EVOCATIONS / KHOO HUI LING Piano Recital / Review

EVOCATIONS

KHOO HUI LING Piano Recital

Esplanade Recital Studio

Sunday (4 August 2013)

There are some young local pianists whom I have been tracking over the years. Khoo Hui Ling is one of them. She played at the first SSO Music Marathon in 1998 at the age of ten, and I heard her perform at the 2005 National Piano Competition. In a competition where there were a lot of youngsters furiously banging out the Hammerklavier, she stood out with her musicality in “smaller” works by Bach, Debussy and Haydn. She was awarded an Honorary Mention in the Senior Category of the concours. Later at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory, she won the Piano Concerto Competition with a stunning account of Gershwin’s Concerto in F, a performance of much flair and outright exuberance.

Now a student at the University of Oregon, her homecoming recital presented by the Kris Foundation was another show of great musicality in a variety of repertoire. She began with two contrasting Scarlatti Sonatas, bringing out a very refined and crystalline sound. The first in A minor (K.54) was slow but fluid in its articulation, and the D major (K.96) or La Chasse (The Chase) revelled in its crisp staccato and rapid repeated notes.

Beethoven’s Sonata in D major (Op.28), the Pastoral, is not often heard these days, probably because it isn’t serious or probing as some of the others. A pity, as its delicious and homespun quaintness can be a delight under the right hands. Hui Ling brought out its jocular humour and deliberately foursquare rhythms well, the bagpipe-like drones in the first and fourth movements, contrasted with the droll procession of the second movement, and the clippity-clop rhythm and surprising pauses of silence in the brief but humorous Scherzo. Beethoven obviously knew when a joke outlasted its intended effect, and when to stop.

The second half was another display of contrasts by works of a particular composer. Debussy was represented by his prélude Les sons et les parfums tournent dans l’air du soir (Sounds and Scents Mingle in the Evening Air) from Book One and L’isle joyeuse. Listen how just the right amount of pedalling can make a little piece sound atmospheric and hazy in the former, and how a little restraint can prevent the trills and rhythmic figures of the latter from being deluged with a wave of over-indulged murkiness. While the voyage to the mystical isle of Cythera was rumbling with effulgence, one could have hoped for its ecstatic climax to be further milked, but there was still much to enjoy in this outing.

Two contrasting faces of Chopin were well-illustrated in two Mazurkas from Op.17 and the dramatic First Ballade in G minor (Op.23). I can’t quite figure out why the famous A minor Mazurka (Op.17 No.4) is called “The Little Jew” in Hui Ling’s little speech before she played, but I can guess it has to do with the melancholic quality of the sighing motif, a falling minor third, which colours this little gem. While the short Polish dances evinced quiet contentment and simplicity, all the stops were pulled for the Ballade, which displayed lyricism and violence to equal measure. The fearsome coda was launched with great vehemence, and employing minimal pedalling the final page with its upward sweep of scales came across almost cut and dried. I would have enjoyed just a tad more resonance, but I respect her choice to make the finale as stark and strident as possible.

Strident would be the apt description of Aaron Copland’s El Salon Mexico, in a transcription by the young Leonard Bernstein. Hui Ling has a penchant for American music, and here it is in all its glory with Latin romances and a drunken barroom brawl rolled into one musical canvas. She looked like she really was having a good time in this piece, the music punctuated with that big cluster-stamp on the bass for grand effect. And when the last one arrived, she stood up, put all her weight and gave it one thumping whack, to close the work on a rowdy high.

Her encore was a Chopin Mazurka, a subtle way to end a recital, making one look forward to more from this fine musician.



Khoo Hui Ling with her patron Kris Tan,
founder of the Kris Foundation
All photos courtesy of Chrisppics+

  

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Concerto Competition Prizewinners Concert / Review

CONCERTO COMPETITION

PRIZEWINNERS CONCERT
Yong Siew Toh Conservatory
Saturday (6 February 2010)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 8 February 2010.

Regulars to the free concerts at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory know that the annual highlight is the finals of the concerto competition, where its top instrumentalists get to perform with the Conservatory Orchestra. With the competitive element eliminated this year, what remains is a celebratory concert, which proved to be a good thing.

Firstly, the inequality of comparing performances on winds, brass, percussion, strings and piano is no longer an issue. Secondly, the undue pressure is off the young soloists, such that only musical values would prevail.

