A MUSIC VOYAGE AROUND THE ISLAND / Singapore Chinese Orchestra / Review

A MUSIC VOYAGE AROUND THE ISLAND

Singapore Chinese Orchestra

Victoria Concert Hall

Saturday (14 January 2017)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 16 January 2017 with the title "Playful take on Singapore-inspired music".

Nanyang music featured prominently in this Singapore Chinese Orchestra concert held for the first time in Victoria Concert Hall since its post-renovation opening, reason being that SCO's Singapore Conference Hall home is undergoing its own refurbishment. The sound of Chinese instruments resonated strongly in this reverberant space, opening with Zhang Xiao Feng's Singapura Overture conducted by SCO Assistant Conductor Moses Gay.

Its opening was Western before becoming distinctly Malay with its play of drumming. Then various motifs of a deconstructed familiar local tune appeared in whiffs and wafts. It took more than a few seconds to identify Di Tanjong Katong, which was never heard in its full glory with the music galloping like The Magnificent Seven theme to a raucous close.

More original in conception was Simon Kong's Izpirazione II, its three varied movements inspired by local fruits – Durian, Rambutan and Tarap – and taking the form of a prelude, scherzo and finale. Winds and percussion coloured the music's pungent aroma, joined by the musicians' synchronised clapping and stamping of feet as the suite drew to a colourful end.

There were two concertante works that offered very different aspects of solo string prowess. The first was Wang Dan Hong's Amannisha, named after the 15^th century Uyghur singer-dancer who defined the muqam musical tradition of Central Asia. Conducted by SCO Resident Conductor Quek Ling Kiong, Chinese erhu soloist Lu Yiwen's spectacular showing began with gentle musings in the upper registers before getting earthy in a vigourous and rhapsodic dance that rocked the hall to its rafters.

Lu's immaculate deportment contrasted with the free-and-easy improvisations of former Singapore Symphony Orchestra concertmaster Alexander Souptel in Phoon Yew Tien's Gypsy Rhapsody. This medley included Monti's Csardas, Enesco's First Romanian Rhapsody and variations on the Russian song Ochi Chornye (Dark Eyes) in a riotous mash-up. Souptel was his usual irrepressible self, cavorting on stage with the connivance of conductor Yeh Tsung, including a cheeky send-up to Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto for good measure.

Not to be outdone, the three conductors did their own solos in the world premiere of Journey Around Singapore by SCO Composer-in-Residence Eric Watson. Hoping to catch Yeh on piano, Quek tackling percussion and Gay playing the erhu, while taking turns to conduct? Here was the piece, destined to be a National Day Parade hit.

A musical travelogue in all but name, the work employed popular tunes representing four compass points: Sentosa Isle (South), Di Tanjong Katong (East), Voices From The Heart (West), the Chinese classic Horse-Racing and Rossini's William Tell Overture (North, specifically the Turf Club at Kranji) before closing with the calypso rhythm of Singapore Town.

That the concert was not to be taken too seriously was also underlined by the works that ended each half. Jiang Ying's Hot Melody from Southeast Asia was an Asian pastiche of all those Leroy Anderson “jazz” pieces, while Zhao Ji Ping's Celebration Overture was a spin-off from Glinka's Ruslan and Ludmilla Overture with Chinese tunes. If you can't beat them, join them.

A GIFT TO MUM / Singapore Chinese Orchestra / Review

A GIFT TO MUM

Singapore Chinese Orchestra

Singapore Conference Hall

Saturday (7 May 2016)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 9 May 2016 with the title "A charming and nostalgic Mother's Day concert".

The Singapore Chinese Orchestra's annual Mother's Day Concert this year was not so much about motherhood than about the memories of childhood. Directed by Resident Conductor Quek Ling Kiong, the concert opened with Lullabies, a medley of familiar cradle songs orchestrated by Sim Boon Yew.

