Breeze” and an evocation of spring, pretty much said it all.

Opening with Bach's Sonata in E flat major, one would be forgiven for asking, “Which Bach?” The formal classical lines in its fast outer movements pointed to an era far removed from the baroque, while the central movement was the familiar lilting Siciliano in G minor. Apparently this was a work by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Johann Sebastian's most famous son, but was mistakenly attributed to the father.

Straight off, Alvarez crystal clear playing found scintillating accompaniment from Tan, no doubt helped by the cathedral's nicely reverberant acoustics. The sound lifted high up to the vault of the nave where there were thankfully no echoes. The only sour notes came from a female in the audience whose ill-advised choice to wear metallic bangles chimed like a tambourine throughout most of the recital.

Two of the works were contemplations of the night sky. Singapore composer Chen Zhangyi's Five Constellations gets ever more beautiful with each listen. His gift of melody and intimate scoring found a fertile response from both musicians, whose wonderment of the cosmos was translated into playing of sensitivity and refinement. The closing movement Eridanus, The River took on a slightly jazzy vibe, which brought this short cycle to a lively close.

Spaniard Miguel Prida's Motionless Vault was even shorter, its broad melodies flowed like the Milky Way, even if he was trying to portray a vast starless expanse above. This was contrasted with the longest single movement, in Saint-Saens' Fantasie Op.124, which was a rhapsodic but rambling work broken into different sections. Slow lyricism soon gave way to virtuosic display, which in turn took on a rhythmically Spanish flavour before closing in quiet and serenity.

The major work in the recital was the 4-movement Sonatina de Mai (May Sonatina) by Frenchman Jacques Casterede, composition teacher of the Singaporean composer Tan Chan Boon. This is an unpretentious piece of typically Gallic charm, with quaint little tunes and the occasional dissonance just to remind that the composer had been a student of the great Messiaen. The slow second movement Chanson de la Brise, which gave its title to the concert, was a gentle pastorale which segued into yet another mystical night piece Danse le bleu de la nuit (Blue Dance of the Night).

The finale was an animated dance, with both Alvarez and Tan serving up a sumptuous pas de deux of skilful coordination. As an encore, Alvarez asked the audience, “Do you know Piazzolla?”, and the duo launched into the Argentine tango-master's Bordel 1900 from The Story Of Tango, which included Tan beating out rhythms on the wood of her harp. In case anyone was not sated, the duo invited the audience to a post-concert buffet reception. In a word, delicious.

VOICE OF CELLO & CHAMBER MUSIC NIGHT / Singapore Raffles International Music Festival / Review

VOICE OF CELLO & 

CHAMBER MUSIC NIGHT

Singapore Raffles 

International Music Festival

The Chamber @ The Arts House

Wednesday (20 August 2014)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 22 August 2014 with the title "Upbeat end to cello, chamber gig".

The inaugural Singapore Raffles International Music Festival brought together talented young musicians and teachers from Asia in four days of competition, masterclasses and concerts at The Arts House. The third evening’s concert was a showcase in two parts, the first half highlighting ensemble cello playing, followed by chamber music.

Opening the evening was a guest performance by 9-year-old cellist Li Zi Yi who gave an adroit and confident account of the 1^st movement from Saint-Saens’s First Cello Concerto. How unusual it is for a musician to be so technically strong yet at a loss of words on being interviewed. When asked what piece he was to perform, all he could muster was, “I forgot!” much to the amusement of the audience.    

The cello ensembles that followed were spared the blushes of awkwardness. The Malaysian Cello Quartet had fun with three Malay songs and dances in excellent arrangements by Leonard Yeap, which the ronggeng took on the warmth and sultriness of Latin American tangos. The Natasha Liu Studio Ensemble (below) of eight coaxed a rich and fulsome sound in the central section of David Popper’s Concert Polonaise, with their leader-mentor Liu impressively helming the solo cadenzas.

The young SOTA Cello Ensemble (above) was boosted with one more player, but was over-rushed in Schubert’s First Military March, with a reading that lacked nuance or subtlety. When four teachers - Liu, So Youn Park, Song Woon Teng and Linda Kollati (below) - came together in an arrangement Albinoni’s famous Adagio in G minor, they showed how things were done, with much feeling and tenderness.

