QUARTET FOR THE REBIRTH OF TIME / TO Ensemble / Review

 

EOS / LAND WITH NO SUN IV:

QUARTET FOR THE REBIRTH OF TIME

TO Ensemble

Esplanade Recital Studio

Saturday (19 September 2026)

From its title, it may appear that TO Ensemble’s latest concert had taken a leaf from Olivier Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time. After all, their combination of pianist, two string players and a wind player was a similar configuration as the Frenchman’s famous quartet (piano, violin, cello and clarinet) that performed in Stalag VIIIA prisoner-of-war camp in Gorlitz on 15 January 1941. Instead of the doom and gloom faced by the French foursome in WWII, jazz pianist Tze Toh’s Quartet for the Rebirth of Time (Quatuor pour la renaissance du temps if you will), original music with improvisations, represented renewal and hope for the future.

Joined by Wu Bingling (violin), Lazar T.Sebastine (Carnatic violin) and Teo Boon Chye (saxophone), the quartet like Messiaen’s performed the concert's ten movements in various instrumental combinations. The first three movements saw each of the instruments being introduced with Tze’s piano. Slow piano chords in A flat minor opened [Darkness] Obscurita, with Bingling’s violin singing a song of nostalgia. Teo’s sax playing in D flat major was ushered in [Hope] Land With No Sun Theme before a raga from Lazar’s Carnatic violin became the basis of [Reset] Begin (Again) / Gambiranatta.

All four were heard together for the first time in [Overload] Hyperloop, with both violins racing each other in a perpetual motion in A minor, before sax joins the fray, before ending abruptly in a startling halt. [Disconnect] Suspension was the most dissonant movement, with hazy piano chords matching the PSI over Esplanade while the grinding tones from violin and sax were being extracted.

[Love] A Chance Of Love in D major was Tze’s tribute to the melodies of Ennio Morricone, with both violins expressing varying degrees of sadness and regret in some of the concert’s loveliest music. In [Time] Child’s Play, now centred in G major, a beat tapped out by strings and sax provided a constant pulse for a number resembling classic tropes of minimalism.

By this time, the quartet was truly in the zone with G major being firmly ensconced as the definitive tonal centre. [Morning] Mornings, first heard on sax, was a melody that could go on forever, made even more beautiful with the Carnatic violin entering. This was the dawn that refreshes the night, and what followed, [Rebirth] Rebirth was exactly what was referred to in the concert’s title. 

This was the concert’s longest movement, its kinetic beat resonating in a rhythmic dance that had gospel vibes about it. This is exactly the kind of ecstatic music which hysterical congregations in full gospel evangelical churches used to go into trances and speak / sing / rage in tongues. Pure opium for the holy spirit or whatever possessed them.

Having overshot their time, TO Ensemble’s final number [New Dawn] Dawn / Procession was short-winded, its brief minutes representing the endless parade a group such as theirs could go on if given the time and chance. The invigorating end to a 75-minute concert was greeted with prolonged applause, followed by a lively post-concert chat which showed that Tze and his gang had won over many converts. Long may that continue.

QUANTUM STATE / TO Ensemble / Review

 

QUANTUM STATE

TO Ensemble

Esplanade Recital Studio

Sunday (1 March 2026)

This review was published on 3 March 2026 with the title "TO Ensemble explores what humans are made of in entertaining programme".

Concerts by TO Ensemble have traditionally been founded on futuristic stories. Dystopian worlds, interstellar travel and speculative fiction are par for the course, but its latest offering was more down to earth: science and what we are composed of.

Led by composer and jazz pianist Tze Toh, his quartet on this occasion was formed by Wu Bingling (violin), Lazar T. Sebastine (Carnatic violin) and Teo Boon Chye (alto saxophone), performing an enjoyable 75-minute concert without intermission. Within this configuration, the players and their instruments represented respectively space, humanity, nature and science / technology.

