AN EVENING OF CHINESE TIMELESS CLASSICS / NAFA Chinese Orchestra / Review

 

AN EVENING OF 

CHINESE TIMELESS CLASSICS

NAFA Chinese Orchestra

Singapore Conference Hall

Sunday (28 September 2025)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 30 September 2025 with the title "Spirited performance of classic works by young talent of NAFA Chinese Orchestra".

If one wondered how professional Chinese musical ensembles like the Singapore Chinese Orchestra or Ding Yi Music Company get its members, just take a look at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts’ (NAFA) Chinese Instrumental Studies degree programme. Now part of the University of the Arts Singapore (UAS), this is the very reason why we have the highest levels of Chinese musical performances here today.

In the final concert of the 2025 Singapore Chinese Music Festival, the NAFA Chinese Orchestra led by Lim Yau provided a showcase that stands the test of time. The concert opened with the popular Dance of the Yao People by Liu Tieshan and Mao Yuan, originally conceived for western orchestra but orchestrated by Peng Xiuwen for Chinese instruments.

The music sourced from the ethnic minorities of southwest China rhapsodised with much feeling and fervour, with concertmaster Koh Yu Jie’s gaohu confidently singing its principal theme. Picking up speed, momentum and without looking back, the work made for a rousing curtain-raiser.

What followed were concertante works featuring four NAFA faculty members, two of whom are principals in the Singapore Chinese Orchestra. The old Cantonese tune Zhaojun’s Lament was elegiac in nature, wholly suited for Qu Jian Qing’s eloquent and mellow musings on the yangqin. Temperance ruled, and the orchestra piped down for the understated angsty emotions on show.

Quite different was the more demonstrative Ballade of Lan Huahua by Guan Ming, arranged as a dizi concerto by Zhan Yong Ming and Lu Chunlin, with Zhan as spirited soloist. Here, the sense of tragedy was more palpable, with the bamboo flute’s plangent tones searing a path through the dramatics. The trill-filled cadenzas made for moments for contemplation and reflection before closing on a subdued note.

The longest and arguably most virtuosic piece was Heroic Sisters of the Grassland composed by the committee of Wu Zhuqiang, Wang Yanjiao and Liu Dehai, and arranged by Peng. This work’s claim to fame was having been recorded by the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Seiji Ozawa in 1979 with the gradual opening of communist China to the West.

Yu Jia, resplendent in a stunning red outfit, was the spectacular pipa soloist who caught no breaks in its 20-minute playtime. This work of programme music recounted the escapades of two young sisters in Inner Mongolia who braved a blizzard to protect their flock of sheep. Through storms and squalls of orchestral textures, it was Yu who held firm from its pastoral opening to brilliant conclusion.

Photo: Chew Kai Xin

One often needs to separate the Socialist Realist claptrap of many Chinese works of the period from the true quality of the music. This however did not apply to Liu Wenjin’s Ballad from Northern Henan, another folk rhapsody, with Sunny Wong Sun Tat, head of NAFA’s Chinese music department, on his trusty erhu.

This was celebratory music one need not apologise for, and his excellence of execution and the orchestra’s spirited contribution were emblematic of the very bright future ahead for Chinese instrumental music in Singapore.

STRINGS OF ELEGANCE II / Singapore Chinese Orchestra / Review

STRINGS OF ELEGANCE II

Singapore Chinese Orchestra

Singapore Conference Hall

Tuesday (22 June 2021)

An edited version of this review was published in The Straits Times on 30 June 2021 with the title "Night of versatile music-making".

 

As the nation gingerly eases out of heightened alert circuit breaker measures, live concerts are understandably thin on the ground. This concert, part of the Singapore Chinese Orchestra’s Music Tuesdays chamber series, was attended by an audience of fifty, but it would have been much more under normal circumstances.

 

The pairing of Li Yulong and Mu Ruixue was the star of the evening, exhibiting enormous range in their erhus and other members of huqin bowed string family. The hour-long concert opened with Liu Tianhua’s Liang Xiao (Nocturnal Peace), a work of exquisite beauty where both players alternated between melody, accompaniment and providing counterpoint. This kind of intimacy goes to the heart of traditional Chinese music.  