Schubert's Schlafe, Schlafe (Sleep, Sleep) and Brahms' Wiegenlied from the West were balanced by songs from Dongbei and Kyoto, the last featuring the Japanese shakuhachi, and this was incongruously followed by Five Little Monkeys On The Bed, which sounded all too flippant. More appropriate was Lo Leung Fei's Memories Of Youth which featured nostalgic child-like melodies, accompanied by a projected montage of baby photographs of SCO musicians and their families, which was a nice touch.

Two concertante works completed the first half, beginning with Gu Guan Ren's arrangement of Charms Of Jiangnan, with soloists Yin Zhi Yang (on qudi), Ling Hock Siang (erhu) and Xu Hui (guzheng). This was much like a Chinese concerto grosso, with each instrument having separate flourishes and joining the general ensemble for a grand finish.

The outright virtuoso concerto of the evening was Phoon Yew Tien's Rhapsody On Dinuhua for yangqin, based on a popular Cantonese operatic melody. Qu Jian Qing, its dedicatee, gave a spectacular performance, easily transcending the orchestral textures in her stirring runs, and also casting a ruminative spell in the work's slower and more reflective moments. This work deserves a place among the Yellow River and Butterfly Lovers of the Chinese canon.

The concert's second half had the feel of a pop concert, with dimmed lighting and flashing spotlights. Law Wai Lun's medley of six Luo Tayou popular songs constituted Love Song (2016), which employed a different solo instrument for each melody. Conductor Quek was also on hand to quiz members of the audience as to which instrument played a starring role.

The stage was now set for Singapore-born singer-songwriter Hanjin Tan, a pop icon presently based in Hong Kong, to charm the hearts of mothers. Boyish in appearance, laconic in humour (occasionally referring to himself in a third person), and possessing a Barry Manilow kind of crooning voice, he was a natural slayer of aunties.

His Mandopop ballads, Marry Me, Wo Men Dou You Cuo (Nobody's Perfect) and Yi Bu Yi Bu Ai (Love Step By Step) had a contemporary feel which would easily appeal to listeners younger than the concert's pioneer generation audience. That he could get a usually-reticent crowd to clap, respond and shout “encore” (with a little coercion) - no easy task - was a testament to his entertaining abilities.

Fearing for their safety, he spared the audience the need to stand for his final song, Zhan Qi Lai (Stand Up), which closed the programme on a high. Quek and the orchestra were not done yet, and a clap-along to the popular melody Tian Xia De Ma Ma Dou Yi Yang (Mothers Are All The Same) was indeed the perfect encore.

 HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

JOSHUA BELL WITH SCO / Singapore Chinese Orchestra / Review

JOSHUA BELL WITH SCO

Singapore Chinese Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall

Saturday (9 April 2016)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 11 April 2016 with the title "Brilliant musical blend".

One of the major fixtures of the Singapore Chinese Orchestra's 20th Anniversary celebrations was this Gala Concert with renowned American violinist Joshua Bell as soloist. Getting him to Singapore was a coup in itself, but the question that ran through the minds of many was how he would fare in a first-ever collaboration with an orchestra of Chinese instruments.

This would be non sequitur, as Bell just needed to be his usual virtuosic self in standard fare like Vivaldi, Saint-Saëns and Sarasate. So the more pertinent question would be how the SCO led by Music Director Yeh Tsung does in repertoire that was the reserve of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra. The results could be summed up as thus: very well indeed.

This was helped by very sympathetic arrangements by Eric Watson, Phoon Yew Tien and Law Wai Lun. Take Watson's take on Vivaldi's Spring from The Four Seasons with a much reduced ensemble for example. The accompanying huqins were exemplary in lightness and transparency of textures, while Xu Zhong's cello and Qu Jian Qing's yangqin (Chinese dulcimer) served perfectly as modified basso continuo.

Equally idiomatic was Phoon's transcription of Saint-Saëns' Introduction & Rondo Capriccioso. Bell's effortless playing and sumptuous tone were, of course, the highlights, and yangqin and harp were up there with him in the slow section. But who would have thought the sheng running away with the melody with Bell's violin spinning arpeggios at full tilt in the brilliant conclusion?

