FRIENDS IN RHYTHM / Singapore Percussion Association & Friends / Review

 

FRIENDS IN RHYTHM

Singapore Percussion Association & Friends

Esplanade Recital Studio

Wednesday (12 August 2026)

I never knew about the Singapore Percussion Association (SPA) until late last week. Now I know. Founded by Mario Choo, percussionist of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, the association presented a very enjoyable 70-minute concert with members Benjamin Boo (Principal percussionist of the Singapore Chinese Orchestra) and Hazizi Jaafar (freelance percussionist), and their friends.

Photo: Umagic Studio

The well-attended concert opened with Calvin Warren’s Truncated with three men huddled around assorted drums and cymbals. This was a brief but exuberant “fanfare”, erupting with energy and flair, a literally striking beginning to the evening.

Photo: Umagic Studio

Next came Lou Harrison’s First Concerto for Flute & Percussion, a three-movement fast-slow-fast work with Eric Lamb, Head of wind, brass and percussion at Yong Siew Toh Conservatory accompanied by Choo. Busy Bach-like counterpoint occupied the swift outer movements, sandwiching a central movement of haunting beauty, with long-breathed aria backed by the quiet chime of gongs, evocative of Bali or somewhere exotic in the Orient.

Coloratura soprano Wang Tong, also Mario’s wife, was literally carried on stage for a sparkling performance of Les oiseaux dans la Charmille, the famous Doll Song from Jacques Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann. This arrangement by Choo included accompaniment by piano, flute, marimba and triangle and ratchet (cog rattle). Those familiar with Sumi Jo’s performance know what to expect when the automaton winds down, with Wang Tong brought back to life with a giant key by Hazizi. 

Photo: Umagic Studio

Tickled by the spectacle, people in the front row started taking photos, but were stopped by very obtrusive Esplanade ushers despite a prior announcement that photos and videos were permissible. Who are the real-life automatons now?

Esplanade staff only know how to spoil a show.

Photo: Umagic Studio

For Ben Cato’s Hidden Universe, three men huddled around a marimba for another love-in. This time, the sonorities resonant but mellow, with the syncopated rhythms being more comforting rather than strident. Mario’s remark “I just love off-beats” was on the dot.

Photo: Umagic Studio

The bell is an instrument from the world of percussion, and a tribute was provided by Thai pianist Poom Prommachart, head of junior music at Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, in the form of Marc-Andre Hamelin’s Etude No.3 d’apres Paganini-Liszt. This is a fiendishly distorted vista of La Campanella heavy with bass notes, exaggerated grace notes, misplaced harmonies and general virtuoso mayhem. Hamelin, who was in Singapore last weekend, would have approved.

Photo:  Umagic Studio

Wang Tong returned for the lovely Chi il bel sogno di Doretta (The Beautiful Dream of Doretta), the most famous aria from Puccini’s early opera La Rondine. Accompanied by pianist Poom, this was just enchanting. Andrea Venet’s Omnes Trio completed the three-man percussion fiesta, now huddled around a central bass drum and smaller drums. Opening with a strike of a tam tam, and a hint of a theme on cymbals, another rhythmic and exuberant show erupted to close the percussion showcase as it began.

Photo: Umagic Studio

Photo: Umagic Studio

The enchanted evening closed with the Xinjiang folksong, Shang De Yi’s Serene Pastures of July, imbued with Central Asian flavour and mystique, as Wang Tong was accompanied by the full monty tutti. As an encore, she and Poom obliged with Schumann’s Widmung (Op.25 No.1), a dedication to every person in the audience. One can hardly wait for the next SPA concert.

Photo: Umagic Studio

FIRST LIGHT OF FANTASIAS / Poom Prommachart and Friends / Review

 

FIRST LIGHT OF FANTASIAS

Poom Prommachart & Friends

Lee Foundation Theatre

Sunday (7 December 2025)

First Light of Fantasias was effectively the debut recital of young Thai pianist Poom Prommachart after being confirmed as the Head of Music at Nanyang Academy of Fine Art’s School of Young Talents (SYT). His appointment brings Poom’s musical career a full circle, having been an undergraduate at NAFA’s School of Music some sixteen years ago, before a globetrotting “career” as professional student that took him to further studies in London, Moscow and Montreal.

