FIREBIRD: 25TH ANNIVERSARY GALA CONCERT / Philharmonic Wind Orchestra / Review

FIREBIRD:
25TH ANNIVERSARY GALA CONCERT

Philharmonic Wind Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall

Sunday (9 November 2025)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 11 November 2025 with the title "Landmark works of Philharmonic Wind Orchestra's 25th anniversary".

The Philharmonic Wind Orchestra (PWO), formerly known as The Philharmonic Winds, celebrated its 25th anniversary as the nation’s leading wind band with a concert of landmark works performed during the course of its illustrious history. Conducted by Leonard Tan, who also served as an engaging host, the concert was a showcase of the orchestra’s prowess in a variety of virtuoso repertoire.

Opening the evening was late Singaporean composer Leong Yoon Pin’s own wind arrangement of Giocoso Largamente from his Second Symphony (1979). Influenced by Tang dynasty poet Li Bai’s words on the duality of life, its alternating fast and slow sections reflected conflicting emotions of happiness and sorrow. Its distinctly Chinese musical idiom and use of percussion felt close to home, also matched by the warm sonority coaxed from the players.

PWO’s biggest coup was its 2015 premiere of Spanish composer-conductor Luis Serrano Alarcon’s epic triptych Marco Polo. An ambitious programme symphony, its three parts followed the Venetian’s journey from West to East, and back. Its first part, The Silk Road, began with him as a jailbird, recounting travels through exotic lands with perils ahead to be faced. The scoring for massive forces included traditional instruments such as the oud (Middle Eastern lute), hulusi (gourd flute), Tibetan singing bowls and a host of Eastern reeds.

Concertmaster Ralph Emmanuel Lim
performed on the duduki while guest performer
Boo Chin Kiah played a hulusi.

Getting the colours right was key, and so was the musical story-telling with Marco Polo represented by a leitmotif first heard on Kartik Alan Jairamin’s French horn. By the time he arrived at the gates of Cambaluc (Beijing today), one had gone through a journey of musical discovery. This is what symphonies such as this were meant to do.

After the intermission, French composer Florent Schmitt’s Dionysiaques, composed in 1913 but premiered in 1925, was heard to brilliant effect. Considered the first true modern classic written for wind orchestra, its opening was redolent of Debussy’s Impressionism, and the Bacchanalian dance that followed rivalled the orgiastic writhings of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring.

Albert Oliver Davis’ arrangement of Richard Strauss’ song Allerseelen (All Souls’ Day) was significant for being the first work PWO performed on its first overseas concert. Its lyrical lines, building to a passionate climax, was accompanied by old photographs and footage from the orchestra’s early years. Nostalgia indeed.

The evening closed with Igor Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite (1919) in a virtuoso orchestration by Randy Earles. Following the exact same storyline of the original, winds and brass took the place of ethereal string effects – not an easy task – but by dint of sheer grit, succeeded. Even the jump scare provided by King Kashchei’s Infernal Dance following the Khorovod (Round Dance) was there, all thanks to an alert bass drummer.

Emerald Tan’s lovely bassoon provided the soothing balm to the Berceuse (Lullaby) before the magnificent crescendo that is the grand Finale. With the evil spell broken and the captives released, the resounding close was symbolic of PWO’s past quarter-century. With hard graft comes just reward.

MARCO POLO: THE TRILOGY / The Philharmonic Winds / Review

MARCO POLO: THE TRILOGY

The Philharmonic Winds

Esplanade Concert Hall

Sunday (21 June 2015)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 23 June 2015 with the title "Philharmonic tells Marco Polo story vividly in music".

For The Philharmonic Winds' 15^th anniversary gala concert, Singapore's busiest wind orchestra made its mark with the World Premiere of Spanish composer-conductor Luis Serrano Alarcon's Marco Polo: The Trilogy. This is a symphonic masterpiece of programme music in three parts, which like the Venetian explorer-adventurer that inspired it, bridged the divide between the West and the East.

Given the massive task at hand, each part was conducted by a different conductor, personalities who have been closely associated with the orchestra over the years. Its Music Director Leonard Tan directed the opening third The Silk Road, which was also the most exotic. The narrative opened loudly and dissonantly in Genoa of 1298, where Polo was imprisoned and had related his travels to amanuensis Rusticello.

Alarcon does not tarry, and the journey through Asia Minor and Central Asia introduced instruments like the flute-like shvi, oboe-like duduk, and Irfan Rais in the tar, a Middle-Eastern strummed lute. A fast sinuous Armenian dance and a merchant's plaint soon gave way to the drugged spell of the “hashashins”, the world's first assassins (who were high on hashish), with harmonics created by the circular stroking of Tibetan prayer bowls.

