RE:SOUND 10TH ANNIVERSARY / BRADDELL HEIGHTS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA 40TH ANNIVERSARY GALA CONCERTS / Review

 

10TH ANNIVERSARY GALA CONCERT

re:Sound

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Concert Hall

Saturday (29 August 2026)

40TH ANNIVERSARY GALA CONCERT

Braddell Heights Symphony Orchestra

Victoria Concert Hall

Sunday (30 August 2026)

This review was published by The Straits Times on 1 September 2026 with the title "re:Sound and Braddell Heights Symphony Orchestra's anniversary galas prove diversity of classical scene".

Over last weekend, three local musical ensembles marked their respective anniversaries with a gala concert each. These were Red Dot Baroque (8th), re:Sound Collective (10th) and Braddell Heights Symphony Orchestra (40th). By actively programming local composers, the latter two groups have helped shape the concert repertoire enjoyed in Singapore today.

Photo: @Joelcaptures

Singapore’s first professional chamber orchestra re:Sound opened accounts with J.S.Bach’s Violin Concerto in A minor (BWV.1041), showcasing 13-year-old Chua Suen Ern in an exacting solo role. With spotless intonation and technique as natural as breathing, she blended seamlessly with players double to quadruple her age. A very bright future beckons.

Photo: @Joelcaptures

Warmth and lushness of re:Sound’s strings were caught in full bloom with harpist Charmaine Teo for the Adagietto from Gustav Mahler’s Fifth Symphony. Led by violinist Yang Shuxiang, this love letter to Mahler’s wife Alma felt right at 10 minutes, its passionate climax coming at just the perfect moment.

Receiving its world premiere was Germaine Goh’s Sleepless In Singapore, a re:Sound commission. A suite for chamber orchestra, it played like a 21st century concerto grosso in four movements. Between Concrete and Sky evoked dawn in Little India with use of raga scales. Through Windows recounted a frenetic pace of traffic (and life) with the added impetus of pelting rain.

Highly effective scoring included solos for clarinet and soprano saxophone (Ralph Lim), French horn (Alan Kartik) and bassoon (Lim Tee Heong), the latter starring in its slow movement Sleepless, mimicking the call of a nightjar. The finale Tomorrow, Again combined Malay percussive beats with John Adams-styled minimalism for an excitingly manic conclusion.

Photo: @Joelcaptures

The concert’s main work was Ludwig van Beethoven Fifth Symphony in C minor (Op.67) guest-led by Ohio-based Jonathan Ong, first violinist of the Verona Quartet. Although not performing on period instruments, the ensemble adopted the spirit of early 19th century’s “age of enlightenment”.

Photo: @Joelcaptures

Lithe textures and swift tempos did not translate into thin wispy sounds, instead gained an edginess that kept listeners engaged on the edge of their seats. The use of natural horns (without valves) and calfskin timpani heads were added points of authenticity. For an old familiar favourite to sound this refreshing and revitalised is exactly why re:Sound exists.

Braddell Heights Symphony Orchestra (BHSO), Singapore’s oldest community orchestra, was led by Leonard Tan in an unusually creative programme. It opened with the winner of a call-for-scores, Seem Jia Ang’s The Journey Ahead. Within a single minute, a flute solo expanded into something with cinematic aspirations but ended as soon as it began, leaving one guessing myriad possibilities for development.

Tan Chan Boon’s In Memory of Franz Schubert (1997) was built on two motifs from the slow movement of the Austrian composer’s “Unfinished” Eighth Symphony. First heard as fragments, these coalesced into actual quotations before launching into an inevitable fugue. The orchestra’s masterful handling of its scholarly discourse was admirable.

Even more impressive was its partnership with Cheong Kah Yiong, founding member of Morse Percussion, in Chinese-American composer Chen Yi’s Percussion Concerto (1998). A solo tour-de-force premiered here by renowned Scottish percussionist Evelyn Glennie and the Singapore Symphony in 1999, Cheong headily relived all its dynamic moments on gongs, drums and xylophones.

