DISAPPEARING SERIES: THE LAST EPISODE / Ding Yi Music Company / Review

 

DISAPPEARING SERIES:

THE LAST EPISODE

Ding Yi Music Company

Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre

Friday (6 June 2025), 7.30 pm

This review was published in The Straits Times on 10 June 2025 with the title "A timely reminder to celebrate traditional practices".

The Disappearing Series concerts by Ding Yi Music Company has over the years examined local arts and traditions that are on the cusp of becoming extinct. These in-concert documentaries combining film, story-telling and original music on Chinese instruments have become art-pieces in their own right.

Photo: Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre

Ironically, this 70-minute concert conducted by Dedric Wong De Li called time on an invaluable part of the company’s creative output. With research by Jesvin Yeo, filmography by Sandra Sek and direction by Jeremiah Choy, three diverse yet often taken for granted aspects of our cultural heritage were explored.

Photo: Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre

The opening artform was the painstaking creation of lion heads used for the traditional Chinese lion dance, perfected by artisan Henry Ng. The accompanying music by Tan Yuting entitled Crafting Lions, Writing Dreams took the form of a four-movement suite, outlining the process of inspiration, fabrication, ornamention, and all the way to the final product.

Photo: Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre

Percussive beats, typically heard during festive processions dominated, before culminating in the actual dance, which was earthy and raucous in feel. Ng made a personal appearance centrestage, painting the lion head in brushstrokes of different shades but leaving the piece uncompleted, symbolic of the need for his work to be continued as long as it takes.

Photo: Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre

Alicia De Silva’s Love and Legacy dwelled on Malay songkok crafting in the hands of aged headpiece maker Abdul Wahab bin Abdullah. The use of a small gamelan set of metallophones, struck by mallets by the composer herself, lent an authentic flavour to the subject.

Ostinatos and minimalism heard on pipa and zhongruan simulated repeating patterns on the worked fabric. Although Wahab was not physically present, his voiceover established the craft as a familial heirloom passed down from his father. There was, however, an uneasy sense that he represented the final generation of this handicraft’s perpetuity.

Photo: Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre

De Silva then seamlessly moved to the angklungs, resonating wooden rattlers which accompanied the final segment focused on rattan-weaving in furniture making. This was Cultural Medallion recipient Eric Watson’s A Palm for All Seasons. His evocation of nature with solo dizi in full flight was also a salute to the rattan palm, from which pieces lying at many homes were fashioned.

Photo: Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre

The mellow marimba, whose bars and resonators are also made from wood, featured prominently in the music as well. The mood of the music became decidedly more light-hearted, reflecting the loving bond between furniture maker Chen Foon Kee and his wife Lee Joon as they plied their craft onstage together.

All three works resembled mini-symphonies in conception and execution, a conscious reaction to the synthesis represented by these living artforms hanging by a thread. As a closing gesture, a final coda to the concert - and the series - summated what we risk losing in the relentless pursuit of 21st century living. Ding Yi’s Disappearing Series will most certainly be missed.

Photo: Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre

Exhibition in the foyer:

SEVEN / PHOON YU, Organ / Review

SEVEN

PHOON YU, Organ

Klais Organ of Esplanade Concert Hall

Centaur Records 3926 / TT: 49’05”

 

Strange as it may seem, this is the first ever CD recording of organ music by Singaporean composers. That it comes from Singapore’s brightest young organist, the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory and Juilliard-trained Phoon Yu, who commissioned all the works in the recital, is also significant. Its title Seven comes from the programme’s two groups of seven: seven Singaporean composers with their own personal takes on J.S.Bach’s Chorale Preludes from Clavier-Ubung Book 3, and the seven angels from the Book of Revelation as envisioned in a cycle by an eighth Singaporean composer Chen Zhangyi.

 

Phoon is Anglican by faith, which partly informs this album’s overtly religious programme. It was, however, the aim of showcasing the organ’s full range of colours and dynamic capabilities that really distinguished each of the fourteen pieces. It is perhaps best to appreciate the music as two separate recitals of seven works, playing for about 25 minutes each.   

 

The seven composers’ responses to the Bach chorales either took the form of (1) paraphrases, (2) pieces based on choral melodies (cantus firmus) or (3) pieces inspired by the words (text evocations).  Opening the recital is Jonathan Shin’s Postlude to Allein Gott in der Hoh sei Ehr (Glory be to God in the highest), a jazzy paraphrase that imagined if JSB had arrived in Brooklyn and heard bluegrass.