A stampede of Mongolian cavalry by percussion in crescendo heralded a greeting by the gourd-like blown hulusi as Polo arrived at the Yellow River, and ushered into ancient Cambaluc (Beijing today) amidst the sound of fireworks. He and his party were supposedly the first Westerners to enter China, and The Cathay Years, the central part of the trilogy conducted by Principal Guest Conductor Timothy Reynish, was arguably the most colourful.

Here, six members of Ding Yi Music Company took centrestage, with exquisite solos from Lim Kwuan Boon's erhu and Tan Qing Lun's dizis, backed by sheng and three suonas. The Vocal Associates Festival Chorus provided a further dimension of sound with its wordless voices. The court of Kublai Khan, all pomp and ceremony, was ample reason for a giddying surfeit of chinoiserie that would have pleased the likes of Puccini and Busoni.

The tingling bells of Mien (Myanmar today) and evocation of New Year festivities with the orchestra in splashy full throttle provided a rowdy end for the concert's first half. Each part of the trilogy played for half an hour, and the finale The Book Of India, conducted by Alarcon himself, proved to be the most spiritual third of the show.

Han Lei's long and elaborate guanzi solo bade Polo farewell, and after a torrential monsoon which caused Polo who was escorting Princess Cocochin to seek refuge in Sumatra, he arrived in Ceylon, an ancient seat of Buddhism. Flute and oboe solos, followed by chanting from male voices of the Chorus at the Second Circle filled the air as he scaled the sacred Adam's Peak. The Indian segment comprised a raga wonderfully performed by Krsna Tan (sitar), Govin Tan (tabla) and Irfan Rais (tampura), which was almost improvisatory in its utter spontaniety, with its themes echoed by the orchestra.

All too soon, Polo was back in Venice with the bells of San Marco pealing and a return to his cell in Genoa, coming a full circle after over ninety minutes of music. His message, “I did not tell half of what I saw” summed up his escapades as the epic closed on a reassuring F major chord.

Similarly this short review scarcely does justice to the unstinting efforts of the players of The Philharmonic Winds who gave a most vividly portrayal of story-telling in music, lacking neither in passion nor detail in making the massive work both coherent and relevant. This was one wind concert that will stick in the mind for a long time to come.        

All three conductors receive their accolades.

The composer addresses the audience
and thanks all the performers.

RAICES / The Philharmonic Winds / Review

RAICES / The Philharmonic Winds
Esplanade Concert Hall
Monday (30 April 2012)



An edited version of this review was published in The Straits Times on 2 May 2012 with the title "Winds soar with Spanish roots".

Raíces is the Spanish word for roots or origins, the premise being that Ibero-American songs, dance rhythms and their forebears provided the link to all the works in this exciting programme conducted by the Spanish composer-conductor Luis Serrano Alarcon. It was thus no coincidence to hear a second performance of Argentine Alberto Ginastera’s Estancia Suite within ten days.

Like the earlier reading by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra conducted by a Venezuelan, The Philharmonic Winds’ version was a rowdy affair driven by percussive beats. The major difference was with the absence of strings, the reedy and brassy sound in Alarcon’s orchestration provided a more hard-edged and raucous feel to the four dances. Despite some idiomatic solo flute playing, only a sense of intimacy was found wanting in the tender Danza del Trigo (Wheat Dance).

In Alarcon’s own Duende (a term connoting inspiration), four preludes also based on dances saw the art form elevated to one where individual prowess was highlighted alongside ensemble playing. With electric guitar, bass and piano supporting the orchestra, the lines between folk, jazz and popular music became blurred. A rambunctious Tempo de Buleria, reminiscent of Copland and Bernstein, closed with the infectiously rhythmic clapping of hands.   

The evening’s highlight was Alarcon’s Concertango, a three movement virtuoso concerto featuring American Chinese saxophonist Kenneth Tse (left) as soloist. Emerging from the wings after the music had begun, Tse’s full-bodied sound was a joy to behold. His control, from the softest of tonal caresses to the most penetrating of fortissimos, not to mention his ability to tango and swing with utmost liberty, was awe-inspiring.    

The winds supported him admirably, oozing nostalgia in the slow milonga and then letting rip with precision in the frenetic fugal finale. With multiple contrapuntal lines flying, it was a marvel how the whole Molto Allegro was so tightly held together. This same commitment was applied to the Mexican Arturo Marquez’s popular showpiece Danzon No.2, a gradual crescendo that was ratcheted to the full-blown dazzler of a close.

With spirits aloft, two further encores, Astor Piazzolla’s sassy Libertango and Costa Rican Victor Hugo Berrocal’s carnival-like Mambo de la Big Big Big, brought down the house. Whoever said one cannot have too much of a good thing?