The chamber music half began with the 1^st movement of Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet from the MusicPro Camerata Kuala Lumpur (above). Standing out was clarinettist Chen Ya-Ching whose tone was full-bodied and phrasing amply articulated, well supported by her string colleagues even if they briefly grappled with intonation issues.

Much welcome was a performance of Italian baroque composer Giuseppe Brescianello’s Sonata in G minor on period instruments (above). Leading on baroque violin was none other than Alan Choo, who shared the melodic lines with Trevor Sze on baroque bassoon. The accompaniment was provided by Shawn Tan’s baroque cello and Shane Thio whose harpsichord notes were simulated on electronic keyboard. The sound in its three movements, mellow yet incisive, was a breath of fresh air.

The concert closed with the dynamic duo of flautist Roberto Alvarez and harpist Katryna Tan. Young Singaporean Chen Zhangyi’s Five Constellations were short and varied numbers with maximum mileage yielded from both instruments. In the final two pieces, flowing lyricism in Coma Berenices was well contrasted with the jazzy flourishes of Eridanus. The infectious Spanish rhythms of Jacques Ibert’s Entr’acte gave a suitably animated and upbeat note to close the proceedings. 

The Natasha Liu Studio Ensemble with
Singapore's "First Lady of the Cello" Mrs Herminia Ilano.

The Malaysian Cello Quartet with
Natasha Liu (extreme L) and Mrs Herminia Ilano.

All photos by the kind permission of the Singapore Raffles International Music Festival.

CLAUDE'S PRISM / Roberto Alvarez, Katryna Tan & Chan Yoong Han / Review

CLAUDE’S PRISM

Roberto Alvarez (Flute), 

Katryna Tan (Harp)

& Chan Yoong Han (Viola)

Esplanade Recital Studio

Tuesday (12 November 2013) 

This review was published in The Straits Times on 14 November 2013 with the title "Trio explores colours of Debussy".

The medium for flute and harp is an age-old favourite, but throw in a viola, the sound palette changes quite dramatically. The lower pitched and husky timbre of the viola lends a darker hue to the ensemble, and what was bright and chirpy becomes more mellow and pensive. It is this unusual spectrum of shades that was explored in Claude’s Prism, a recital named after Claude Debussy’s pioneering sonata of 1915 for these instruments.

The concert by three of Singapore’s most intrepid chamber musicians began with Briton Arnold Bax’s Elegiac Sonata (1916). If anything, Bax outdoes Debussy in impressionist atmospherics, the pastoral character of this single movement evoking the rustic climes, airs and lore of Ireland. Languid and meditative, this set the tone for much of the evening.

Chan Yoong Han, hotshot violinist turned violist for the evening, then related how Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu appeared to him in a dream about the next piece, And Then I Knew ‘Twas Wind (1992). He learnt that its title came from a verse by Emily Dickinson, who lived in Amherst, Massachusetts, very near where Chan had first played the Debussy sonata. Very uncanny, but something deep within the subconscious was probably operating here.

The Takemitsu work, while being atonal for most part, had an unnerving lyricism about it. Shards resembling melodies wafted through the air. Roberto Alvarez’s shimmering flute enjoyed the plum bits, while Katryna Tan’s harp began to take on the character of plucked Japanese instruments. The ethereal beauty of the music had the same effect as a gentle caress of an autumn breeze on the face.

Frenchman Andre Jolivet’s Petite Suite (1941) was the most conventional work on the programme. Its five movements resembled antique dances, alternating between slow and fast, elegant and animated. Alvarez swapped his flute for a piccolo in the final number, a jaunty country dance with a strong ethnic flavour.

The grandfather of the flute trio genre, the Sonata by Debussy closed the concert. It was his original aim to espouse French qualities in the late group of sonatas, those of simplicity, transparency and a uniquely Gallic folk flavour. Its three movements, a calming Pastorale, an Interlude in the rhythm of a minuet, and the spirited Finale fervently captured all of these, with the tightly knit playing of the trio being the unifying feature.

The pastels of Claude’s Prism, having dispersed and enchanted, yielded a lovely encore. Reynaldo Hahn’s Romanesque showcased a silky evenness in unison playing of the melodic instruments, a further serving of unmitigated pleasure.   

