RE:SOUND 10TH ANNIVERSARY / BRADDELL HEIGHTS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA 40TH ANNIVERSARY GALA CONCERTS / Review

 

10TH ANNIVERSARY GALA CONCERT

re:Sound

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Concert Hall

Saturday (29 August 2026)

40TH ANNIVERSARY GALA CONCERT

Braddell Heights Symphony Orchestra

Victoria Concert Hall

Sunday (30 August 2026)

This review was published by The Straits Times on 1 September 2026 with the title "re:Sound and Braddell Heights Symphony Orchestra's anniversary galas prove diversity of classical scene".

Over last weekend, three local musical ensembles marked their respective anniversaries with a gala concert each. These were Red Dot Baroque (8th), re:Sound Collective (10th) and Braddell Heights Symphony Orchestra (40th). By actively programming local composers, the latter two groups have helped shape the concert repertoire enjoyed in Singapore today.

Photo: @Joelcaptures

Singapore’s first professional chamber orchestra re:Sound opened accounts with J.S.Bach’s Violin Concerto in A minor (BWV.1041), showcasing 13-year-old Chua Suen Ern in an exacting solo role. With spotless intonation and technique as natural as breathing, she blended seamlessly with players double to quadruple her age. A very bright future beckons.

Photo: @Joelcaptures

Warmth and lushness of re:Sound’s strings were caught in full bloom with harpist Charmaine Teo for the Adagietto from Gustav Mahler’s Fifth Symphony. Led by violinist Yang Shuxiang, this love letter to Mahler’s wife Alma felt right at 10 minutes, its passionate climax coming at just the perfect moment.

Receiving its world premiere was Germaine Goh’s Sleepless In Singapore, a re:Sound commission. A suite for chamber orchestra, it played like a 21st century concerto grosso in four movements. Between Concrete and Sky evoked dawn in Little India with use of raga scales. Through Windows recounted a frenetic pace of traffic (and life) with the added impetus of pelting rain.

Highly effective scoring included solos for clarinet and soprano saxophone (Ralph Lim), French horn (Alan Kartik) and bassoon (Lim Tee Heong), the latter starring in its slow movement Sleepless, mimicking the call of a nightjar. The finale Tomorrow, Again combined Malay percussive beats with John Adams-styled minimalism for an excitingly manic conclusion.

Photo: @Joelcaptures

The concert’s main work was Ludwig van Beethoven Fifth Symphony in C minor (Op.67) guest-led by Ohio-based Jonathan Ong, first violinist of the Verona Quartet. Although not performing on period instruments, the ensemble adopted the spirit of early 19th century’s “age of enlightenment”.

Photo: @Joelcaptures

Lithe textures and swift tempos did not translate into thin wispy sounds, instead gained an edginess that kept listeners engaged on the edge of their seats. The use of natural horns (without valves) and calfskin timpani heads were added points of authenticity. For an old familiar favourite to sound this refreshing and revitalised is exactly why re:Sound exists.

Braddell Heights Symphony Orchestra (BHSO), Singapore’s oldest community orchestra, was led by Leonard Tan in an unusually creative programme. It opened with the winner of a call-for-scores, Seem Jia Ang’s The Journey Ahead. Within a single minute, a flute solo expanded into something with cinematic aspirations but ended as soon as it began, leaving one guessing myriad possibilities for development.

Tan Chan Boon’s In Memory of Franz Schubert (1997) was built on two motifs from the slow movement of the Austrian composer’s “Unfinished” Eighth Symphony. First heard as fragments, these coalesced into actual quotations before launching into an inevitable fugue. The orchestra’s masterful handling of its scholarly discourse was admirable.

Even more impressive was its partnership with Cheong Kah Yiong, founding member of Morse Percussion, in Chinese-American composer Chen Yi’s Percussion Concerto (1998). A solo tour-de-force premiered here by renowned Scottish percussionist Evelyn Glennie and the Singapore Symphony in 1999, Cheong headily relived all its dynamic moments on gongs, drums and xylophones.