Hou Chuan-An (Taiwan) was the very relaxed yet confident protagonist in Johann Hummel’s (left) popular Trumpet Concerto in E flat major, where his bright and clear tone was matched by agility and showmanship. Pity about the paucity of trumpet concertos from the great masters, as this work from Mozart’s most famous student is decidedly second-rate. Apart from a sizzling Rondo finale, the first movement is foursquare and forgettable, while the slow movement a blatant rip-off from Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.21 (K.467).

No such problems with Robert Schumann’s (left) masterly Cello Concerto in A minor (Op.129),where the arresting stage-presence of Wu Daidai (China) held sway. Not only does she have full-measure of the work’s yearning intensity, her ingratiating sound served the bittersweet music well. The orchestral partnership was least satisfactory here, with spots of hesitancy and the woodwinds arriving late in the opening three notes. The important second cello part in the slow movement was also barely audible.

The support from Wang Ya-Hui’s big band was however close to excellent in George Gershwin’s (left) Piano Concerto In F, where the swagger of big brassy strains dominated. Through this bluster emerged a glittering performance by Khoo Hui Ling (Singapore), her sense of the bluesy idiom, swing and rhythm impeccable, with a macho mastery of cascading octaves and chords.

Whoever thought that one could attend university to learn how to play jazz? This is a reality in the 21st century, and judging by the quality of musicians our conservatory produces, this nation need not fear about being a “cultural desert” ever again.

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.

Conservatory Piano Concerto Finals / Review

CONSERVATORY CONCERTO 

COMPETITION PIANO FINALS

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Concert Hall

Tuesday (10 November 2009)

Some of the best things in the world are free. Top of the heap has to be the free student concerts at the Conservatory. Four piano concertos in one evening, performed at a very high professional level, are the stuff of dreams. Remind me not to wake up. This year’s piano concerto competition final was unique – all four of the soloists were Singaporeans, an unprecedented event in the short history of the Conservatory. That’s our tax dollars being put to good use, I have been reminded.

First was Azariah Tan (left) performing Chopin’s Piano Concerto No.1. Has there been a more sensitive musician than this young man who is afflicted with progressive deafness? His problem might explain why certain flourishes in Chopin’s florid writing sound louder than they should, but there is no doubting his ability to carve out flowing lines and achieve a singing cantabile. The slow movement’s Romanza was a prime example of this poetry put into practice. His mastery of prestidigitation – and there were many instances in the Rondo finale – was also awe-inspiring. This was a performance, aided by Bertrand Lee on second piano, that lacked nothing in colour or nuance.

With all the orchestral tuttis truncated, the Chopin concerto played for over half an hour. Cesar Franck’s Variations Symphoniques is only half that length, but what a compact masterpiece it is. Jonathan Shin (left) exhibited great subtlety and suppleness in its unshowy but nonetheless virtuosic piano writing. There were minute changes in dynamics within each extended phrase, and he was instinctual in realising these, varying the colour and shade accordingly. There was nothing superfluous or routine in the playing, which also benefited from very coherent and tight ensemble from the second piano by Zhang Aidi.

After the interval, Khoo Hui Ling (left) in her “Bandung pink” evening gown blew the audience away in Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F. She was totally at home in its urbane jazzy idiom, and allied the silky touches with fingers of steel. How her slender presence was able to surmount second pianist Akkra Yeunhattaporn’s beefy orchestral reduction was some feat of sound production and projection. In the bluesy slow movement, excellent pedalling lent the simulated portamenti and blues notes much tonal allure. The coruscating finale showed she totally possessed that all-important swagger and swing. Like the song that goes “It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing”, Hui Ling has got lots of it, and a bit more.

The last item was Chopin’s rarely performed Fantasia on Polish Airs (Op.13), a work which only makes an appearance in Chopin integrales on recordings. It is early Chopin, full of his over-elaborate decorative writing and sometimes unabashed note-spinning. To Zhang Aidi’s (left) credit, she makes a wonderful case for this unashamedly folksy music. Her technique is close to flawless and even the most parochial of moments are made to sound heartfelt. Kudos to her for even including this in her growing repertoire.

Oh, the woes of having to choose from Azariah’s courage and musicianship, Jonathan’s virtuosity and subtlety, Hui Ling’s brawn and bravado, and Aidi’s finesse and adventurousness. Thank goodness I don’t have to play judge and jury here. For the record, the coveted First Prize went to Khoo Hui Ling, who goes on to join the string, wind, brass and percussion winners in the Grand Concerto Concert in February next year.

The finalists with their teachers 

Thomas Hecht and Albert Tiu,

conservatory dean Bernard Lanskey 

and guest judge Anna Sleptsova

(Photo by Julie Tan)

Whoever said “There’s no such thing free lunch” 

has not been anywhere near the Conservatory.