LAURA PEH Harp Recital / Review

HARP RECITAL

LAURA PEH, Harp

Esplanade Recital Studio

Friday (23 August 2013)

Piano and violin recitals are fairly rare occurrences in Singapore, so what more a harp recital? Of course there are concerts by the indefatigable Katryna Tan and her lovely I-Sis Trio, and the HarpFest (also organised by Katryna), but beyond that, a harp recital is a positive rarity. So there is cause for celebration when a teenager takes up that challenge. 19-year-old Laura Peh, a student of Katryna, is the first Singaporean to be accepted as a harp student at the famed Paris Conservatory. She has been there for two years and studies with Isabelle Perrin.

Straight off, let me say that this serious-looking and thoughtful young lady is a wonderful musician with the makings of a true artist to come. Her 70-minute programme was varied and interesting, even though there was a preponderance of music from the 20^th century and France in particular. Although the harp has existed since biblical times, harp repertoire truly took wing in the 19^th century, and it was the French and Belgians who led that renaissance. I am no expert in this area, but Laura’s very encouraging performance made me wish I were.

Laura Peh is a figure of grace and concentration.
(Photograph by courtesy of Katryna Tan)

She began with the music of Bach, a transcription of his Lute Suite in E minor (BWV.996), which begins with a French overture followed by a series of ancient dances. She gave a very spirited display of the fast movements, contrasted with the aria-like Sarabande which breathed an air of elegance. 

Then came three French works. Jacques de la Presle (1888-1969) is a new name for me. His Le jardin moulle (The Wet Garden) has the same impressionist colourings as Debussy’s more famous scores, and the use of the whole tone scale gave it that exotic feel. The pitter patter of the rain as suggested by the music was on a whole gentler than the windswept pages of Debussy’s Jardins sous la pluie (Gardens in the Rain), just to compare two pieces on a similar subject. The music reached an impassioned climax before closing quietly.

Laura, performing completely from memory, was confident and sensitive throughout. This continued into the more modern Bamyan by Philippe Hersant (born 1948), inspired by the stark Afghan landscape and Buddha statues destroyed by the Taleban (the inbred mongrels). Here she adopted a different sound palette for its mysterious and more desolate (but still tonal) idiom. Its quiet opening was contrasted with a more dramatic and starkly surprise close.

The stage was shared with excellent young flautist Cheryl Lim for Bernard Andrés’s Narthex, which presented this euphonious combination in a series of linked musical tableaux inspired by biblical sculpture in French cathedrals. Special effects were employed in this work, requiring Laura to use the tuning key to slide down the tuning pins, hitting the wood of the harp, rattling a tuning fork against the strings and the like. She seemed to produce these items at will, reaching behind her with a conjuror’s sleight of hand. Cheryl, for her part produced a curious glissando by sliding a finger through the flute’s head joint, which sounded like some lascivious wolf whistle. This is a curious but entertaining work to say the least, one which has some currency, as it will be heard again later this week at Jin Ta and Gulnara Mashurova’s recital at the Conservatory.

The programme was completed by Hindemith’s three-movement Sonata (more melodious than one would have expected from this master of musical astringency), Heinz Holliger’s Sequenzen uber Johannes I,32 (the only truly atonal work in the concert, one requiring the services of a screwdriver) and Ekaterina Walter-Kuhne’s Fantasy on Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin. The last has the same music and sequence as the Paul Pabst Fantasy for the piano, with the main focus on the Waltz and Lensky’s Aria, but without the magical sequence uniting the two melodies. It is a sparkling work of great virtuosity, one in which taxed Laura to the fullest of her abilities. There were some awkward moments with the widely spread chords of the Waltz, which almost came unstuck at one point, but she ultimately held the work together to close the recital on a high.

Laura Peh does not stun you with flashy showmanship, but moves one by her musicianship and sincerity, which are far more enduring qualities. She is still young, and will undoubtedly go on to further heights in the long road that is being a professional musician. She has accomplished much for her tender years, and the sky’s the limit for one who shows dedication to her art. I look forward to hearing more of her in the near future.     

Note: According to the Singapore Harp Society, Laura Peh is the first Singaporean to give a solo harp recital in Singapore. (Katryna Tan, her teacher, was born in Malaysia but is now a Singapore permanent resident.)