 

The choral melodies in Tan Yuting’s Vater unser in Himmelreich (Our Father in Heaven) and Emily Koh’s Fantasia on Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir (I cry out to you in deep distress) are well hidden, embedded within the organ’s textures. The latter’s crunching and long-held chords come closest to espousing the avant-garde. In Lee Jinjun’s Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam (Christ our Lord came to Jordan), the melodic line is more transparent and thus most readily discernible.

 

The text evocation preludes gave composers the widest freedoms of expression, hence how different each work sounds. Huang Dingchao’s Fantasia on Dies sind die heilgen zehn Gebot (These are the ten holy commandments) revels in liberal dissonances. Syafiqah ‘Adha Sallehin’s We all believe in one God reflects the radiance of ecumenism, of one uniting the three Abrahamic faiths. Wynne Fung’s Jesus Christus, unser Heiland, der von uns Gotteszorn wandte (Jesus Christ, our saviour, who turned away the wrath of God from us) closes the cycle with some questions instead of a comforting benediction.

 

Olivier Messiaen has previously been cited as an influence for some of Chen Zhangyi’s music. The subject of The Seven Angels certainly has Messiaenic overtones but Chen instead finds his own voice in the seven brief and concise (and therefore un-Messianesque) utterances. Birdsong and celestial chorales are absent, instead various manifestations of trumpets take over, heralding the apocalyptic events in Revelation. It is best appreciated while perusing the texts from Chapters 8, 9 and 11 of the New Testament book of Revelation (not reproduced in the sleeve-notes) while listening to the music. A mixed sense of fearful trepidation and reverential awe may be the desired outcome.

 

There is much to marvel in this music, all hailing from a rather troubled first two decades of the early twenty-first century. Guided by the keen vision, tremendous intellect and understated virtuosity of Phoon Yu, Esplanade Concert Hall’s scandalously under-utilised Klais Organ has hardly sounded this magnificent. This album is a prime candidate for the Singapore canon, established by composing legends like Leong Yoon Pin and Phoon Yew Tien.    

This recording may be sampled / downloaded at:

Seven de Phoon Yu, Syafiqah ‘adha Sallehin, Tan Yuting, Wynne Fung, Chen Zhangyi, Emily Koh, Huang Dingchao, Jonathan Shin & Lee Jinjun en Amazon Music Unlimited

A selection of works from this album may be heard in this Youtube video from the Episcopal Church of St Ignatius of Antioch in New York City (recorded on 22 April 2022):

'SEVEN: Organ Music of Singapore' Album Showcase (Archived Livestream) - YouTube

SINGAPORE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA NATIONAL DAY CONCERT / Review

SSO NATIONAL DAY CONCERT:

A NATION IN HARMONY

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Streamed online via SISTIC Live

Saturday (15 August 2020)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 18 August 2020  with the title "Joyous showcase of local music canon".

 

Over the last three years, the Singapore Symphony Orchestra’s National Day Concerts have become proud showcases of works by Singaporean and locally-based composers. This year’s offerings, conducted by Darrell Ang, included four new works. Three were by young composers who by their ages would be known as millennials. Never in Singapore’s 55-year history has there been such a glut of composing talent.

 

The concert began with New Beginnings by Sandra Lim  (born 1991), a slickly orchestrated fantasy on two popular songs, Di Tanjong Katong and Singapura. Resembling the scores of Hollywood epics à la John Williams, motifs of both songs were wittily bandied about but never heard in full. As per social distancing requirements, the orchestra was chamber-sized, with musicians widely separated on the Esplanade Concert Hall stage, and all masked-up (wind players excepted) which is for now standard concert attire.  

 

More modern and ominous in feel was Metro by Tan Yuting (born 1993), a portrayal of urban hyperactivity, perhaps not of Singapore’s pristine streets, but somewhere far less secure or savoury. Over an ostinato beat established by Jonathan Fox on hi-hat cymbals, a quasi-minimalist scenario unfolded with Stravinskyan economy but always poised on a razor’s edge. As if violence might erupt at any moment, this seemed a portent of the uncertain times we live in.

 

Exuberant would aptly describe City Arising by Jonathan Shin (born 1992), a bustling morning scene as the nation awakes to another fraught and frenetic day. Even the ear-piercing call of the koel is quoted, heard on Ma Yue’s solo clarinet, and the ensuing hubbub is a good-natured and comically optimistic one, recalling socialist-realist overtures of Shostakovich and Kabalevsky.  

