AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS / New Opera Singapore Gala Dinner 2025

The New Opera Singapore (NOS) annual gala dinner was held on Sunday 16 November 2025, and having missed the previous years' events, there was no chance we would be missing it this year. The Grand Ballroom of the Fullerton Hotel played host to an evening of good music and fine dining by the only opera company in Singapore that receives a major annual grant by the National Arts Council. 

Founded by Korean soprano Jeong AeRee and her husband the cellist-conductor Chan Wei Shing in 2022, NOS celebrates its 14th anniversary this year. Known for its edgy productions that break all rules and pre-conceptions, NOS has been responsible for some of the most memorable opera productions in recent years. Here are some pictures from a scintillating evening.

The NOS Chorus performs the
Bell Chorus from Leoncavallo's I Pagliacci.

NOS Chairman Michael Tay greets one and all.

Appetiser: Sliced scallops.

And the concert begins:
Soprano Kezia Robson and tenor Edward Kim
in the Papa-Papageno duet from Mozart's Magic Flute.
Baritone Martin Ng in Charles Ives' Circus Band.

Tenor Shaun Lee in Licino Refice's Ombra di nube
and Sim Wei Ying in Nicholas Ho's Chicken Rice.

Soprano Lydia Li in Zhai Shui Di Fang
and Kezia Robson in the Drinking Song 
from Offenbach's La Perichole.

Main courses:
Salmon or beef cheek?

Edward Kim's sung Korean is impeccable
while Shaun Lee & Sim Wei Ying
ham it up in the Watch Duet 
from Strauss' Die Fledermaus.

Chan Wei Shing plays a Shepherd Song
while master calligrapher does his work.

The final Champagne Chorus from Die Fledermaus.

Chan Wei Shing plays the
garang (aggressive) auctioneer.

Finally, dessert!

Hobnobbing with the celebs:
Ever the promiscuous chorister, Patricia Teng
sings in every opera chorus.

With Chan Wei Shing and Martin Ng, who has
his own opera company Lirica Arts.

NOS Chairman Michael Tay

NOS Founder & Artistic Director Jeong AeRee.

All the beautiful people
take a final photo for the road.

MOVEMENTS IN TIME: ARTWORKS FROM THE NATIONAL GALLERY / Metropolitan Festival Orchestra / Review

MOVEMENTS IN TIME
ARTWORKS FROM
THE NATIONAL GALLERY
Metropolitan Festival Orchestra
Esplanade Concert Hall
Saturday (24 June 2023)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 26 June 2023 with the title "Kelly Tang's new work lights up classical scene".

It is a well-known fact that Singaporean composers do not often get commissions to write substantial works of music. Other than the Singapore Chinese Orchestra which has an ongoing composer-in-residence programme, no major musical organisations here commissions major new works with any regularity. Token gestures just will not do.  

The Music Commissioning Series
was the brainchild of Michael Tay.

 

This is set to change with the new Music Commissioning Series initiated by the Foundation for The Arts and Social Enterprise founded by Michael Tay, Singapore’s former ambassador to the Russian Federation. The Foundation’s first commission was Movements In Time: Artworks From The National Gallery by Cultural Medallion recipient Kelly Tang. Delayed by the pandemic and hindered by the composer’s debilitating stroke, the work finally received its world premiere by the Metropolitan Festival Orchestra conducted by Chan Tze Law.

Conceived as an orchestral suite of seven movements, the 35-minute work was inspired by artworks including paintings, prints and a sculpture by five Singaporean visual artists. Similarities to Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition were minimal, as Tang’s pieces were more substantial, some of which may be performed as separate works on their own.

 

With the brief opening Fanfare, dominated by brass, Tang crafted something akin to a film theme, quasi-heroic while nailing his colours to the mast. His idiom was highly accessible, slickly crafted but without leaving his comfort zone. The first artwork, The Idealist, was based on Chua Mia Tee’s famous Epic Poem of Malaya (1955), depicting a standing speaker and his rabble-rousing oration. There was a Socialist-Realist feel, predictably patriotic in character about it.

 

Quite different was Mystery, inspired by Simryn Gill’s Standing Still #28 (2000-2003), a chromatogenic print depicting dereliction and urban decay. Its cautiously traipsing steps suggested something sinister afoot, possessing a similar unease as Mahler’s single-movement Piano Quartet. Following a short Interlude was Contemplation, an oasis for strings which reflected upon Eng Tow’s Bowls (1979). This eminently repeatable movement also included a slightly agitated central fugal section before closing with solo trumpet and solace in G major.

 

The most dissonant movement was Enigma, after Han Sai Por’s Extinction Series 12 (2009), with its tension ratcheted to a martial high before a haunting balm with solo flute and harp to conclude. The final Dance, inspired by Voices of the Soul (undated) in batik by Tzee (Sakarsi Said), celebrated with ethnic clapping rhythms which provided for a suitably festive ending. The ensuing ovation also saw its last pages encored by the orchestra.