A VIRTUOSO'S ENCOUNTER: EAST MEETS WEST / Ding Yi Music Company / Review

 

 

 

A VIRTUOSO’S ENCOUNTER: EAST MEETS WEST

Ding Yi Music Company with I-Sis Trio

Esplanade Recital Studio

Tuesday (18 December 2012)

 

This review was published in The Straits Times on 20 December 2012 with the title "Bold explorations".

 

There are several qualities that unite the Ding Yi Music Company with its senior counterpart the Singapore Chinese Orchestra, one of which is its zeal to collaborate with musicians from different cultures. The I-Sis Trio, comprising harpist Katryna Tan, violinist Cindy Yan and cellist Natasha Liu, was its latest guest in a 90-minute long exploration of widely disparate musical idioms.

 

Each soloist performed separately with the ensemble of Chinese instruments, conducted by Quek Ling Kiong, beginning with Tan’s own Water Dance which juxtaposed dissonances with lyricism. Although inspired by the popular Chinese tune Flowing Water, Tan’s score also paid heed to the rugged landscapes and rocky outcrops through which streams flowed, which accounted for its seemingly uncompromising modernism.

 

 

Yan and Liu’s individual solos were more conventional, the former in the familiar Fishing Boats at Dusk with its slow-fast rhapsodic schema, and the latter in Liu Zhuang’s Romanza based on a Xinjiang folksong, a Central Asian-flavoured elegy that could have come from the pen of a Russian composer. Close your eyes, and the ensemble’s plucked pipas and ruans sounded like balalaikas.

 

The trio then performed Reminisce by young Singaporean composer and arranger Phang Kok Jun, also a zhonghu player of Ding Yi. This is one of those unremittingly lush pieces the melody of which lingers on long after the work has ended.

 

 

All three were joined by the sheng and percussion for Jia Da Qun’s The Prospect of Coloured Desert, an atonal work even thornier than Water Dance. The sonorities of this instrumental combination were however most interesting, the gentle throbbing marimba and harp sharply contrasted with more penetrating tones from the sheng and bowed strings.  

 

By now, the audience had its fill of contemporary music, and the mood lightened considerably for Piazzolla’s Milonga del Angel and Lecuona’s Malaguena, Latino standards of the I-Sis repertoire. The supporting orchestrations by Lu Heng and Wynne Fung respectively were subtle, the presence of the Chinese instruments coming to bear strongly only during their climaxes.

 

There was a bizarre-sounding Variations on Jingle Bells in a gamut of rhythmic styles, including a waltz, swing, rock and roll, which called for the obligatory audience clap-along. This left an odd taste in the mouth, like cheese-coated durian pastries. All was forgiven when Piazzolla’s vibrant Libertango was offered as an encore, which worked like a charm and sent everyone home with a kick in the step.

 

 



PLUCK - THE HARP MUSICAL / Singapore Harpfest 2012 / Review

PLUCK – THE HARP MUSICAL

Singapore Harp Festival

University Cultural Centre Theatre

Saturday (24 November 2012)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 26 November 2012 with the title "An enjoyable outing where everyine wins".

Sometime in the early 1980s, there was an article in The Straits Times which announced that the Singapore Symphony Orchestra had just bought a new harp, thus making a grand total of two performing harps in the whole of Singapore. So it might be considered progress when this concert featured no less than thirty harps of different sizes on stage.

Pluck is the brainchild of Seremban-born harpist Katryna Tan, winner of the Young Artist Award in 2005. This harp ensemble concert featuring young harpists of wide-ranging abilities was conceived in the form of a musical with a story catered to mostly primary school children. It centred on a sad kingdom of harpists, which had lost its musical voice, because its muse - the harp fairy - had been kidnapped by the evil kingdom of bowed strings.

Whether the friendly jibe at violinists, violists and cellists was a Freudian admission to an inferiority complex remains to be debated, but it gave many rising harp talents a chance to be heard. The protagonists were young orphan Pluck (played by 7–year-old Chloe Lam), her Guardian (Tatyana Philips), the King and Queen (a rare male harpist in teenager Lee Yun Chai and the slightly older Nicolette Chin), the harp fairy (6-year-old Isabel Ho) and their friends.

They performed in various combinations and also sang, all of which was accomplished admirably and totally from memory. Members of Rave Harpers, Singapore’s leading harp ensemble, chipped in to perform various dances from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite, quite apt given the festive season. Original music by Eric Watson (Pluck Theme Song and Golden Orb), Phang Kok Jun (Sandy Road) and Philips (Don’t Give Up) also added local context and flavour to the melange.