Photo: Sebin Lazar Reena

What are the elements that make us human? The movements that transpired pondered on the building blocks that make up music itself. A simple Prologue of piano tremolos ushered in Carnatic violin and sax, and in the manner of Minimalism built up a pattern of mood music by repetition and constant variations. That was the basis of Memories of Time, which unfolded slowly but never outliving its welcome.

I Am The Air (Io Sono L’Aria) opened with birdsong and trills from solo piano in the upper registers, over which both violins carved out a duet. If one wondered whether this music was composed or improvised, the answer: both. Wu’s Western violin had its part fully written out while Sebastine’s Carnatic violin was almost wholly improvised.

In Longing, the evening got its first big melody, with Teo’s sax doing the honours. This love song was gradually built up from something simple, an efflorescence much like how life on earth evolved from molecules to cells and then living organisms.

Photo: Sebin Lazar Reena

Similarly, Architecture of Human Civilisation opened with Wu’s Bachian violin solo, single line arpeggios, then double stopping, over which Teo began his improvisation. Tze’s piano joined the fray as did Sebastine’s violin, and a mighty edifice was constructed seemingly from scratch. The movement closed as it began, with Wu’s plaintive solo.

How can science describe emotions like love? The harmonic progessions of Autumn relived the music of Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, admittedly one of Tze’s idols, while both violins brought out different responses in an impassioned duet.

LHC (Large Hadron Collider) was the concert’s only fast piece, befitting CERN’s particle accelerator in Switzerland. Here, rapid piano figurations and saxy riffs churned out the musical equivalent of anti-matter in a kinetically charged atmosphere. In a word, breathtaking.

Photo: Sebin Lazar Reena

Memories of Space returned to the premise of the earlier piece, Memories of Time. This time, the building blocks were canons, the repeating bars of music that distinguished J.S.Bach’s Goldberg Variations and the finale of Cesar Franck’s famous violin sonata.

The closing number The Swan had nothing to do with Saint-Saen’s cello masterpiece, but was based on a raga where the Carnatic violin opened. Tze described it as a piece depicting grace and growth, appropriately in the key of G major, which also echoed the Goldbergs. Here, raga met Bach and jazz in a heady awakening of sorts. What will Tze and Co think of next?

VENU NADAM: A FESTIVE TRAIL / Vamshika Quintet / Review

 

VENU NADAM: A FESTIVE TRAIL

Vamshika Quintet

The Arts House Chamber

Sunday (18 January 2026)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 20 January 2026 with the title "A celebration of Indian flutes".

Vamshika Quintet is an ensemble, part of the 10-year-old Brahmastra Arts House, that celebrates the culture and sounds of Indian bamboo flutes, the bansuri and venu. Established by Niranjan Pandian, the quintet – also comprising Logindran Govindarasu, Vishnu Veluri, Sabapathy Tirupathi Ramana and Ravindra Kumar – presented a 100-minute concert with seven works showcasing the breadth and depth of these instruments.

There are few sounds as haunting or beautiful as the Indian flute, which has a mellowness in timbre that eludes its Western and Chinese counterparts. When heard as a group of instruments with varying registers, the pleasure is multiplied manifold. To keep the ensemble, backed by violinist Sreeranjani Muthu Subramanian and drummers Lalit Kumar Ganesh (tabla) and Jayagowtham Annadurai (mridangam), in time and rhythm, the works were conducted by the quintet’s visiting mentor from India Vidwan Amith Nadig and Carnatic music veteran Lazar Sebastine.

The evening opened with Sri Muthuswamy Dikshithar’s Vathapi Ganapathim, an invocation to Lord Ganesh often heard as a prelude to temple festivals and ceremonies. Its lively rhythms were captured in solos and in various groupings.

When all five flautists play together, a choral effect is created, as heard in Vidwan’s Dream Garden. While polyphony was not sustained for long, it was the dominant heterophony that created an audible illusion of multiple sonic layers. Modern pop influences were also included in the arrangement to spice up the proceedings.