His recital opened with Chopin’s Nocturne in E major (Op.62 No.2), which was the Pole’s final in essay in this medium before his untimely demise from ravaging consumption. Arguably his finest nocturne, it received a clear-headed reading that combined lyricism with a chromaticism that looked forward to the nocturnes of Gabriel Faure. One cannot imagine it more beautifully performed in Poom’s hands.

He was joined by Singaporean pianist Marianne Huang Yueyin, a fellow teacher at SYT, in a quirky four-hands transcription of Chopin’s “Minute” Waltz in D flat major (Op.64 No.1) which was lots of fun, the sort which go down as a big hit in parties and soirees. Hint hint: I want the score!

Poom waxes lyrical about Carl Vine who
initially criticised his playing but years later
had nothing but praise. That's called progress.

The main event of the recital’s first half, entitled Fantasias of the West, was the Singapore premiere of Australian composer Carl Vine’s Three Fantasias. Those familiar with Vine’s musical idiom, an aurally accessible pantonality married to infectiously exuberant dance rhythms as characterised by his wildly popular First Sonata, will find those tropes in these three rather enjoyable pieces. The opening Gothic Fantasy was dressed in impressionist colours with an emphasis for darker and slightly sinister hues. Cerulean Fantasy, dedicated to Poom, was more rhythmic, recalling the playful innocence of childhood.

The longest piece, Fantasia Divina, commissioned by the Music Department of Hong Kong University (and premiered by Poom in Hong Kong in late October) was cheekily described as being “diva-like”, but its far more than that. All through its fantastical figurations was some hint of a melody struggling to burst out. Building to a tumultuous climax (as Vine’s scores invariably do), it closes with a simple and quiet calm. Poom pulled out all stops for this virtuosic whirlwind of a piece. Somehow, Vine has realised more than an inkling of Poom’s passionate personality belied by his humble and Zen-like exterior.

The concert’s second half, titled Fantasias of the East and Beyond, saw Poom accompanying guzheng soloist Indra Chen Shanhui in two works from East Asia. I was curious how this combo of instruments with similar registers worked out and was not disappointed. Consider this a marriage of two distinct timbres but scored like works for two instruments, such as two pianos or two guzhengs. 

From Thailand was White Lotus by Mom Luang Puanroi and Sanitwong Apaiwong, arranged by Poom, which came across as a very pleasant folk song. More extended by was Wang Rui’s Unfolding Lotus In the Rain, rhapsodic in nature, starting slow and then building up to an animated dance. Very enjoyable was the least I can say about these accomplished performances.

Poom completed his sparkling recital by two studies on George Gershwin songs by the late American super-virtuoso Earl Wild, Embraceable You and I Got Rhythm, which brought out the best of his dazzling technique and sheer musicality. Responding to vociferous applause were two indestructible encores, Liszt’s La Campanella and Vladimir Horowitz’s Carmen Variations, with Poom’s own additions to the riotous original. All I can say is, “Welcome back, Poom!”

PHOTOS FROM MUSIC SINGAPORE INTERNATIONAL PIANO & VIOLIN COMPETITION / PRIZE-GIVING CEREMONY & CONCERT

 

Every once in a while, I get invited to attend finals and prize-giving ceremonies of music festivals and competitions. These are usually long-drawn and boring affairs with multitudes of well-groomed children dressed in their nines collecting awards and photo opportunities that will proudly adorn show cabinets at home. However, the event may be graced by musical luminaries and talented young musicians who actually perform, and a worthwhile concert situation arises.

That was the case of Music Singapore's annual International Piano & Violin Competition gala, held on Sunday 19 March 2023, which had some truly substantial musical offerings. When often does one get to listen to Singapore's premier string quartet, Singapore's brightest piano talent and Thailand's finest pianist in one sitting? Here it was, and here are the photos!

T'ang Quartet was invited to perform
the first two movements of Ravel's String Quartet.

This young lady performed something
virtuosic by Isaak Berkovich.

This young man performed Chopin's Waltz in A minor, 
and he also won a top prize for the violin.

This young man made light work of
a Scarlatti Sonata in G major.

Kylie performed the first movement of
Beethoven's Sonata in A major (Op.2 No.2)

Lim Yan, Director of the Singapore International
Piano Festival, was a jury member and was on hand
to give away some prizes.

Toby Tan, fresh from winning 1st prize
at the Aarhus International Piano Competition
performed Liszt's La Campanella.

