MADELINE GOH Violin Recital / STORIES FROM THE HEART by Voice of the Cello / Review

MADELINE GOH Violin Recital

Esplanade Recital Studio

Wednesday (4 January 2023)

 

STORIES FROM THE HEART

Voice of the Cello

School of the Arts Concert Hall

Sunday (8 January 2023)

 

This review was published in The Straits Times on 10 January 2022 with the title "Concerts showcase Singapore's wealth of string talent".

If one wondered how Singapore produces so many excellent young musicians in recent decades, the answer can be attributed to good teaching. Pioneering classical musician Goh Soon Tioe (1911-1982), violinist, conductor, pedagogue and impresario, saw to the beginning of this renaissance. His legacy lives on through his many students and awards bestowed in his memory.

Photo: Gilbert Chan

 

The tenth and latest recipient of the Goh Soon Tioe Centenary Award was 15-year-old violinist Madeline Goh Anyi, former student of violinist Min Lee, who is pursuing pre-college studies at the Salzburg Mozarteum. Her hour-long recital was a showcase of precocity balanced by maturity beyond tender years.

Photo: Gilbert Chan

 

In Mozart’s Violin Sonata in B flat major (K.378), the hallmarks of fine musicianship were displayed, including clarity of articulation, beautiful cantabile tone, excellent intonation and  attention to phrasing and nuances. There was never a moment of artifice as she and pianist Beatrice Lin sang their way through to its virtuosic close in double-quick time.  

Photo: Gilbert Chan

 

In unaccompanied music, Goh was nigh unimpeachable in two movements from J.S.Bach’s Sonata No.2 in A major, with the fugue’s complex counterpoint mastered with aplomb. Scaling fiendish heights in Paganini’s mercurial Caprice No.10 and contemporary Austrian composer Gerhard Wimberger’s Toi, Toi, Toi (2016), tricks and cliches of the trade were laid out and skilfully dissected with a surgeon’s precision.

 

There were moments to relax in Eugene Ysaye’s salon-like Mazurka (In A Distance) in gentle triple-time but all stops were pulled for Wieniawski’s showpiece Polonaise in D major,  bringing down the house. As an encore, Madeline was joined by elder sister Mathea (award recipient in 2016) in the Allegro movement from Prokofiev’s Sonata for two violins (Op.56), a show of perfect synchrony demonstrating that musical talent does run in families.

Madeline Goh receives her big cheque
from Vivien Goh,Goh Soon Tioe's daughter.

 

If one thought pianists and violinists were main foci of attention, young cellists have begun to have their say. Stories From The Heart was a fundraiser for The Business Times Budding Artist Fund presented by Voice of the Cello, a collective mentored by veteran cellist Natasha Liu. No less than 40 cellists performed in this impressive showcase.

Amelie See with Michelle Seah

 

Its first half highlighted solo works, with 10-year-old Amelie See opening in Bohemian composer David Popper’s Polonaise de Concert with a display of confidence and poise. Even younger was 8-year-old Grace Joy Chee who blew away Saint-Saëns’ showpiece Allegro Appasionato with relative ease, followed by Ji Yuanjun (10) in the finale from Haydn’s Cello Concerto in C major, possessing both lightness and fleet-fingeredness.

Grace Joy Chee

Natalie Yong

 

By way of contrast, Lucas Liow (11) bared his heart and soul in the contemplative Andante movement of Rachmaninov’s ever-popular Cello Sonata, while Natalie Yong (13) luxuriated in the cantabile opening of Paganini’s Variations on Rossini’s Moses in Egypt, and never faltered as the work got increasingly thorny by the minute. All the works were partnered by pianist Michelle Seah.

 

The concert’s second half featured cello ensemble works ranging from three to twelve cellists. Six six-year-olds delighted in Tchaikovsky’s Sugar Plum Fairy while twelve seven-to-nines had their work cut out in William Squire’s very animated Tarantella. Stealing the show were four immaculately dressed lasses in all-white outfits for Saint-Saëns’ The Swan, and a choreographed  Elgar’s Salut d’amour for three cellists accompanying three dancers befitting the gracefulness of the music. Just too cute for words.

 

Six twelve-year-olds tackled Gabriel Fauré’s Elegie, calling for sobriety and depth of expression without piano accompaniment, while Shostakovich’s Waltz No.2 closed the variety programme on a lighter note. The grand finale saw the entire ensemble of 40 cellists converge in Harold Arlen’s Over The Rainbow, with a melody that would melt even the stoutest of hearts. Singapore’s got talent, and there are no two ways about it.  

