A PHILHARMONIC NEW YEAR'S EVE 2025 GALA CONCERT / The Philharmonic Orchestra / Review

 

A PHILHARMONIC 

NEW YEAR’S EVE 2025 GALA CONCERT 

The Philharmonic Orchestra 

Victoria Concert Hall 

Tuesday (31 December 2024)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 2 January 2025 with the title "Philharmonic Orchestra's spirited New Year's Eve concert of dance favourites".

Since 2011, the last concert of the calendar year is the reserve of The Philharmonic Orchestra (TPO), which just performed its thirteenth edition of the New Year’s Eve Gala Concert. Conducted by Lin Juan, this year’s dance-themed programme of popular lollipops harks back to Singapore Symphony Orchestra’s Familiar Favourites concerts of old conducted by his father Lim Yau. 

Lim Junior is very much is own man, and so was Johann Strauss the Younger, whose Overture to the operetta Die Fledermaus opened the evening. Its new year’s eve ball setting of sly pranks and champagne was wholly apt, but it took the brass some time to warm up. Before long, the band was up and running, filled with the high spirits to uncork the bubbly. 

Photo: Andrew Bi Photography

Next came another ballroom hit, the Polonaise from Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s opera Eugene Onegin. The opening unison brass fanfare was spot on, and the regal rhythm of Polish nobility very well judged as to make this the most polished performance (pun intended) of the evening. 

Everybody thinks they know Jacques Offenbach’s Overture to Orpheus in the Underworld, but that is limited to just the last two minutes, the ubiquitous high-kicking Cancan. But what about all the music before that? 

A wealth of detail was revealed, including sumptuous solos from concertmaster Wilford Goh’s violin and clarinettist Benjamin Wong. And has anyone noticed that a repeated oboe motif shares the same notes as the introduction of Zubir Said’s Majulah Singapura? A pure coincidence, of course. 

After an intermission in which the audience had a boost of alcohol, Johannes Brahms’ rambunctious Hungarian Dance No.6 got the feet tapping once more. The slow opening section had some hesitant playing but the fast bits were tautly driven and exciting in delivery. 

And who was not waiting for that sine qua non of Viennese waltz classics, Strauss’ On The Beautiful Blue Danube? The most difficult part, its slow introduction, was atmospheric with a quartet of French horns acquitting themselves well, before the delicious lilt of three-quarter time taking over. When one imagines being transported to Stadt Park, Prater or Schonbrunn, the musicians are doing something right. 

Photo: Andrew Bi Photography

Closing the concert was Soviet-era Armenian composer Aram Khachaturian’s five-movement Masquerade Suite, popular for its circus-like feel and gorgeous melodies. It does not come more populist than the rousing Waltz, with its oom-pah-pah rhythm nailed down with authority. 

Far more subtle was the Nocturne, with Goh’s violin solo alternating between sinuous and sensuous. A light-hearted Mazurka, sublime Romance (with Muhd Raimi’s lovely trumpet solo) and uproarious Galop brought out the cheers. 

Conductor Lin Juan gets the 
audience to clap and to stop.

As per Vienna Philhamonic tradition, Johann Strauss the Elder’s Radetzky March, with synchronised clapping from the audience, had to be performed. The obligatory balloon drop - to bid the old year farewell and greet the new - has now become de rigeuer in TPO concerts. That, we can proudly claim to be Singaporean.

Photo: Andrew Bi Photography

Here's wishing one and all 

a happy and fulfilling 2025!

Pyrotechnics over the Bay
to usher in 2025.

NEW YEAR'S EVE GALA CONCERT / The Philharmonic Orchestra / Review

NEW YEAR’S EVE GALA CONCERT 2014

The Philharmonic Orchestra

School of the Arts Concert Hall

Tuesday (31 December 2013)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 2 January 2013 with the title "Good start for music in new year".

Call it what you want, it was the last concert of the year 2013 or the first concert of 2014. For The Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Lim Yau, this was its third edition of what appears to be hopefully an enduring tradition. Vienna has its New Year’s Day Concert and London boasts of The Last Night of the Proms, so why not a Singaporean New Year’s Eve Concert including a countdown in the absence of Gurmit Singh?

Dvorak’s Carnival Overture began the concert on a rousing high, enveloping the generously filled and reverberant hall with a sonorous lustre. There was a delicious violin solo by concertmaster Loh Jun Hong which rose magically above the hubbub of the music’s general busyness.

There was even time to include a symphony, and it was American Don Gillis’s Symphony No.5 ½, or Symphony for Fun, one stocking-filled with musical in-jokes and gags. The warm brass chorale and Veda Lin’s lovely cor anglais solo at the beginning of the slow movement Spiritual? were an obvious dig at the Largo from Dvorak’s New World Symphony.  

The final two movements swung from serious Italian opera to jazz (the 3^rd movement was titled Scherzophrenia) in the company of excellent clarinettist Ralph Emmanuel Lim, and the wild conclusion mashed the gaiety of Stravinsky’s Petrushka with a Coplandesque hoedown. Good humour went into full swing when conductor Lim ordered the audience to get up and shake, rattle and roll to the traditional Cuban Peanut Vendor’s Song.   