A second half which saw the children comb corners of the world for the magic spell was the excuse for further music from Ireland (Danny Boy), Austria (Johann Strauss’s Tales from the Vienna Woods), Argentina (Piazzolla’s Libertango), Indonesia (Getaran Jiwa) and China (Spring Blossom On Moonlit River). Aided by Malaysia’s Cempaka Poise Harps and ubiquitous storyteller William Ledbetter, the proceedings took on the air of a variety show which ran close to two and a half hours.  

Strings and harps learn to play together!

The bowed strings of Fu Chun String Ensemble, dressed in all black and led by violinist Cindy Yan, were not to be outdone in its confident performances of Vivaldi’s Summer and Pascual Narro’s Espana Cani. In the end, the antagonists were not so much defeated but befriended by their neighbourly harpists. So everybody wins.

If anything, this enjoyable and even enchanting outing was both a reminder of the innocence of youth and how far harpists have come in a Singapore musical society overpopulated by pianists and violinists.  

Young harpists Lee Yun Chai (15) and Nicolette Chin (17), who played the King and Queen, receive their applause.

Katryna Tan (dark blue dress) and her harp gang take a final bow.

  

DANCE OF AN ANGEL / Katryna Tan 10th Anniversary Harp Recital / Review

 

DANCE OF AN ANGEL

KATRYNA TAN, Harp

Esplanade Recital Studio

Sunday (12 August 2012)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 14 August 2012 with the title "Night of heavenly harmonies".

It seemed only a short while ago when Seremban-born harpist Katryna Tan first burst onto the local musical scene. This concert marks the 10^th anniversary of activities by the architecture student turned indefatigable musician, teacher, entrepreneur and founder of the Singapore Harp Festival, who was awarded the National Arts Council’s Young Artist Award in 2005.

Her concert was an 80-minute selection of her favourite music in original form and transcriptions, performed solo and with friends. The evening began with Tan’s own virtuosic arrangements of two Astor Piazzolla tangos, Milonga and Death of the Angel. All through its bittersweet melodies, which portrayed tenderness and yearning, she maintained a steady and unceasing pulse that resonated like the human heartbeat.

Alphonse Hasselmans’s Petite Valse provided a delightful Chopinesque interlude before launching to Franz Liszt’s Liebesträume No.3, replete with its sweeping cadenzas which Tan negotiated with a disarming adroitness. A few misplaced chords towards the end did little to dampen the ardour.

More Latino music was next, with Agustin Lara’s rousing Granada, the subject of Carlos Salzedo’s Fantasy, contrasted with the melancholic Adagio from Joaquin Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez, where both solo and orchestral parts were combined by Tan. It was a credit to her artistry when one neither misses Placido Domingo’s voice or the cor anglais’s plaint in these works.

 

Tan’s friends from her all-girl I-Sis Trio then joined her in duos, first violinist Cindy Yan in Miroslav Skoryk’s Spanish Dance, and later cellist Natasha Liu in Ravel’s Piece in the Form of a Habanera and Debussy’s chanson Beau Soir. Tan’s altogether sensitive accompaniment allowed the melodic lines of her glamourous partners to sing, soar and shine. 

A more unusual collaboration came in the person of percussionist Ramu Thiruyanam, who improvised on cajon box drums (including one he was sitting on), chimes, maracas and a rattle in three of Bernard Andres’s Dances from The Island. In these, Tan played on her newly unveiled blue and chrome electrically amplified harp. Energised, the Mambo, Rumba and Samba movements provided foot-tapping moments which the audience positively revelled in.

All four musicians were united in the final work, Primavera Portena (Spring) from Piazzolla’s Four Seasons of Buenos Aires. The tango rhythm, now vigourous and hip-gyrating instead of just sultry, lent an exuberant end to the evening’s fare. Like Piazzolla who elevated the tango to lofty reaches, Katryna Tan has made the regal harp, the instrument of angels, more accessible to mere mortals.  

  

The I-Sis Trio, Ramu Thiruyanam and colleagues from the Singapore Chinese Orchestra, harpist and guzheng player Ma Xiao Lan and conductor Quek Ling Kiong.