In the central movement Prelude To Water Tune, vocal recitation of Beijing Opera was where Cheong had the advantage of language and fine auditory nuances. The rapid-fire Speedy Wind finale drew the longest and loudest ovation of all soloists who have played with the orchestra.

BHSO literally pulled all the stops for Camille Saint-Saens’ Third Symphony in C minor, popularly known as the “Organ” Symphony, in a performance that lacked nothing in full-blooded passion and visual spectacle. On Victoria Concert Hall’s Klais organ, Loraine Muthiah did the honours, in the hymn-like slow movement and the grandstanding finale which unleashed voice and vibration to spine-chilling effect.

Professional or volunteer, long may communal music-making in Singapore thrive.

Jeremy Monteiro's very detailed personal account of the re:Sound concert:

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HANNU LINTU INAUGURAL SERIES: GIL SHAHAM & MAHLER 5 / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

 

HANNU LINTU INAUGURAL SERIES:

GIL SHAHAM & MAHLER 5

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Friday (17 July 2026)

Esplanade Concert Hall

This review was first published in Bachtrack.com on 20 July 2026 with the title "Hannu Lintu makes his mark in inaugural concert with the Singapore Symphony".

Until today, the Singapore Symphony Orchestra has had just three music directors in its 47-year history – Choo Hoey, Lan Shui and Hans Graf. Finnish conductor Hannu Lintu was introduced this evening as its the fourth music director. A towering physical presence with a hint of a wizened smile, he made his presence felt immediately.

Lintu’s inaugural concert programme consisted wholly of 20th and 21st century works, opening with the world premiere of Après l'Odyssée by Singaporean composer Tan Chan Boon (born 1965). The École Normale-schooled Tan is Singapore’s most prolific symphonist, and this nearly 20-minute-long commission is the first movement of his yet to be performed Seventh Symphony. 

His models are anachronistically Romantic, with Anton Bruckner and Richard Strauss coming to mind, not least the pastoral opening string melody backed by cascading woodwind chords. The movement’s title After The Odyssey was premised on the feeling of relief and uneasy calm after his Sixth Symphony (L’Odyssey, recounting the Covid-19 pandemic). Its breezy beginning was qualified by a fugal treatment of its second subject. Tension ensued with the introduction of brass and percussion, gradually building to a fulsome climax before receding in a quiet close that portends hope for the future. A performance of the symphony in full is keenly anticipated.

American violinist Gil Shaham made a welcome return to Singapore with the Asian premiere of Nomad Concerto by American composer Mason Bates (born 1977). Conceived in four movements, this deliberately exotic yet gratifyingly tonal work imagines an assemblage had Ravel been requested to expand his rhapsodic Tzigane and throw in some New World jazz for good measure. 

Photo: LG Lim

Shaham’s virtuosity defined its first two movements, Song of the balloon man and Magician at the bazaar, casting a spell as an itinerant entertainer journeying through Eastern Europe to the Middle East. The mystically desolate slow movement Desert vision: oasis quoted a Jewish song before the rocking syncopations of Le jazz manouche, à la Django Reinhardt as Bates’ own programme notes reminds, brought down the house. The ensuing cheers ensured that the Magician movement, with its John Williams’ Harry Potter moments, was encored.

The only familiar music on show was Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, in a gripping performance that was long on drama but short on bombast. Jon Paul Dante’s excellent trumpet solo set the tone for a deliberately paced funeral march, yet there was never a moment where the narrative lagged. In the tumultuous struggle of the second movement, the marking mit größter Vehemenz (with greatest vehemence) was taken most literally, yet the earlier march’s driving impetus remained fresh in the subconscious. The central Scherzo’s French horn solo resounded like an exultant call from the abyss, heralding a celebration of some perverse joy, such was Mahler’s idea of irony.

There were no doubts in the Adagietto’s love message, delivered plain and without neuroses by gilded strings and harpist Gulnara Mashurova. In the attacca finale, an initial French horn fluff did little to dispirit the clever counterpoint Mahler wove into his satirical Wunderhorn song Lob des hohen Verstandes (In Praise of High Intellect), wittily closing the symphony on a blazing high. 

