NATIONAL DAY CONCERT 2022 / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

NATIONAL DAY CONCERT 2022

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall

Saturday (13 August 2022)

This review was first published in Bachtrack on 15 August 2022 with the title "What is Singapore music? Singapore Symphony’s National Day Concert provides the clues."

 

Ever since 2018, the Singapore Symphony Orchestra’s National Day Concert has become the showcase of music by Singaporean composers. The sixty-four million dollar question inevitably arises: What is Singapore music? This leads to further questions: Who composes Singapore music? What does it sound like?   

 

Antonin Dvorak posed similar questions about American music more than a century ago, sparking a musical revolution that inspired composers like Ives, Gershwin, Copland, Barber, Bernstein and Florence Price. Singapore’s first major post-Colonial post-Independence composer was Leong Yoon Pin (1931-2011), notably a student of Nadia Boulanger. Although Leong’s original music did not feature in this year’s concert, newer generations of composers represented may be considered his spiritual descendants. Led by Grammy-nominated Singaporean conductor Darrell Ang, himself a former student of Leong’s, the music performed was a veritable melting pot of the myriad cultures that make up Singapore society.

Photo: Nathaniel Lim

 

The concert opened with three World Premieres of new commissioned works. Wang Chenwei’s short symphonic poem Thaipusam was inspired by the Tamil (South Indian) Hindu festival day of penitence in honour of deity Lord Murugan. Playing on complex metres and rhythms from Carnatic music, evocative solos for viola and violin lead into a vibrant but sanitised view of the hot and sweaty procession characterised by self-mortification. John Adams goes to Serangoon Road (in Singapore’s Little India) might be an apt description.

Photo: Nathaniel Lim

 

More eclectic was David Loke’s 3 Sketches of Singapore, a modern concerto grosso with the Lorong Boys (“back street boys” in Malay) quintet as soloists. Comprising violinists Gabriel Lee and the composer himself, flautist Rit Xu, percussionist Joachim Lim and pianist Jonathan Shin, this “garage band” of ex-Yong Siew Toh Conservatory students had made its name busking in subway trains. Almost recounting Singapore’s history, its movements include a stormy sea shanty (the nation’s modern founder Stamford Raffles came from the Sceptred Isles, after all), an elegy with a solo from Loke a la John Williams’ Schindler’s List (remembering the genocide of ethnic Chinese perpetrated by the Japanese during WWII) and use of rattling angklungs (bamboo idiophones), before closing with a lively jazz-inflected Raindance.

Lorong Boys take a bow.

 

Niranjan Pandian on the bansuri.

Alicia de Silva’s Echoes of the Woods was the antithesis of Debussy’s Prelude to Afternoon of the Fawn. She painted a balmy night soundscape, resembling Vaughan Williams at his moodiest, before the emergence of Niranjan Pandian’s bansuri (North Indian bamboo flute). Mellow and haunting, its mystique is heightened with cellist Ng Pei Sian’s plaint, the duo completing what was the evening’s most poignant work. The oldest work was Stasis (1988) by the late Tsao Chieh (1953-1996), who made a living as an engineer and defence scientist. Its minimalism was founded on an A minor triad, a gradual crescendo of extreme calm and serenity broken by Evgueni Brokmiller’s flute (resembling the Balinese suling) and concertmaster Kong Zhao Hui’s closing violin solo reminiscent of Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending. The serendipitous symmetry provided by both these two works could not have been more striking.  

Photo: Nathaniel Lim

 

A combined chorus of over a hundred singers from the Singapore Symphony Choruses joined the orchestra for three popular National Day Songs: Lee Chin Sin’s Up (orchestrated by Jaffar Sidek), Benjamin Lim’s Little Big Things (combining two songs, sung in English and Chinese) and Dick Lee’s Home (arranged by Wong Lai Foon, orchestrated by Dax Wilson Liang), the last a sentimental favourite so beloved as to have become a second national anthem. Closing with the national anthem Majulah Singapura (Onward Singapore) by Zubir Said (orchestrated by Leong Yoon Pin) sung in Malay, it felt almost like the Last Night of the Proms, but without the jingoism.

Chorus masters Wong Lai Foon and
Eudenice Palaruan sing the National Anthem.

 

Star Rating: ****

You can watch this concert in its entirety here:

Temasek Foundation SSO National Day Concert 2022 - YouTube

All the performers meet
Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat

The Lorong Boys
with the Loke clan. 

SSO NATIONAL DAY CONCERT / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

SSO NATIONAL DAY CONCERT (ONLINE)

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Sistic Live, from Sunday (29 August 2021)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 1 September 2021 with the title "New local commissions shine in SSO National Day Concert".

 

Singapore Symphony Orchestra’s annual National Day Concert has become the marquee event when Singaporean composers get new works commissioned and performed by the national orchestra. Local works ideally deserve to be heard alongside the likes of Beethoven and Brahms in subscription concerts, but one should nonetheless be grateful for an evening that featured no less than five world premieres.