MARCO POLO: THE CATHAY YEARS / The Philharmonic Winds / Review

MARCO POLO: THE CATHAY YEARS
The Philharmonic Winds 

Esplanade Concert Hall

Sunday (26 June 2011)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 28 June 2011 with the title "Oriental touch for Spanish trilogy".

The title of this concert refers to the second part of an on-going wind orchestra trilogy by Spanish composer Luis Serrano Alarcon (below). Commissioned by The Philharmonic Winds, the 20-minute work received its World Premiere conducted by America-based Singaporean conductor Leonard Tan. Written in the form of a four-movement symphony, it was more like a huge concerto grosso graced by a sextet of Chinese instruments from the Ding Yi Music Company as soloists.

The Oriental feel in the music was immediately palpable, skilfully enacted by a master colourist and orchestrator. This was achieved without quoting actual Chinese melodies, but by the deft use of the pentatonic scale and modes, much like the atmospheric scenes created in Turandot by Puccini. The exoticism, ceremonial rites and visions of the Far East came through so winningly that one almost forgot that Marco Polo and the composer were in fact Mediterranean in origin.

Make belief is as much part of the equation, as the sheer quality of the delivery, confident and always responsive, belied the fact that most of the young players were non-professional. Such was the thread running through the whole concert, which will be repeated in the World Association for Symphonic Bands and Ensembles (WASBE) conference in Taiwan next month.

Equally trenchant was the razor-sharp accompaniment provided by a chamber sized ensemble for Japanese trombonist Ko-ichiro Yamamoto in John Mackey’s Harvest. The three-movement concerto brought out an arsenal of trombone tricks in a quasi-jazzy idiom that shifted ever so naturally from quiet whisper to irrepressible Dionysian revelry.

Three other works in the showcase were performed recently by the ensemble, but it was good to make their re-acquaintance, in particular Singaporean Wong Kah Chun’s Krakatoa, a tone poem of seismic proportions that moved from gamelan sounds to an outright riot of volcanic energy. Here is a striking young talent who will go far. Percy Grainger’s Marching Song of Democracy opened the concert on a burnished high.

The Philharmonic Winds also proved its mettle in music of a more austere nature, and that does not come more spikily than Adam Gorb’s Farewell, which pitted two ensembles of opposing instrumental colours before closing in a clarinet and oboe duel-duet. Led with authority by renowned wind band maestro Timothy Reynish (left), who premiered the work in 2008, it was ample proof that wind performance had come of age in Singapore.

SPANISH FANTASIA by The Philharmonic Winds / Review

SPANISH FANTASIA
The Philharmonic Winds
Luis Serrano Alarcon, Conductor
Esplanade Concert Hall
Sunday (6 September 2009)

An edited version of this review was published in The Straits Times on 8 September 2009.

Concerts by The Philharmonic Winds are always well subscribed, regardless of the programme or composers presented. Thus it was no great surprise that a concert of works by a young Spanish composer-conductor Luis Serrano Alarcon (below) proved to be a popular hit. Alarcon’s Concertango had been very well received at a previous concert by this group.

The key to Alarcon’s appeal is in his ability to orchestrate a sound that is commercial yet not low brow, one exploiting colours and emotions to excellent effect. His Pequena Suite (Little Suite) was ample proof. By accentuating the brilliant and parodying the grotesque, its four movements evocatively conjured fantasy scenarios and went down easily like a Disney film score. Its bittersweet Vals (Waltz) was reminiscent of similar dance movements from Shostakovich's two Jazz Suites.

His Tramonto (Sunset) for solo cello and winds breathed like a concerto slow movement, its epic and tragic quality unfolding like something Yo-Yo Ma might play in the movies. In this case, Yong Siew Toh Conservatory cello professor Qin Li-Wei (left) coaxed a full-throated plaint from this tear-jerker, and there was never a fear he would be drowned out. His scintillating encore, Alone by Italian Giovanni Sollima, completed a virtuoso trip.

Alarcon also displayed more serious sides to his work. A metronome and massed voices from the band opened De Tiempo y Quimera (Time and Illusion), the most abstract work on show, which showcased fine solos from the flute and vibraphone.

The seven continuous movements of Memorias de un hombre de ciudad (Memoirs of a City Man) were however more down to earth, a brutal portrayal of urban life as some jungle or war-zone. Its mind numbing ostinatos, a “toccata of toil”, brought to mind some of the best pages from Stravinsky and Revueltas. As a contrast, the sultry saxophone provided an illusory relief of high hopes and aspirations.

Spanish folk music closed the evening, with band treatments by Alarcon and Geronimo Gimenez of the pasodoble (a march-like dance in double step) and zarzuela (light musical theatre) respectively. There were no voices in the latter, but a mélange of popular melodies, from the Malaguena to the Jota Aragonesa. With hand-clapping and foot-stamping stuff right to the end, and it was difficult to distinguish which had a better time: the wind players or the audience.