Two vocal items also proved a hit, when sopranos Yin Yue and Su Yiwen blended beautifully in the Flower Duet from Delibes’s opera Lakmé, which will forever be remembered as that British Airways commercial. Su also warmed up to the dazzling coloratura flourishes of Johann Strauss the Younger’s Voices Of Spring, comfortably rising above the orchestra’s beat.

Two familiar but contrasting waltzes, Strauss’s On The Beautiful Blue Danube and Sibelius’s bittersweet Valse Triste, gave listeners opportunities to revel and reflect on the past year, while looking forward to the new one. The bubbly emcee Andrew Mowatt asked audience members for their new year resolutions, while his should be not to refer to his employers The Philharmonic Orchestra as the Singapore Philharmonic Orchestra, a defunct outfit from the 1970s.

The countdown played out magnificently to the striding rhythm from Respighi’s Pines of The Appian Way (from The Pines of Rome), representing the inexorably march of time. Amid handshakes, hugs and hurrahs, Strauss The Elder’s Radetzky March accompanied a clap-along and hands were held for a nostalgic rendering of Auld Lang Syne. All these portend for a good year of music in 2014.

    

All photographs by the kind permission of The Philharmonic Orchestra.

THE PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA'S NEW YEAR'S EVE CONCERT

If you fancy the idea of spending the new year countdown with family, friends and good music, you should not miss the New Year's Eve Concert with The Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Lim Yau. PIANOMANIA speaks with Veda Lin and Ruth Rodrigues of The Philharmonic Orchestra to get a lowdown on this annual fixture. 

NEW YEAR'S EVE CONCERT

by The Philharmonic Orchestra

conducted by Lim Yau

Place: SOTA Concert Hall

Date: Tuesday, 31st December 2013

Time: 10 pm

Limited tickets still available

Vienna has its New Year’s Day Concert, while London has its Last Night of the Proms. The Philharmonic Orchestra in Singapore has started a little tradition of its own with its third New Year’s Eve Concert to be held on 31 December 2013. Was it a conscious effort to create something unique, like a Singaporean answer to those venerated institutions?

The idea for a New Year's Eve (NYE) Gala Concert certainly came from those traditions already established in Europe and Japan - some of our organising committee who have personally experienced these performances either as performers or audience overseas were eager to see if such a concert experience would catch on in Singapore. Sold-out concerts for the past two years told us that it certainly did!

What stands out in TPO's NYE Gala Concert is that, as well as being joined by a host who will take the audience through the evening's proceedings, this is also the first such countdown concert in Singapore and elsewhere (that we are aware of). As such the concert begins at 10pm, and everyone will usher in the New Year together at midnight!

What sort of works gets programmed in the New Year’s Eve Concert?

Apart from festive fare like Dvorak's Carnival Overture, familiar favourites like Johann Strauss Junior's On the Beautiful Blue Danube and Voices of Spring (featuring soprano Su Yiwen), and the wistful and nostalgic Valse Triste by Sibelius, we will also play Don Gillis' Symphony No. 5½ (A Symphony for Fun), a boisterous, light work that we hope audiences new to classical music concerts will enjoy.

What is the special significance of The Pines of the Appian Way from Respighi’s Pines of Rome, which is the work that greets the New Year on the stroke of midnight?

It’s the perfect piece of music for that final moment of the concert (and for the year) with it’s gradual unfolding nature and steady marching pulse. The brass fanfares that culminates at the end of this five-minute movement ends the year on an uplifting high.

How do the musicians of TPO respond to this concert, when some might feel that the place to be is at home with their families? Do their family members come to this concert?

TPO musicians who have joined us in each instalment of the NYE Gala Concert have found it a unique and meaningful chance to spend the special first moments of the New Year making music with friends. Because the concert programme is enjoyable for all - the young and old, instrument-toting friends and new concert-goers alike - family and friends of our musicians often join in the celebrations in the audience.

Why is this year’s concert special?

After a year performing seminal works in the orchestral repertory - Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring and Brahms’ complete symphonies - this concert tickles the fancies of TPO’s fun side. We will be letting our hair down with pieces like Don Gillis’ Symphony No. 5½ (A Symphony for Fun) and samba-ing our way through a traditional Cuban pregon (street song), The Peanut Vendor Song. We will also be joined by sopranos Su Yiwen and Yin Yue, who will sing the Flower Duet from Delibe’s Lakme. Our selection of music for this year is especially varied - it will be an ‘international buffet’ featuring composers from Prague, France, Vienna, America and Cuba!

Could you describe the experience to be at the New Year’s Eve Concert?

The NYE Gala Concert is one that combines music and festivity. The countdown will undoubtedly be the unforgettable highlight of the concert. As we welcome 2014 with the final chord of The Pines of the Appian Way, the festive atmosphere will be out-of-this-world. There’s nothing like being in the concert hall at that moment and experiencing the joy and excitement of performers and audience alike - so come join us!

Aside from this, the concert is simply a great opportunity to celebrate the last day of the year with friends. Audience members can look forward to an evening of light-hearted music and mixing with friends over a complimentary glass of champagne during the intermission.

Concert photographs by Andrew Bi Photography.