 

Over the next ten years, it is hoped that the Series sees that rarest of Singapore’s musical entities – the symphony – be further explored. Tan Chan Boon’s six symphonies await to be premiered, while the late Leong Yoon Pin’s two symphonies are ripe for re-assessments. The splendid Metropolitan Festival Orchestra under conductor Chan are just the people to do it.

 

The concert opened with the first recipient of the Foundation’s Prodigy Fund, 11-year-old Mikkel Myer Lee performing a short Chopin programme including the Third Ballade and a selection of Preludes (Op.28). He was excellent. 

This was followed by a documentary film about the recording of Russian composer Vladimir Martynov’s Utopia Symphony (formerly titled Singapore: A Geopolitical Utopia), commissioned by Tay in 2004, by the London Philharmonic Orchestra at London’s Abbey Road Studios in 2019. The classical music scene in Singapore has received the biggest boost in years, and long may this continue

Conductor Chan Tze Law
holds aloft the score of Kelly Tang's
Movements in Time.

VLADIMIR MARTYNOV'S UTOPIA SYMPHONY / Review

VLADIMIR MARTYNOV

Utopia Symphony

LOH JUN HONG, Violin

NEVILLE CREED, Speaker & Chorus Master

London Philharmonic Orchestra & Chorus

VLADIMIR JUROWSKI

LPO 0120 / TT: 47’21”

 

Russian composer Vladimir Martynov’s Utopia Symphony began as a commission in 2004 by Michael Tay, then-ambassador of Singapore to the Russian Federation. Its original title was Singapore: A Geopolitical Utopia, premised upon a week-long visit by the composer and his wife violinist Tatiana Grindenko to the island republic where they experienced the sights, sounds and tastes of the modern Southeast Asian city-state. First performances of Singapore took place in Moscow and Singapore in 2005, the latter involving the Singapore Symphony Orchestra conducted by Lim Yau at Espanade Concert Hall.

Vladimir Martynov and Tatiana Grindenko.

 

The 2020 iteration of the work has less to do with geography or politics but rather the pursuit of a universal and ideal state of mind. Its new title Utopia does away with the somewhat cumbersome Singapore tagline,  focusing instead on what nation states and governments dream about, which is to create the ideal environment for their citizens and residents to inhabit.

 

Form wise, the two-movement choral symphony remains unchanged, except for a revision in libretto. The chants of “Singapore!” in the first part have been replaced by “Sky and Earth”, in an English translation of verses from Lao Tzu’s Tao De Jing (The Way of Tao). The Russian texts describing Singapore’s geography and national flag (from the Great Soviet Encyclopaedia) have also been expunged, in its place more verses from Tao De Jing.

The two Vladimirs, Jurowski & Martynov.

 

The 47-minute symphony is symmetrically split into two vastly different halves, as if representing the yin and yang. The first is minimalist, repetitive and kinetic, with rhythmic clapping and resonant chants. The music is reminiscent of Stravinsky’s primalism, contemporary American composer John Adams’ minimalism and at certain points, pop and rock influences heard in Leonard Bernstein’s Mass. 

I remember hearing a recording of this segment accompanying moving images at the glass rotunda of the Singapore History Museum, suitably depicting the 24/7 hyperactivity and exuberance of modern Singapore. The Tao De Jing texts extol the virtues of a small nation state, loving one’s own community and the exhortation of people to “not visit each other until old age itself and death,” (as mouthed by speaker Neville Creed), the last seemingly prescient words given this Covid-19 global pandemic.    

    

The second part is a portrait of serenity and blissful repose. The chorus now channels the Russian Orthodox Church as its source of inspiration, rich and sumptuous are the harmonies. Here Martynov also quotes one of his favourite composers, Robert Schumann. The theme from the opening movement of Kinderszenen (Scenes From Childhood), Von fremden Länden und Menschen (Of Foreign Lands and Peoples), is heard on the piano verbatim and barely disguised. 

Less obvious is the quote from Beethoven’s song cycle An die Ferne Geliebte (To The Distant Beloved) which was in turn used in Schumann’s Fantasy in C major (Op.17). By now, the themes of love and curiosity of faraway lands become apparent. Add the entry of young Singaporean violinist Loh Jun Hong’s tender solo (performed by Grindenko aka Mrs Martynov in the premieres) and a chorus singing a hymn befitting any National Day Parade, all of which are congruent with the notion of a paradise on earth. So is this the essence of Utopia?

Singaporean violinist Loh Jun Hong
played the solos in Part II of Utopia.

 

The excellent and committed performance by the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus under Vladimir Jurowski is vividly captured in excellent sound on the LPO’s own label. Without quoting a single Malay, Chinese, Indian or Singaporean melody, Vladimir Martynov’s Utopia may just be the truly quintessential Singaporean symphony.  

Utopia was the brainchild of
Michael Tay, former Ambassador
of Singapore to the Russian Federation. 

You can hear Martynov's Utopia here: 

Utopia Symphony: Part I - YouTube

Utopia Symphony: Part II - YouTube

Now contrast this with the original version of the work, titled Singapore: A Geopolitical Utopia:

Vladimir Martynov - Singapore - premiere in Moscow - YouTube