An interactive element of the concert got the audience to know the players a little better, who used their flutes to answer simple questions like “do you have a favourite flute?” or “what do you think of pineapples on pizzas?” Higher pitched and more florid responses indicated affirmation while lower pitched and falling tones meant “duh”.

SEA Medley sounded distinctly non-Indian because Gu Wei’s arrangement included melodies from Myanmar, Thailand and Singapore. The last was also the most recognisable, not Dick Lee’s Home but Dayong Sampan, celebrated by Leong Yoon Pin and the Chinese song Tian Mi Mi.

Vidwan’s Ragam Tanam Pallavi was the longest work on the programme, first sounding long-breathed and meditative as it evoked wind on the mountains, and later many spots involving improvisation. Carnatic violinist Sreeranjani got the lion’s share, and was justly applauded. The increasingly irregular meters were met with players clapping out rhythms as the music veered to near-intoxication.

After a short break, Pandit Ashwin Sreenivasan’s Panch Prayag resumed the choir-like harmonies from the flutes before breaking out into a raucous dance. In a similar vein, Niranjan’s fast and rhythmic Feathers of Grace evoked the regal strut of a peacock, with hundreds of flickering eyes following suit. Finally, Vidwan’s Thillana In Raga Pantuvarali saw the violin echoing the lowest pitched flute in dialogue, as the music wound its way to a celebratory close.

With such committed advocacy from Vamshika, the complexion of Indian flute playing in Singapore would never be the same again.

Mentor Vidwan Amith Nadig
receives his applause.

STEPHAN'S QUINTET / TO Ensemble / Review

STEPHAN’S QUINTET

TO Ensemble

Esplanade Recital Studio

Friday (2 September 2022)

It has been ages since I attended my last TO Ensemble concert (the pre-Covid era seemed a long time ago), and what a pleasure it was to encounter the group again. As before, its members led by founder-pianist Tze Toh (Toh Tze Chin) continue to delight and surprise. Are they a chamber ensemble, a jazz combo, or a crossover band? In reality, they are all of these, comfortably flitting between these different roles and descriptions, which tend to constrain rather than define. 

Over the years, the group has evolved. Once called TLGO (Tze n Looking Glass Orchestra), it is now TO Ensemble. Once it was the size of a chamber orchestra (sometimes with added voices), the sort that plays concerti grosso, but now it takes the form of a duo, quartet or quintet depending on  programme. Once it accompanied audio-films (short films conceived by Tze, usually with a social message), now it performs near-absolute music with the minimum of extraneous contrivances. What has never changed is the ingenuity and spontaneity that comes with each concert event.

 

The latest show, Stephan’s Quintet, was astronomically inspired, premised upon the stunning visuals seen through the James Webb Space Telescope, and the life-changing findings that will explain the origin of life/existence itself. Mind blowing stuff, and while the music did not intend to encompass all things cosmological, it at least tried to express awe-struck sensations and the wonderment to be had. Its title, referring to the five galaxies viewed from distance, also reflected the five players on stage: founding team Tze (piano/keyboard), Lazar T.Sebastine (Carnatic violin), Dai Da (erhu), Teo Boon Chye (tenor sax), and its newest member Chia Zhe Yin (alto sax).

 

The seven pieces of Tze’s conception were performed with four stunning visuals projected onscreen. Stephan’s Quintet opened with a long piano solo, Debussyan in impressionist hues, as if representing the vast cosmos. Pre-recorded sounds of strings are introduced before Teo’s sax enters followed by Lazar’s violin. What might have sounded incongruous on paper however worked unusually well aurally. A waltz-like rhythm ensued with Chia’s sax adding a further dimension, and a comforting presence.      