 

Entitled New Music, New Hopes and hosted by Jason Lai, the orchestra conducted by Joshua Tan opened with Syafiqah ‘Adha Sallehin’s Dengan Semangat Yang Baru (In A New Spirit). With its title coming from Zubir Said’s National Anthem, recognisable motifs from Majulah Singapura and original melodies coalesced into a gratifyingly tonal whole. Its gentle pastoral feel and absence of dissonances or harmonic tensions was telling, as if describing an utopia without personal or societal strife.

 

Jonathan Shin’s Folk Games played on three familiar songs - Rasa Sayang, Singapura and Chan Mali Chan - by finding contrapuntal possibilities and cleverly dressing them in the string garb of Bartok, Shostakovich and the Second Viennese School.  

 

The most modern-sounding work was Koh Cheng Jin’s Luciola singapura, named after a rediscovered local species of firefly. Ingeniously scored by including yangqin, harp, piano, trumpet and multiple percussion instruments, its short duration was made up by a vivid portrayal of bioluminescence, filled with brilliant scintillation and ebullient scherzo-like effects.

 

Yong Kailin was violin soloist in his Raising The Life, a concertante work with cadenza inspired by a haiku he wrote years ago about taking care of one’s roots and later flourishing as a result. The heady music combined multifarious influences, from Chinese, Carnatic, Middle Eastern, American bluegrass, pop and Paganini, reflecting a cosmopolitanism that Singaporeans aspire to.  

 

Film and television composer Jessica Tam’s A Little Trip Down Memory Lane mixed Xinyao songs, Singapore Pie, Moments Of Magic and Singapore Town (with its calypso beat), into a well-tossed rojak. The colourful score not just evoked nostalgia, but also certain pride. The same may also be said about Dick Lee’s iconic song Home, now heard in the orchestrations by Kelly Tang and Bertram Wee.

No National Day event would be complete without it, and coming to the home stretch, Tony Makarome’s Sing Singapore Medley relived best-loved National Day Songs including Stand Up For Singapore, We Are Singapore and Count On Me, Singapore. The last of these achieved certain notoriety after a recent case of intellectual property theft. Face it, these songs are simply irresistible.

 

The obligatory Zubir Said Majulah Singapura received a spiffy new arrangement by Ho Chee Kong. After which, Tanya Chua’s Where I Belong (2001 NDP theme song), arranged by Avik Chari, was performed with vocalists Syakirah Noble and Umar Sirhan, violinist Chloe Chua and the Singapore Symphony Youth Choir, and filmed at iconic locations on the island. Guaranteed to tug on all heart-strings, there will hardly be any dry eyes among the viewers. 

SSO NATIONAL DAY CONCERT / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

SSO NATIONAL DAY CONCERT

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall

Saturday (10 August 2019)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 12 August 2019 with the title "Waving national flags with pride to national songs".

What is Singaporean music? Another facet of this conundrum was revealed in the second of National Day Concerts by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra. Conducted by SSO Associate Conductor Joshua Tan, our music had to do with myriad cultural influences and the creation of “national songs”.

The concert’s first half dealt with Western influences, opening with the world premiere of A.Dietz’s Raffles March, as orchestrated by Bertram Wee. Composed in 1915 and first performed by the Raffles Hotel orchestra in 1922, it was named after the establishment rather than the man who appropriated Singapore for the British crown.

Pompous and blustery, this version with lots of winds and brass is perfectly suited for a grenadier guards band rather than palm court orchestra. Its local counterpart was Tsao Chieh’s March (Colonial Days), the 2^nd movement from his Singapore Suite. The Elgarian intent to evoke once-glorious days of the British Raj was deliberate, but the themes Tsao used were wholly his own.

Kelly Tang’s Montage was a 2010 piano concerto dedicated to and premiered by Singapore’s “King of Swing”, jazz pianist Jeremy Monteiro. Originally for Chinese instruments, this edition for symphony orchestra is Singapore’s answer to Gershwin’s Concerto In F. With plenty of spots to extemporise, Monteiro commanded the keyboard with exuberant sweeps and dizzying fingerwork. Better with every listen, the work also afforded dazzling improvisations for Christy Smith (bass) and Tamagoh (drum), and a plum solo for young saxophonist Samuel Phua.

The second half paid tribute to Singapore’s ethnic diversity and the forging of a national identity. Tony Makarome’s Jewel Of Srivijaya, a double concerto for mridangam (with VM Sai Akileshwar) and tabla (Nawaz Mirajkar), received its world premiere.

The legacy of Temasek, part of the ancient Srivijayan empire through its “discovery” by Sang Nila Utama, was celebrated with a convincing fusion of Indian music (both Carnatic and Hindustani traditions) and Western orchestration. Without missing a beat, complex drumming rhythms were taken in their stride by both soloists, and the orchestra ably kept up through conductor Tan’s animated and tireless direction. 