The concert also presented several non-concertante works, which was a veritable showcase of the orchestra's strengths. Ruan Kun Shen's Da Ge opened the evening with an impressive parade of percussion, climaxing in Jin Shi Yi's pungent suona cadenza. Liu Xing's Invisible Sword simulated the digital dexterity of electronic music with chirpy dizis colouring the jovial mood in this scherzo-like piece.

After the interval, Wu Hou Yuan's Yu Tang Chun skilfully melded Beijing opera themes with the Western prelude and fugue, with plucked strings (pipas, liuqins and ruans), yangqins and percussion as the protagonists. Liu Tian Hua's Song of Birds in a Desolate Mountain presented bowed huqins with an open season for the mimicry of birdsong.

Bell returned with an authentic Chinese work, Mao Yuan's Xin Chun Le (A Joyous New Year) in an arrangement by Chuan Joon Hee, and how he captured its festive feeling with a spirited spiel complete with portamentos truly resounded with the audience. The applause rang louder, after which the orchestra reciprocated by playing Western music, in Watson's highland-inspired The Ceilidh, which has folksong O Waly Waly (sometimes sung as The Water is Wide) as its centrepiece.   

The concert concluded with Sarasate's Zigeunerweisen (Gypsy Airs) in Law's orchestration. Again Bell's mastery of this warhorse was unquestionable, with the orchestra supporting his every note and phrase to the hilt.

A standing ovation was the immediate response, and although Bell came for his curtain call sans violin at the first instance, he had to return for an encore. “Derived from American music,” he announced to chortles from the audience, and that turned out to be Variations on Yankee Doodle (his version of Henri Vieuxtemps' Souvenir d'Amérique) which brought down the house.  

  

SAYANG SINGAPURA! ORIGINS / Asian Contemporary Ensemble / Review

SAYANG SINGAPURA! ORIGINS

Asian Contemporary Ensemble

The Chamber, The Arts House

Saturday (14 November 2015)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 16 November 2015 with the title "Fun way to discover Singapore".

The Asian Contemporary Ensemble, founded by Singaporean conductor-composer Wong Kah Chun, seeks to preserve Asian musical aesthetics while forging new paths in expression. Its 75-minute-long concert incorporated story-telling, dance and pantomime with eight works (including three world premieres) woven into its fabric.

Aimed at young people, the story of Indian King Rajasuran and how his grandson Sang Nila Utama discovered Temasek was directed by Peggy Ferroa, narrated by Rosemarie Somaiah, choreographed and danced by members of Paragraph. The 11 members of ACE conducted by Wong performed on stage, making for a colourful affair of sound and movement.

Phoon Yew Tien's Variations On A Transfigured Theme Rasa Sayang performed on piano by Jonathan Shin opened the concert, revealing a metamorphosis of a simple song that went through a whole panoply of tonalities and modes. John Sharpley's Glissando On The Black Keys was a pentatonic fantasy that saw Shin's instrument channelling the sound world of a Chinese guzheng.

The three world premieres began with Christopher Clarke's Teeth, a concertino for saxophone accompanied by Indian percussion inspired by the merlion's dentition. Samuel Phua's dusky tone on sax was a revelation, as was Joyce Poh's dizi in Bernard Tan's Keroncong, a cheerful dance that combined Chinese and Malay influences with the Western rondo form. Poh's arrangement of the popular Jiangnan Hao saw the familiar Chinese tune on dizi accompanied by Edward Tan's violin and Dylan Lee's cello.

The musicians then congregated around a collection of gongs and metallophones for the gamelan-inspired Suite of the Thieving Sea by Anne Choo, with solo parts for bamboo flute and bowed rebab. This Javanese-styled music accompanied the dance of Sang Nila Utama surrending his crown to appease buffeting waves, before the premiere of Shin's Sang Nila Utama Meets The Mercat, which saw Li Lingzhi's clarinet, sax and dizi backed by tinkling toy piano.