 

Chapter Two described Longing, inspired by the vast void that exists between celestial bodies. Lazar’s violin emerged from the emptiness, immersed in a meditation that alternated between G major and minor. Both saxophones came together and their duet continued the reflective reverie. In The Silent Sea, Dai’s erhu stood out, contrasted by Carnatic violin which amongst other things, mimicked the sound of the conch shell.

 

Dance at Star’s Edge was built on the energy of piano ostinatos, from which violin and both saxes extemporised freely. Tze admitted to a nerdy side in Twelve Dimensions, based on his ideas of string theory, which saw a keen dialogue between erhu and sax. In Voyager, recounting the travels of earth’s furthest reaching probe, an upbeat rhythm with gospel and country music style prevailed, this time with sax and violin stealing the show.

 

The final chapter Sky brought all five instrumentalists together, first as mere shards and wisps of sound, seemingly random, heard individually and separately. With the passage of time, they gradually coalesced into one whole, buoyed by a rhythmic driven theme. Like the five galaxies captured in a single image gazillions of miles and millennia away, five players (and worlds) are unified as one, closing in one soothing and comforting nebula in G major. Have we heard the music of the spheres? One just needs to imagine... 

MEMORIES OF 2055 / TO Ensemble / Review

Review: Concert

MEMORIES OF 2055

TO Ensemble
Esplanade Recital Studio

Friday (12 April 2019)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 16 April 2019 with the title "Rapturous sax-playing conjures memories of bygone age".

The year is sometime in a dystopian future. An artificial intelligence consciousness called HAL 2055 presents memories of Earth that transpired before the 2045 cataclysmic event referred to as the Singularity. As end-of-days plots beloved by TO Ensemble go, this one had to be the least convoluted.

Local composer and jazz pianist Tze Toh’s latest conception does away with jaded personalities, decrepit cities, digitally-created audio films and sob stories of past concerts, focusing instead on pure music.

Even his ensemble has been pared down to just five players, a far cry from the more ambitious days of Tze N Looking Glass Orchestra, the ensemble’s former guise. Then, the group had a body of strings, winds, percussion and even Chinese instruments. Now, it is just founding members Toh, Carnatic violinist Lazar T.Sebastine and saxophonist Teo Boon Chye, augmented by soprano Izumi Sado and newcomer violinist Loh Jun Hong of More Than Music fame.

This economy of forces worked well through the concert’s seven movements, titled and untitled. In its opening Awaken / Descend, there was a Debussyan touch when Toh’s piano mused on a series of whole tones, a short prelude before Sebastine’s violin entered with melodies inflected by portamenti (slides). This gave the music an exotic quality going beyond its Indian tuning system.

  

Loh’s Western violin had a more conventional and supporting role but he soon got into the spirit of things. Sado’s wordless melismata was haunting and siren-like, floating effortlessly over rhythmic ostinatos by piano and computer-generated loops. The star of the show had to be Teo’s improvisations on both alto and tenor sax, conjuring reminiscences of a bygone age. This was the rapturous kind of jazz typically inhabiting smoky parlours and joints, rather than spiffy concert halls.

Eschewing the dark-edged and pessimistic tone of TO Ensemble’s previous efforts, the music projected a sense of hope, if anything by recycling nostalgic thoughts. Hence the prominence of memories in the concert’s title. In the movement entitled Memories, a vigorous minimalistic rhythm and frenetic pace dominated, signalling the awakening of myriad senses.

In Child, the Western violin ushered in the Indian violin, forwarding the idea that different children lived separate lives and hence had different memories. For Machine Sunrise, tenor sax and tape provided a dream-like state where the pervasive mood of melancholy ironically drew the loudest applause from the small but clearly-enthralled audience.

Performing for about 55 minutes without an interval, the movements shifted from the darker key of B minor to the sunny G major. With that, the mood also became palpably upbeat. The final two movements played out like a glorious update of the baroque chaconne, an antique dance formed by short variations built over a steady ground bass.

With time to spare, the quintet offered an extended encore – improvised on the spot - clueing the listeners into the finer points of jazz.