Master of Ceremonies Khairudin Saharom speaks
with Tony Makarome and his student Lee Jinjun.

Young composer Lee Jinjun was rewarded with two world premieres. The first was Kampong Overture, which cleverly incorporated three Malay songs – Geylang Sipaku Geylang, Lenggang Kangkung and Suriram – in a very effective concert piece written in the style of Dvorak’s symphonic movements and Slavonic Dances. Even a quote from the Largo of Dvorak’s New World Symphony made brief cameo.

His second coup was Our Singapore Dream, a mash-up of National Day Parade Songs – We Are Singapore, Count On Me Singapore, One People. One Nation. One Singapore. – featuring the Singapore Symphony Chorus (Eudenice Palaruan, Chorus Master) and crafted in the English choral tradition of Elgar and Vaughan Williams. Once suspects these two works will be heard rather often from now on.

Conductor Joshua Tan got his national pride from
his grandfather, now 102 years old, who once
volunteered to do National Service at the age of 60!

Nostalgia reigned in Lam Chao Phang’s The Awakening and Tan Kian Chin / Bok Sek Yieng’s Voices From The Heart, theme music both from very popular Chinese television series of the 1980s, and Phoon Yew Tien’s March On, which rehashed National Service songs. By the time the patriotic Believe In Me, Singapore (in Mandarin) was sung, national flags were emerging from the audience’s pockets and waved with unfettered fervour.

It was left to Dick Lee’s ubiquitous Home and Iskandar Ismail’s arrangement of Majulah Singapura, both with jazz singer Joanna Dong at the fore, to elicit an obligatory standing ovation and the communal shedding of tears.

Relive this memorable concert here:

Livestream: Singapore Symphony Orchestra National Day Concert 2019 - YouTube

SSO NATIONAL DAY CONCERT / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

SSO NATIONAL DAY CONCERT

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall

Saturday (11 August 2018)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 14 August 2018 with the title "Something for everyone in concert of Singaporean music".

What is Singaporean music? That question was partially answered in a first-ever National Day Concert by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, led by Singaporean conductor Darrell Ang. In premiering new works and reliving popular tunes, there seemed to be something for everyone this evening. 

Cultural Medallion recipient Kelly Tang's two suites on popular local melodies began each half of the concert. The Symphonic Suite On A Set Of Local Tunes had Home, Chan Mali Chan, Bunga Sayang and Singapore Heartbeat as main themes, with Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and Elmer Bernstein's Magnificent Seven as clever cameos. His Sketches Of Singapore did service to Stand Up For Singapore, Rasa Sayang, Where I Belong and Di Tanjong Katong in the flag-waving Americanised style of John Williams.

It was feel good all the way in the original works, beginning with Syafiqah 'Adha Sallehin's Bidasari, a short work based on the pan-Malayan legend of Syair Bidasari. An orchestration of the main theme from her 2016 choreographed work Ikan Girl, atmospheric piccolo and flute solos backed by lush orchestration suggested this to be the Prelude To The Afternoon Of The Fish.

The Malay and marine setting also dominated Wang Chen Wei The Sisters' Islands, based on another legend. This work sounded even more Indo-Malay with the use of the pelog scale, and had solos from a blown conch shell and ocarina as part of its storytelling. The Vienna-trained Wang's Wagnerian orchestration brought echoes of the Rhine to the Straits of Singapore. 

The longest work was Chen Zhangyi 17-minute-long Violin Concerto entitled Vanda, a tribute to the national flower (Vanda Miss Joachim) and our Garden City. The soloist was London-based Kam Ning who mastered its three movements with her usual easy-going aplomb. The first two botanically-inspired movements were slow, and the fast finale, titled A Renaissance, included a virtuosic jazz-inflected cadenza by Kam herself. Her encore relived the raucous sounds of Chinatown, a Paganinian movement from her father Kam Kee Yong's 1976 sonata Huai Ku.

Xinyao (1980s Singaporean mandarin pop) had a look in with Liang Wern Fook's This Is Singapore Medley orchestrated by Samuel Tan, Its big band arrangement that found an apotheosis in his best-known song Xi Shui Chang Liu. The legacy of Sing Singapore and NDP was revived in Phoon Yew Tien's arrangements of Zubir Said's Semoga Bahagia (May You Achieve Happiness, better known as The Children's Day Song) and S.Jesudassan's Tamil favourite Munnaeru Vaalibaa (Come Forward, Youths!), now joined by the 100-strong combined choirs of the Singapore Symphony group.

It would not be a National Day Concert without Dick Lee's ubiquitous Home, arranged by Tang, and the audience stood up for the national anthem Majulah Singapura by Zubir Said. One senses that this concert has merely scratched the surface of Singaporean music. It is imperative that there will be many more National Day Concerts by the SSO to come in the future.