 

In Liu Mingyuan’s Crescent Moon Before Dawn, Li played the gaoyin banhu. Its higher range,  robust and penetrating sonority were well suited for portraying a maiden pining for her loved one by the glow of moonlight. In the same composer’s A Tune From Henan, based on Henan Quju opera, Mu’s sensuous erhu assumed the many varied inflections of the singing voice. Both works were partnered by Qu Jianqing on yangqin, a role that transcended mere accompaniment.   

 

For Yi Jianquan’s Birds Returning To The Woods, the ensemble expanded to six members, including yangqin, xiao (played by Phang Thean Siong), zhongruan (Cheng Tzu-Ting) and cello (Huang Ting-Yu). Mu now performed the yehu, a fiddle fashioned from a coconut shell, which produced a deeper and mellower sound, not unlike the viola. This lively Cantonese work depicted a flock of birds nesting at sunset, with exuberant mimicry of birdsong from yehu and xiao.

 

Few instruments can match the erhu for displaying heartwrenching emotion, as amply demonstrated by Li in the Dongbei folksong Jiang He Shui (River Of Sorrow). In this well-known melody, a woman seeks her warrior husband by the riverside, only to be met by torrents of tears. By the sense of desolation evoked in the music and the playing, there could only be one conclusion: death.

 

The concert closed on a far happier note, capped by the sheer versatility of the erhu and its exponents. Zhang Che’s famous Taiwanese song Maiden Of Alishan simply rocked in Gao Jia’s jazzy arrangement accompanied by Hu Chung-Chin on piano, one so idiomatic and dynamic that the late Russian jazzman Nikolai Kapustin would have approved. Following that, Vittorio Monti’s riproaring Czardas, a popular tribute to Hungarian gypsy fiddling, sounded almost staid by comparison.

 

The enthusiasm engendered led to an entertaining post-concert show and tell session, where requests were made and short excerpts played to all around approval. Never underestimate the size of an audience, especially when the music-making is this good.

 

This was my 2400th article for The Straits Times, a record that stretches all the way back to 1997.

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!

THE CHARM OF SILK AND BAMBOO / Members of Singapore Chinese Orchestra / Review

THE CHARM OF SILK AND BAMBOO

Musicians of the 

Singapore Chinese Orchestra

Esplanade Recital Studio

Tuesday (16 September 2014)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 18 September 2104 with the title "Chinese chamber music that charms".

While symphonic composition for Chinese instruments is a 20^th century phenomenon, chamber music has existed for millennia, passed down by oral tradition and its practitioners from antiquity. Jiangnan si zhu is a hallowed tradition of intimate chamber music that thrived south of the Yangtze River, the reference to silk (si) and bamboo (zhu) being the bowed string and woodwind instruments used by the players.

Typically such an ensemble would feature a quartet, including the accompanying yangqin (dulcimer). This 80-minute concert by members of the Singapore Chinese Orchestra, showcasing seven virtuosos and led by its Associate Conductor Moses Gay, did not profess historical performance practice or authenticity. Adapting to modern advancements and a considerably expanded geography, each soloist was given a chance to shine in front of a very enthusiastic full-house audience.

Two popular Cantonese tunes, Blossoms of the Cotton Tree and Song of the Full Moon, were poetry in the hands of erhu player Tao Kai Li, who looked resplendent herself in an ornately embroidered red gown. A singing tone and the ability to tug at the heartstrings of nostalgia were key to their success.

Lim Kiong Pin’s Dream of Bali featured the organ-like pipes of the sheng, performed by Ong Yi Horng. The pentatonic nem scale - commonly heard on the gamelan - was employed, first as a reverie-like introduction and later as an animated finale that had the same repeated rhythmic motif as the popular 1960s song Stand By Me.