 

The Texan John Sharpley (born 1955), resident here since the mid-1980s, is the sole boomer among  young upstarts. His chamber opera Kannagi (2009), based on the Tamil saga Silapathikaram (The Anklet) has now become part of the Singapore opera canon.

 

Brahman: Kannagi’s Realization, the penultimate section of the opera, is a sequence building up to a grand climax. Anticipation and expectancy is driven to seemingly insurmountable levels, heightened by Shane Thio’s runs on the celesta. This intoxicating music accompanied Bharatanayam dancer Kshirja Govind’s entrancing movements playing the eponymous heroine-turned-goddess.  

 

After the serious stuff, Dick Lee’s Home (orchestrated by Kelly Tang) provided some levity in a video from the 2018 National Day Concert featuring the Singapore Symphony Choruses. National Day Parade favourite Count On Me, Singapore by the Canadian Hugh Harrison (whose other hit song was Stand Up For Singapore) was sung jazz-styled by Benjamin Kheng in a super slick commercially produced video that also recounted landmarks in SSO’s history.

 

Finally, it was left to Zubir Said’s national anthem Majulah Singapura (in Tang’s 2020 reorchestration for chamber forces) to do the honours. So what is Singapore music? A fuller picture emerges with each and every National Day concert, so long may this continue. 

NEW MUSIC IN A MYTHIC LANDSCAPE / SIFOM Ensemble / Review

NEW MUSIC IN A MYTHIC LANDSCAPE

SIFOM Ensemble

Singapore International Festival of Music

Chamber, The Arts House

Wednesday (19 October 2016)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 21 October 2016 with the title "Three strikes and New Music is out".

New music has the perpetual problem of attracting audiences, and presenters are usually mindful of engaging patrons with various outreach efforts to win them over. This concert of new Singaporean music however did nothing of the sort as its presentation was lamentable and unacceptably poor.

There were neither composer biographies nor programme notes provided, just a host who happened to be Paris-based conductor Marlon Chen merely reading out titles of performed pieces. Even the names of performers were omitted. Strike One. Two works on the printed programme by John Sharpley and Koh Cheng Jin were discarded with no reasons given. The compensation was a  complimentary drink offered on the house. Strike Two.

Without fanfare, the 65-minute long concert (originally marketed as 90 minutes) began with Chen Zhangyi's Sandcastles. Violinist Arisa Ikeda and pianist April Foo gave an evocative reading with lyrical lines accompanied by rippling keyboard textures, like waves gently lapping on a serene tropical beach.

Bertram Wee's Love Songs for piano trio was sterner than its title suggested. Its 5 movements were atonal and dissonant, with the idea that the course of true love is never easy. Violinist Rida Sayfiddinov, cellist Dzhama Saidkarimov and pianist Thomas Ang covered a full gamut of 20^th century technical devices including harmonics, slides, brusque pizzicatos and heavy chords which cemented his case in no uncertain terms.  

A surreal soundscape was created for Ding Jian Han's Slow Jogging On A Not-So-Silent Night, scored for flute (Jeremy Lim), clarinet (Andrew Constantino), violin, cello and piano (Foo), conducted by Marlon Chen. No actual notes were played in its opening minutes, comprising only the sound of air passing through channels or over strings. This soon cystallised into tones, both short and long-held, which generated a Zen-like calm and mysticism.  

Newly commissioned was Mick Lim's #9 (Sharp Nine), a brief work for pipa (Chua Yew Kok), zhongruan (Loi Eevian), violin, viola (Ho Qian Hui) and cello, which ran a course of plucked notes and pizzicatos. The first work to actually resound with a distinctively Oriental idiom was Ho Chee Kong's Echoes Of Fall for marimba (Kevin Castelo), clarinet, gambus (Loi on ruan) and cello. There were virtuoso roles for each in this enjoyable serenade-like work, which could have come from Central Asia.  

The last and most substantial work was Tan Yuting's Chinatown, a song cycle with texts by Tan Chee Lay featuring talented and expressive soprano Angel Cortez. Its scoring with strings, winds, piano and percussion was lush, and two central fast movements took on the form of rhythmic dances. The subjects involved a culinary paradise and a back-alley barber, but Cortez's Chinese pronunciation was indecipherable, again not helped by the lack of texts or translations. Strike Three and you're out.  

Good music performed by dedicated musicians will always endure, but the cause of new music was not honoured with proper contexts and annotations on this occasion, thus coming off as a wasted opportunity.