MUSICAL MOSAICS: SINGAPORE UNSUNG / Asian Cultural Symphony Orchestra / Review

 

MUSICAL MOSAICS: 

SINGAPORE UNSUNG

Asian Cultural Symphony Orchestra

Victoria Concert Hall

Saturday (1 August 2026)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 3 August 2026 with the title "Asian Cultural Symphony Orchestra turns 10, celebrates with Singapore works".

When the Asian Cultural Symphony Orchestra (ACSO) gave its first concert in August 2016, it performed the popular Butterfly Lovers and Yellow River Concertos, both by Chinese composers. The mission to promote works by Asian composers had evolved such that by its 10th anniversary, the chosen repertoire was wholly Singaporean.

Led by co-music directors Dedric Wong and Adrian Chiang, the landmark concert was a celebration of the people who made and defined Singapore, not statesmen, politicians or history-makers, but good ordinary folk who risk being sidelined or forgotten. It opened with Wang Chenwei’s Samsui Women, a vigourous work song that quoted the Cantonese melody Ping Hu Qiu Yue (Autumn Moon Over A Calm Lake), later briefly and cleverly merged in counterpoint with Rasa Sayang.

A drum-set provided a driving beat to Terrence Wong’s Fortitude, where 19-year-old soloist Dante Tan let rip on soprano and alto saxophone, with the latter reveling on a long-held note at its climax. The work was a tribute to our hardworking Pioneer and Merdeka generations.

In Syafiqah ‘Adha Sallehin’s Everyday Guardians: Three Portraits Of Service, three groups of civil servants were lauded. Zulkifli Mohamed Amin’s accordion portrayed resoluteness and constancy in The Nurse – Steady Hands, contrasted with Madhavan Kalaichelvan’s swashbuckling veena in The Firefighter – Into The Flames, a show of courage and fearlessness. Finally, Joyce Poh’s dizi was calm and decorous for The Teacher – Light In The Classroom, with a modal melody that resembled a folksong.

Lyricism and tenderness came to the fore in Germaine Goh’s Pillars Of Strength: Tribute To Migrant Domestic Workers, where warm tones of the brass were reinforced by Alan Kartik’s French horn solo. Goh herself played on the grand piano, a calm and reassuring presence.

Jazz legend Jeremy Monteiro’s Fortitude was a completely different work from Wong’s earlier number. Originally scored for wind band, its orchestral version was built on a series of chorales, all in praise of Singapore’s founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew (1923-2015), a force of personality always the exception to the rule.

Founder-director of Voices of Singapore (VOS) mega-choir, Darius Lim was the soloist in his Between Heaven and Earth which received its world premiere. Using the model found in Ludwig van Beethoven’s Choral Fantasia (Op.80), his passionately Romantic piano part ushered in the 34 members of VOS Ladies Choir who sang in English, expressing his aspirations and pondering the purpose of life. This was the score that came closest to popular Disney film music.

Closing the concert was Ralph Emmanuel Lim’s Singapura Tapestries, a fantasy that brought together two very different local songs, Dick Lee’s Bunga Sayang from the musical Kampong Amber and Shabir Sulthan’s Singai Naadu (Singapore My Country) sung in Tamil.

Singapore’s racial harmony was further emphasised in the encore, which included an audience sing-along for the 2003 National Day Parade song One United People by Joshua Wan, popularised by Stefanie Sun. A nation that sings together stays together.

MUSICAL MOSAICS: IMAGINEASIAN / Asian Cultural Symphony Orchestra / Review

MUSICAL MOSAICS: IMAGINEASIAN

Asian Cultural Symphony Orchestra

Victoria Concert Hall

Sunday (10 August 2025)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 12 August 2025 with the title "Asian Cultural Symphony Orchestra's concert celebrates Asean's musical heritage".

There was a definite ASEAN flavour to the Asian Cultural Symphony Orchestra’s (ACSO) latest concert jointly conducted by Dedric Wong and Adrian Chiang. Attended by President and Mrs Tharman Shanmugaratnam, there were no less than four medleys of local and regional songs, but thankfully there was hardly any overlap with each composer having distinct voices.

Kelly Tang’s Symphonic Suite on a Set of Local Tunes, which opened the show, highlighted Dick Lee’s songs including Home and Bunga Sayang. Syafiqah ‘Adha Sallehin’s Singapura Medley was strong on Malay songs, beginning with Di Tanjong Katong, while Zechariah Goh’s Singaporean Folk Medley looked at local Eurasian culture, closing with Jinkly Nona.

Given the recent border dispute between Thailand and Cambodia, a musical truce was declared with concertante works from both nations performed one after another. Thai composer Jinnawat Mansap’s Naka, celebrating the mythological serpent (or naga as we know it) featured Prapanpong Maneewong on the khaen, a mouth organ fashioned with bamboo pipes. Its sheng-like sonority dominated this work which was filled with striding martial strains.

By contrast Cambodian composer Him Sophy’s The Way To Angkor opened plaintively with Tola Say bowing the tro sao, a Khmer spike fiddle with a timbre not unlike the zhonghu. His duet with cellist Olivia Chuang was short but touching, and despite oncoming dissonance from the orchestra, the traditional instrument was a voice not to be silenced.