The mercat is the official mascot of ACE, created by violinist Ayane Sato, and supposedly some descendant of the merlion, Pokemon and Hello Kitty. Even she has a theme of her own, composed by Wong, which combines a march, sea shanty and Anime music.

This final piece of merrymaking saw the appearance of the fluffy blue mascot, also named Ace, in the flesh, who went on to pose for photographs with National Arts Council CEO Kathy Lai and all the children in attendance. Needless to say, everyone present had a good laugh. 

Photographs by the kind permission of Asian Contemporary Ensemble.

SINGAPURA / Singapore International Festival of Music / Review

SINGAPURA

Singapore International Festival of Music

Gallery, The Arts House

Wednesday (7 October 2015)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 9 October 2015 with the title "Protest song warns against apathy".

At first acquaintance, Singapura, the only concert segment of the Singapore International Festival of Music (SIFOM) to feature local music, appeared to be an excuse to bring together works from Singapore, Malaysia and Japan. After sitting through its hour-long duration, the concert became greater than the sum of its parts.

Phoon Yew Tien's Separation Of The Newly Wed (1987) was a setting of Tang dynasty poet Du Fu's poem about a couple torn by the onset of war. Soprano Ashley Chua's Chinese words played equal partner to Audi Goh's oboe, Adrian Wee's erhu and Chua Yew Kok's pipa in an intensely moving work where fraught emotions were matched by the imaginative playing. The drum-like rhythms struck by the pipa provided the necessary dramatics.

The symbolism of the forcible separation of Singapore in 1965 from the newly formed Malaysia before any meaningful consummation became all the more relevant. War and conflict was the theme of this Festival, and even though the late Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu (1930-1996) was pacifist by nature, his gentle work Rain Spell (1982) provided voices of contention.

Flute (played by Cheryl Lim) and harp (Lee Yun Chai) were among his favourite compositional instruments. Their dreamy tones, joined by the mellowness of the vibraphone (Iskandar Rashid) and clarinet (Vincent Goh), were sharply contrasted with Chenna Lu's piano, where metallic chords were augmented by the strumming of its strings. With Takemitsu, sound textures often trumped thematic cohesion.

Tan Chan Boon's Conversation for Horn & Piano (1993) was a fantasy on Taiwanese tunes in three movements. The virtuosic solo was expertly helmed by Alexander Oon, with the piano part (Lu again) given the freedom of playful asides and surprising harmonies. The lightest work on the programme was followed by the densest, Malaysian composer Chong Kee Yong's Yellow Dust (1994, revised 2015) for string quartet.

Its title refers to the loess storms that bury ancient cities like Xi'an, in turn concealing and revealing historical findings through the millennia. Its highly dissonant language, interspersed with shards and fragments of melody, carries on the legacy of string quartets by Bartok and Ligeti. These extremes were handled with total discipline and much conviction by violinists Seah Huan Yuh and Liu Yi Retallick, violist Jonathan Lee and cellist Chan Si Han.  

Three choral works by Leong Yoon Pin (1931-2011), performed sympathetically by Schola Cantorum led by Albert Tay, completed the concert. Dragon Dance, one of his most-performed works, is a quasi-fugal chant of the onomatopoeic “qiang-dong-qiang” of the drums, punctuated by the rolled R's in the flight of silk balls. His arrangement of the Javanese tune Bengawan Solo remains popular as always.

In between was his unpublished Nightmare (1988), with texts by Angeline Yap, which ranks as the soft-spoken composer's most controversial work. It is prefaced by the disclaimer, “To care for a country / Is not always to be seen to praise / To scold (and to laugh at oneself) is also to love,” proclaimed by the conductor. Although garbed in the English choral tradition, it warns against a culture of complacency, apathy and blind obeisance.

No names or political parties were cited, but one soon recognises who are “the led” and who are the “men of straw”. In this prescient protest song, the patriotic Leong (and Yap) had prophetically predicted the result of the 2015 General Elections. 