In the central movement Prelude To Water Tune, vocal recitation of Beijing Opera was where Cheong had the advantage of language and fine auditory nuances. The rapid-fire Speedy Wind finale drew the longest and loudest ovation of all soloists who have played with the orchestra.

BHSO literally pulled all the stops for Camille Saint-Saens’ Third Symphony in C minor, popularly known as the “Organ” Symphony, in a performance that lacked nothing in full-blooded passion and visual spectacle. On Victoria Concert Hall’s Klais organ, Loraine Muthiah did the honours, in the hymn-like slow movement and the grandstanding finale which unleashed voice and vibration to spine-chilling effect.

Professional or volunteer, long may communal music-making in Singapore thrive.

Jeremy Monteiro's very detailed personal account of the re:Sound concert:

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HALLOWEEN AT VICTORIA CONCERT HALL

HALLOWEEN NIGHT

LORAINE MUTHIAH, Organ

Victoria Concert Hall

Sunday (30 October 2022)

 

It was a sold-out concert on Sunday afternoon, and there was a crush to get into Victoria Concert Hall. The long queue that snaked outside all through The Arts House porch was mostly to see Shen the Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton (to be auctioned by Christie’s), and it seemed appropriate given this was the day before Halloween. I was fortunate to get a seat through jazz pianist Tze Toh, who has a new composition premiered by his NUS Piano Ensemble alumnus-colleague and organist Loraine Muthiah at this Halloween-themed organ recital.

Shen, the T.rex skeleton
will be sold to the highest bidder,
and probably end up in Dubai!

 

All such recitals on The Old Vic's Klais Organ must begin with J.S.Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor. There is really nothing scary about this work, except for its frequent associations with ghoulish organist-characters playing in supposedly haunted houses. Do all haunted houses have pipe organs? It’s all a movie cliche, which Victoria Concert Hall Presents series perpetrates with its visually appealing and credible son et lumiere show this afternoon. Loraine is certainly a fine performer, one who has the chops for this music, which continued into Henri Mulet’s Chapelle de morts and Louis Vierne’s Gargoyles and Chimerae.

 

There isn’t anything particularly haunting about the Mulet other than a plodding beat leading into the catacombs, while the frequent change of registers and dynamics in the Vierne had a kind of dissonance which was intermittently disconcerting to say the least. Christopher Brown’s Nocturne is an effective night piece but nowhere as skin-crawling as Bartok’s patented night music. An organ transcription of his Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta would really work in this context.

 

Rumour has it that Victoria Concert Hall is still occupied by spectral beings, even after its major renovation. One must not forget that it was once used as a hospital during World War II, and several Japanese officers and administrators were sentenced to death in the tribunals, and the late Lee Kuan Yew’s inauguration of his People’s Action Party took place at this very venue. I have not personally witnessed any paranormal aberrations other than zombie automatons trying to prevent human beings from taking photographs in concerts. 

 

Perhaps the most interesting diversion was provided by Tze’s Enemy Mine, which had nifty effects of an alien’s heavy breathing and possible spaceship sounds. His alien creature is supposedly hideous-looking but as the work progressed on its syncopated, rhythmic and tango-inspired path, it began to metamorphose and normalise in appearance. At the end, it looks like one of us.

 

Closing the concert was a staple of pipe organists, all four movements of Leon Boellmann’s Suite Gothique. Its imposing opening movement made a hugh roar, contrasted by the quieter central movements. Stealing the show was its Toccata finale, and has anybody noticed that its main melody is the same as the Malay song Di Tanjung Katong but in a minor key? Needless to say, it provided a sangat baik close to an interesting and involving recital.

Loraine Muthiah, Tze Toh
and some Halloween guests.

 

Some people really dressed the part.

On a more sombre note, we offer heartfelt condolences to the families who lost loved ones at the Halloween weekend disaster in Itaewon, Seoul the night before. Nothing can replace their loss, and we can only hope that time heals wounds, and such tragedies should never happen again.