The orchestra responded with the acute awareness of a band guided by a fresh and uncompromising new leader who knows exactly what he wants and how to get it. Hannu Lintu has just ushered in an exciting and enticingly interesting new future for the Singapore Symphony in seasons to come.

Photo: LG Lim

Star Rating: *****

The original review may be found here:

Hannu Lintu makes his mark in inaugural Singapore Symphony concert | Bachtrack

GERMAN CLASSICS / ASIAN CONCERT TOUR 2023 / Braddell Heights Symphony Orchestra / Academy of Taiwan Strings / Review

GERMAN CLASSICS

Braddell Heights Symphony Orchestra

School of the Arts Concert Hall

Saturday (26 August 2023)

 

ASIA CONCERT TOUR 2023

Academy of Taiwan Strings

Victoria Concert Hall

Sunday (27 August 2023)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 29 August 2023 with the title "Invigorating showcases by Braddell orchestra and Academy of Taiwan Strings".

 

 

After the tragic passing of music director Adrian Tan in 2021, Braddell Heights Symphony Orchestra, Singapore’s oldest community orchestra, has found a worthy successor in conductor Leonard Tan. Leonard, who is no relation of Adrian, has an excellent track record of having helmed The Philharmonic Winds, Singapore’s leading wind ensemble, for some 15 years. He also continued in Adrian’s friendly manner of demystifying the classics by addressing the audience with simple, well-chosen words.

 

More important was the music-making, and straight off, Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture was possessed with tension and energy befitting its drama and tragedy. The opening chords were punched out with incisiveness and clarity, and soon the musical narrative sizzled.

 

Far more substantial was Brahms’ Second Symphony in a performance which highlighted the music’s expansiveness and sunlit vistas. The string playing stood out and if a symphony had a smile, this was it. From the lilting lullaby-like theme from the opening movement, the scherzo’s chattiness to the finale’s trail-blazing close, the results were invigorating.

  

In Dvorak’s masterly Cello Concerto in B minor, the orchestra partnered talented young cellist Theophilus Tan, Goh Soon Tioe Centenary Award recipient and founding member of the Concordia Quartet. His solo playing was one of much sensitivity, which occasionally got submerged by dense orchestral textures and over-enthusiastic projecting. It was passion which ultimately shone through, in the slow movement’s love song and finale’s irrepressible march.

 

Singapore was the first leg of the Academy of Taiwan Strings’ Asian tour, which also includes concerts in Kuala Lumpur, Taipei and Kaohsiung. Why it is considered an elite ensemble was immediately apparent by the sheer volume and richness of sonority generated in Elgar’s showpiece Introduction and Allegro, suggesting a group far larger than its 21 members.    

 

The major work in the 2-hour long concert was the World Premiere of Singaporean composer Tan Chan Boon’s newly commissioned Symphony For Strings. Tan is not one for half-measures, and his 38-minute long work relived the Mahlerian dictum that, “A symphony is like a world. It must have everything.” And the kitchen sink one might add, as its three movements got progressively longer.

 

The first two movements explored ethereal and otherworldly sound textures, including harmonics, slides, pizzicatos and other exotic devices. From the morass of the amorphous issued forth hints of melody, like a newly revitalised world emerging out of Covid-induced chaos. The final slow movement had Brucknerian ambitions, a hymn-like tune without worries or neuroses, later turning into some elegy for lost souls. Its life-affirming close saw a collective stomping of feet from all performers, a trickle turning into a torrential rainstorm.   

 

Applause from the small audience was fulsome but genuine, also accorded to the absorbing reading of Brahms’ Second String Quintet (Op.111) in its string orchestra version. Its charm and luscious melodies were gratefully lapped up by the players, leaving one wondering why it is not more often heard.   

 

Taiwan-based Japanese film composer Koji Sakurai’s Last Forever inspired by Eileen Chang’s novella Red Rose, White Rose was quasi-baroque in style. Reminiscent of a cross between Albinoni’s Adagio and Scarlatti’s “Aria” Sonata in D minor, this elegiac number tugged on the heart-strings like no other. Joined by eight string players from Singapore’s own chamber outfit re:Sound, the concert closed with two tangos by Astor Piazzolla, sultry and brooding Oblivion with violinist Cheng Tze Hsun as soloist and the ever-lively Libertango.