A confident showing with the finale of
Korngold's Violin Concerto.

The highest violin category winner played
Amy Beach's Romance.

Celebrated Thai pianst Poom Prommachart
was invited from Kuala Lumpur to grace the event.

Poom Prommachart performed
Medtner's Sonata Tragica with stunning aplomb.

All the prize winners with jury members
and the competition founder Vivien Gao.

THE MODERN CHOPIN / POOM PROMMACHART, Piano / Review

THE MODERN CHOPIN

POOM PROMMACHART, Piano

Victoria Concert Hall

Sunday (29 January 2023)

 

What is the “Modern Chopin”? Was not the Poland-born and Paris-domiciled pianist-composer an early Romantic? And did the darling of the salon concert not die in 1849? Stereotypes of Chopin as a sickly, tuberculous and effete artist suffering for the love of his art and succumbing to a premature demise still abound. So how do our modern ears relate to the piano music of Frederic Chopin?

How should we view Chopin?
Delacroix's painting, a late 1840s daguerreotype
or Hadi Karimi's modern 3D rendering?

 

Young Thai pianist Poom Prommachart, once a student of Dang Thai Son (first ever Asian winner of the Chopin International Piano Competition, in 1980), provided many of the clues. One might mistake this artist as fashionista, ambassador for the Canadian luxury brand Kaimirra Tutan, to be more style than substance, but the proof of a pudding was in its eating.

 

One feared the worst when a signpost at the door listed Chopin’s 24 Preludes (Op.28) as lasting for 48 minutes. The rolled chords of the opening Prelude in C major (marked Agitato) were taken very leisurely, but that allowed each note to resonate longer, and when the next number in A minor (Lento) plodded by like a funereal dirge, one became almost certain of Poom’s intentions. When most are willing to spin out all 24 pieces as one indivisible whole, Poom instead regarded each piece as its own discrete and sparkling gem. With the audience heeded not to applaud between numbers, the succession of Preludes became all the more coherent.

 

Never has a work by Chopin displayed more heterogeneity in mood, harmonies, texture and tempi, yet held so well with some kind of spiritual “spatial and temporal glue”. It is the performer who holds the secret to that glue which eluded even the composer himself. Chopin only performed selections or small groups of Preludes, and never all 24 at one sitting. It was Poom’s singular vision that made this long sequence work. He had no need to gild the lilies in “simple” ones, as the numbers in E minor (No.4), B minor (No.6) and A major (No.7). And when virtuosity was called for, in F sharp minor (No.8), B flat minor (No.16) and the final D minor (No.24) for example, he unleashed all the weapons of his formidable arsenal.

 

More telling was the sheer beauty and poetry he brought out in F sharp major (No.13) and A flat major (No.17). And what of the famous D flat major (No.15), popularly known as the “Raindrop”, reliving the bad weather of Mallorca where Chopin and George Sand had made their retreat? With Poom, one was reminded not of acid rain but the pain of constant stabs to the heart, as a relationship breaks down irreversibly and irremediably. Raindrops were but a front for something deeper and darker.

 

The performance did not take 48 minutes, but rather closer to 36 minutes, which is about right. No performance of the Chopin Preludes has captivated this listener as much as this since the late-lamented Fou Tsong’s in the same hall in 1993, some thirty years ago.    

 

The recital’s second half belonged to Chopin’s Sonata No.3 in B minor (Op.58), a performance no less trenchant or absorbing. The first movement delighted in the dissonances of Chopin’s late period and through all this, the lyrical second subject was perfectly brought out. There can be no melody as exquisitely beautiful as this one. The exposition repeat was omitted, perhaps rightly so as to keep tautness to the proceedings. The etude-like Scherzo was whipped off effortlessly and it was ironically in the nocturne-like Largo where some concentration was lost. Nevertheless, the romping Rondo finale, with the ante upped each round, more brought the sonata to a thrilling end.   

 

As encores, Poom offered an improvisation on a Chinese song (Unending Love) to greet the Lunar New Year, and the most edge-of-the-seat version of Liszt’s La Campanella thought possible. And he had the cheek of declaring he had not enough practice. Most importantly, The Real Chopin made the audience listen to Chopin with new pairs of ears. 

This concert was presented by 

Tutan Entertainment 

with Piano Island Management.