TOWARDS THE FUTURE: SCO CELEBRATES SG50 / Singapore Chinese Orchestra / Review

TOWARDS THE FUTURE:

SCO CELEBRATES SG50

Singapore Chinese Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall

Friday (3 July 2013)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 6 July 2015 with the title "Evening of feel-good works to mark Singapore's 50th birthday".

Celebrating the nation's 50 years of independance, the Singapore Chinese Orchestra came up with a feel-good programme of works relating to Singapore's history and all things local. Conducted by Music Director Yeh Tsung, the concert had the feel of a variety show, with something for everyone in the audience.

Espousing the ever-widening ethos of Nanyang music, it began with Fujian-native Xie Xiang Ming's A Stroll In The Lion City, which won 1^st prize in the 2011 Singapore International Chinese Orchestral Composition Competition. True to its subject, it is a brief minimalist-styled work, simple but effective in conveying the idea that people here do not stroll but quickly shuffle on, sometimes aimlessly, and often oblivious to the percussive interjections that pepper our paths.

More substantial is former SCO Composer-in-Residence Law Wai Lun's Hong San See, a symphonic poem about Min Nan immigrants who depart Chinese shores to set up shop in Nanyang. Its mysterious impressionistic opening gave way to the dagu's frenetic beat as boats get buffeted in stormy seas before arriving in the “Promise Land”, with an apotheosis gloriously greeted by the peal of tubular bells.

Present Composer-in-Residence Phoon Yew Tien was represented by Nostalgic Medley, a pleasant suite of seven Chinese golden oldies from the 1940s through 60s, including Girls Of The West and Every Family Has Its Own Troubles. Lyrical from start to end, its appeal to the pioneer generation would be that of familiarity and reliving the good old days.

Receiving its world premiere was Eric Watson's An Independent Note, with 21 quotations from founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew's famous speeches set to musical accompaniment. The selection was chronologically ordered, with a climax at his famous teary breakdown caught on television on 9 August 1965. Veteran thespian Lim Kay Tong (who also plays Lee in the feature film 1965) used stentorian tones to overcome the orchestra's mass of sound, and the unfortunate overall effect was one of the audience being lectured or talked down to.

Serious turned to ridiculous with Kuan Nai Chung's Singapore Capriccio, a pastiche of Rachmaninov's Paganini Rhapsody with the Malay song Chan Mali Chan as its subject. There was even a copycat “18^th Variation” for talented teenaged pianist Serene Koh to luxuriate in. Despite her spirited and pinpoint articulation, nothing could hoist this hack job from the depths of banality.  

       

Far better was Phang Kok Jun's MICamedley, with the six-member vocal band MICappella singing, beat-boxing and dancing their way through four Xinyao numbers including Xi Shui Chang Liu, Cheng Li De Yue Guang, Chi De Qi Ku and Here We Go. Their infectious performance saw conductor Yeh imitating their nifty steps on his podium, thus garnering the loudest applause.

More subdued was singer-entertainer Robert Fernando's crooning of familiar National Day Parade songs including We Are Singapore, One United People and the ubiquitous Home. Of course he asked the audience to join in the last song, but the listeners remained steadfastly placid.

The most ambitious work, another World Premiere, was Law Wai Lun's Ode To Singapore, a choral cantata with the 90 voices of The Vocal Consort. Sung completely in Chinese, the impressive a cappella Prelude relived the opening of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture in its choral version.  In the highly dramatic Fight And Strive, Carl Orff's Carmina Burana and Howard Shore's Lord Of The Rings score were referenced. Before one imagined that the Little Red Dot was part of Middle Earth, Song Of Singapore exuded lyricism and sentimentality.

The grand finale was a recitation of The Pledge by S.Rajaratnam, with the clarion call of Majulah Singapura and the promise to work towards a bright, stellar and prosperous Singapore. On the nation's 50^th year of existence, could there be a greater aspiration than that?