 

Encores were demanded even after the ensemble had left the stage, and who could resist enjoying that most quintessential of Taiwanese melodies, Teng Yu-Hsien’s Wang Chun Feng or Pining For The Spring Breeze?

VARIATIONS: RE:SOUND WITH PAVLO BEZNOSIUK / Review

VARIATIONS:

RE:SOUND WITH PAVLO BEZNOSIUK

Victoria Concert Hall

Thursday (6 October 2022)

 

The chamber orchestra re:Sound has been known for innovative programming, but little did one expect this peach of a concert, built around the theme of variations. Included was one world premiere, two Singapore premieres and a rarely performed (in Singapore) string masterpiece led by British violinist-conductor Pavlo Beznosiuk.    

 

The world premiere was Singapore composer Tan Chan Boon’s arrangement of the second movement from Brahms’ String Sextet No.1 (Op.18). String lovers know this as a tightly-knit set of variations on a sombre theme, and so do pianists who play Brahms’ own piano transrciption. Tan’s treatment was more like Rudolf Barshai’s highly idiomatic work on selected Shostakovich String Quartets (called Chamber Symphonies) rather than Schoenberg’s over-the-top conflation of Brahms’ First Piano Quartet. The music and architecture of the work was retained but the sound palette expanded, the six parts of the original sometimes stretched out to nine. A lovely rich sonority was achieved, and Tan was also afforded the liberty of a coda of his own after the final variation.   

 

Also in the same key was C.P.E.Bach’s Piano Concerto in D minor (Wq.23), receiving its local premiere with pianist Koh Jia Hwei, now better known as an organist, as soloist. Composed in 1748, the original probably involved a harpsichord or fortepiano, which explained why Koh began the work as part of the ensemble (or continuo) before coming into her own as a soloist. The sturm und drang of the opening movement was exciting in itself, the result of the baroque transitioning into classical sensibilities.

 

The confident if not blindingly brilliant Koh made true music of the sedate slow movement before going for broke for the finale, another stormed tossed affair, which had a short cadenza to close. The strings led by Beznosiuk kept up the cut and thrust all through its twenty or so minutes. It is a wonder why this is nowhere as well-known as Papa Bach’s or Papa Haydn’s keyboard concertos. One is better off having made its acquaintance.

 

The second half began with Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov’s minimalist Epitaph for piano and strings (1999), written in memory of his wife who died three years before. An unusually hypnotic work, it comprised a procession of piano octaves and chords (with Koh Jia Hwei again) answered by muted strings, and one is kept guessing what the next chord would be through its 9 minutes. By some quirk of listening, one is regularly reminded of the funeral march from Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony. This very timely and haunting performance might very well also be in memory of innocent victims lost in the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

 

The concert closed with one of the great 20^th century works for strings, Benjamin Britten’s splendid Variations on a Theme by Frank Bridge. First Pavlo Beznosiuk demonstrated on the violin Bridge’s somewhat retiring theme (the second of Three Idylls for strings), explaining these were not strict variations in the traditional sense, but rather freely crafted short movements based on certain motifs derived from the said theme. The fantastical variations that followed were such that the original theme would be so well hidden as to be unrecognisable.

 

An extremely tricky work, the ensemble did very well to cope with the myriad changes of dynamics and textures all through movements which included amongst other things a March, Aria Italiana, Bourree Classique, Wiener Walzer, Funeral March and an outrageously skittish Fugue to close. The camp wit and sometimes frivolous asides know little bounds, especially in the Aria, with strings strummed like guitar while accompanying melodramatic violins. This masterpiece was written in 1937 for the virtuoso Boyd Neel String Orchestra performing at the Salzburg Festival. After witnessing this fine and truly infectious performance, one fancies re:Sound to be Singapore’s Boyd Neel as well. As an encore, the still-energised ensemble reprised the off-kilter and half-drunk Wiener Walzer, sounding even more delicious this time around. 

All photographs courtesy 

of re:Sound / Yong Junyi.