Foong Chui San’s strummed ruan (a lute resembling a banjo) and Lee Khiok Hua’s bowed gehu (with a similar timbre and range as the cello) combined sensitively in The Song of Mulan, which began with martial strains improvised by Foong that portrayed the cross-dressing lady warrior of legend.

The zhonghu played by Sim Boon Yew and banhu by Tao highlighted the different ranges occupied by the instruments, in Mongolian song Pulling the Camel and Ge Yan’s Carriage Running over the Fields respectively. The latter was a fast romp, aided by conductor Gay striking its rhythm on a ma ling, jingling bells usually associated with sleigh rides in the snow. 

Let’s Talk About The Past in Sim Boon Yew and Tan Chye Tiong’s arrangement, a medley of popular Minnan and Taiwanese songs, received its World Premiere. Here Tan performed on a series of eleven blown instruments from the dizi family, including the Japanese shakuhachi, a pair of xuns (ocarinas), paixiao (panpipes) and what appeared like a snake-charmer’s pipe. This breathless tour-de-force received the longest applause.

All seven instruments, including Qu Jian Qing’s yangqin, had equal prominence in Zhou Cheng Long’s Festival of Mountain and Forest, a rhapsody based on Yi tribal themes which brought the concert to a stirring close. A very lively post-concert discussion hosted by composer-compere Liong Kit Yeng showed that appreciation of Chinese chamber music is a well worth cultivating. Kudos to Esplanade and the Singapore Chinese Orchestra for making it happen.

    

This concert was presented as part of the Esplanade Chinese Chamber Music Series.

A GLIMPSE OF SINGAPORE / Singapore Chinese Orchestra / Review

A GLIMPSE OF SINGAPORE
Singapore Chinese Orchestra
SCO Concert Hall
Saturday (3 September 2011)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 5 September 2011 with the title "Capturing Geylang Serai through Nanjing Lu".

It is perhaps the very nature of Chinese music to be programmatic or narrative in character. Absolute music or manifestations of the abstract in music are much less encountered, so concerts of programme or descriptive music, such as this, are very much in the norm. Even the title A Glimpse Of Singapore gave a clue that musical travelogue was taking place.

Two movements of Gu Guan Ren’s titular suite on his 1987 visit to the Lion City opened the concert. The Beach had evocative dizi and erhu solos which suggested he had not yet left China, but the raucous percussion parade and Malay-flavoured melodies heard on strummed ruan and sheng made it clear that The Festival was captured somewhere in Kampong Glam or Geylang Serai.

Even the two virtuoso concertos played were inspired by scenery, folklore and legends. Li Bin Yang’s Mountain Deity elaborated on indigenous themes and rhythms, with Han Lei’s guan solo rising above the teeming throng to resonate like a heady saxophone in those Basque fantasies favoured by French composers. His range on the humble reed instrument was astonishing.

Xu Chang Jun’s The Phoenix was equally enthralling, almost a yangqin concerto that Bela Bartok never wrote. The Chinese dulcimer, an Eastern relative of the Hungarian cimbalom, is capable of extremes in dynamics, from soothing placidity to vehement violence, which Qu Jian Qing provided with an extravagance of flair.

Former SCO Deputy Director Qu Chun Quan (left) also conducted two of his own creations, a transcription of the traditional folk tune Dancing In Gossamer and the kitschy Shanghai Capriccio. The latter was eclecticism gone overboard, with Chinese melodies strung on the torso of Gershwin’s An American In Paris and a percussion sequence straight out of Britten’s Young Person’s To The Orchestra. Just remove the taxi horns and substitute the Champs-Elysee with Nanjing Lu, and one gets the idea.

The longest and best work was Rao Yu Yan’s Hymn Of Li Mountain, a symphonic poem inspired by Tang Dynasty poet Tu Fu’s lament. Its four connected segments detailed the poet’s weary climb, his witnessing of a feast of wanton waste – represented by a dance that grows progressively intoxicated – and closing with an orchestral sigh of anguish and resignation. Music can tell stories, and the Chinese orchestra does it most eloquently.