Wang Chenwei’s Tekka Theka was a tribute to the Kandang Kerbau vicinity of Little India with its bustling market place. Ghanavenothan Retnam’s hauntingly beautiful bansuri (Indian flute) was the protagonist in a work which had Indian, Malay and Chinese influences. In support were Madhavan Kalaichelvan (veena), Muhammad Ansari Abdul Razak (rebana) and Soh Swee Kiat (sheng) representing three musical cultures.

Our closest neighbour across the Causeway was represented by Loh Ui Li in her Malaysian Folk Song Medley, which had Rais Iqbal resplendent on the serunai (Malay reed instrument) with its plangent and piercing tone not unlike a suona. Among the songs were Rasa Sayang and Chan Mali Chan, and before one cries foul, it should be remembered that just a little more than sixty years ago, Malaysia and Singapore were once the same nation.

Food is a subject where many a debate arises, but Eric Watson chose a Broadway idiom to frame his Gourmet Paradise, a three-movement dawn-to-dusk primer of local meals. Vocalist Juni Goh from vocal band MICappella led a rap for Nanyang Breakfast – Kopi, eggs and kaya toast / Nanyang breakfast is so shiok – before extolling the virtues of Roti Prata and Hainanese Chicken Rice.

Closing the colourful concert was the world premiere of Germaine Goh’s When Rivers Remember, uniting the four soloists from four ASEAN nations. Here was the baroque concerto grosso updated to include water-related songs Dayong Sampan, Loy Krathong, Ulek Mayang and Sarika Keo Euy, with visuals representing the Singapore, Chao Phraya, Malacca and Mekong Rivers.

Photo: Nathaniel Lim

If all governments can sort their problems as harmoniously as these instrumentalists and ACSO, lasting peace is here to stay.

Photo: Nathaniel Lim

KAHCHUN WONG AND DANIEL LOVAKOVICH / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

KAHCHUN WONG AND 

DANIEL LOZAKOVICH

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall

Saturday (25 March 2023)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 27 March 2023 with the title "Kahchun Wong, Syafiqah 'Adha Sallehin shine in SSO concert".

 

A short twelve years ago, Kahchun Wong and Syafiqah ‘Adha Sallehin were fellow composition students at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory. Together, they were pioneering members of the Asian Contemporary Ensemble (ACE). Founded by Wong, who was also its conductor, the visionary ensemble championed modern works and music by young Asian composers. All that changed when Wong was awarded first prize at the Gustav Mahler International Conducting Competition in 2016.

 

ACE was disbanded while the ace became Chief Conductor of the Nuremberg Philharmonic. In September this year, Wong will assume the helm of the Japan Philharmonic. Syafiqah, the first Singaporean Malay music graduate from the Conservatory, composes music which fuse Malay and Western classical idioms, besides being an accomplished accordion player.

 

The two were united again in the world premiere of Syafiqah’s Aeriq’s Lullaby, a 9-minute programmatic work inspired by motherhood and the birth of her son. There were no ethnic influences here, instead its idiom was closer to Disney film music, being very easy on the ear.

Kahchun Wong holds up the score
of Syafiqah's Aeriq's Dream.

 

There were some dissonances in the central section Through Sleepless Nights, with woodwind glissandi and brassy wails depicting night terrors and a baby’s distress. Guest concertmaster Wang Jing’s violin solo provided reassurance and the closing A Mother’s Prayer was bathed in the warm embrace of C major. All’s well that ends well in this child’s world.     

 

Equally agreeable was Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor with Swedish violinist Daniel Lozakovich in the solo role. His modestly-scaled tone suggested intimacy, more like chamber music than a commanding show of virtuoso prowess. Coming into his own in the first movement cadenza, the slow movement that followed was pure lyricism belied by underlying tension. The finale’s elfin dance, prodigious in his control, pulled out all the stops.

 

Lozakovich’s two solo encores were also excellent. Nathan Milstein’s Paganiniana brought a collective gasp of surprise from the audience as it recognised Paganini’s Caprice No.24 as the main subject, while Tchaikovsky’s Valse Sentimentale, a salon piece, sounded even better when unaccompanied.

 

For the concert’s second half, conductor Wong emerged with a change of outfit to conduct Brahms’s Symphony No.4 in E minor from memory. And what a memorable performance it was. The opening Allegro non troppo was taken at a measured tempo, allowing much orchestral detail to be savoured and the climax to be sufficiently shattering. Similarly, the second movement’s procession exhibited restraint before blooming into expansiveness on the crest of a wave.

 

The rousing Scherzo's adrenaline rush saw the audience applauding prematurely, and Wong used this to acknowledge Mark Suter's few minutes of tingling frisson on the triangle. The closing Passacaglia was the symphony’s crowning glory, its series of short variations on a ground bass tautly held together with an inner urgency.

 

Marshalling orchestral forces at full tilt and bringing both symphony and concert to a grandstanding conclusion, Kahchun Wong showed exactly why he has become Singapore’s most sought-after maestro on the international concert circuit today. 

Post concert: Syafiqah meets
with fans and signs autographs.

Syafiqah and her composition teacher
Prof. Ho Chee Kong.

Another version of this review was published on Bachtrack on 27 March 2023, and can be viewed here:

Kahchun Wong’s return to hometown Singapore garners a warm reception | Bachtrack