Photo: Voice of the Cello

IN THE MOOD FOR FILM / Photographs from Phan Ming Yen's Piano Recital

IN THE MOOD FOR FILM

Phan Ming Yen, Piano et al

10 Square @ Orchard Central

Friday (8 April 2022)

 

 

This is not meant to be a review but rather a celebration of the multi-faceted personality that is Phan Ming Yen, the Malaysia-born artistic polymath (Director of Global Cultural Alliance and Chief Operations Officer of The Rice Company Limited), who celebrates his 55^th birthday this week. To commemorate this landmark, he gave a solo piano recital of movie music as a fund-raiser funds for The Business Times Budding Artists Fund. This fund provides opportunities to disadvantaged young people who aspire to make a career in the arts.

 

I have known Ming Yen since the early 1990s, when he was the much-feared music critic of The Straits Times, and scourge of artists who were not total geniuses. It was rumoured that he wrote just three complimentary reviews during his stint there. Those included solo recitals by Shura Cherkassky, Ivo Pogorelich, and I cannot remember what the third one was. He also wrote my first interview for ST (about my Singapore-centred verses to accompany Saint-Saens’ Carnival of the Animals). Later we collaborated to organise the first SSO Music Marathon and co-hosted the Symphony 92.4 FM talk show Bluff Your Way Through Classical Music, which ran for twelve stellar episodes.

I am also much indebted to Ming Yen over the years. He played the piano at our wedding service in 1999, besides supplementing my CD collection in ever creative ways ("I bet you won't have this recording!"), also extending to me multiple invitations to giving talks on musical subjects, performing at cross-straits events and judging at local piano competitions. He is also my original piano duet partner, our specialties being Brahms Hungarian Dances, Rossini's William Tell Overture and the Radetzky March.

Ming Yen's first piece was
Abba's The Winner Takes It All
from the movie Mamma Mia.

 

At the start of his two-hour long recital, the audience was forewarned that he could talk for unlimited lengths of time. He, however, makes an excellent stand-up comedian, and unlike Victor Borge, he actually played more than he talked. The following photographs are a chronological sequence of the pieces performed, an eclectic mix of classical music, original film music and pop music heard in the movies. Each example was peppered with interesting factoids (such as Prague Spring 1968) and curious anecdotes from personal experience. It all made for a celebration of humanity itself, an escape from unrelenting perfectionists like Ray Chen, and not to mention an entertaining evening out.  

Next came two selections from the movie
starring Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour, 
Somewhere in Time by John Barry and...

The 18th Variation from
Rachmaninov's Paganini Rhapsody.

Ming Yen reads from Milan Kundera's 
The Unbearable Likeness of Being followed by
Janacek's Madonna of Frydek (On An Overgrown Path)
and two pieces by Ennio Morricone.

Vocalist Estelle Ng chipped in with two songs:
Bernstein's Somewhere (West Side Story) and
Rodgers and Hammerstein's Shall We Dance?
(The King and I).

Recounting a trip to Hong Kong to watch an
uncensored screening of Lust.Caution,
he performed Brahms's Intermezzo (Op.118 No.2)

A story from Tokyo, an excerpt from an
Okinawan movie whom nobody in his group
has gotten grips with its story or meaning.
This was followed by Ryuichi Sakamoto's
Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence.

Only For Love from Tan Dun's Sonata,
crafted from his music for The Banquet.

Ming Yen was joined by YST Assistant Tutor
Lin Xiang Ning in a medley of Abba tunes
which closed with the ending of
Grieg's Piano Concerto.

An encore from Joe Hisaishi.

Time to cut that birthday cake!

To my friend and co-conspirator in musical endeavours, have a happy 55th birthday!

MOVING HANDS, OVERFLOWING HEARTS / The Inspiring Trio / Review

MOVING HANDS, 

OVERFLOWING HEARTS

The Inspiring Trio

Esplanade Recital Studio

Friday (5 January 2018)

If you wish to get a glimpse of the future of piano playing in Singapore, you could do worse than to attend a concert by students of Singapore’s most effective and inspiring piano teachers. The School of Young Talents at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts is an obvious start-point, but The Musique Loft (an alliance of music teachers based in Singapore’s east coast district founded by Winnie Tay and Angelyn Aw) has much to offer as well.  If one considers that the likes of Azariah Tan and Clarence Lee (Winnie’s former prodigies) and Serene Koh (Angelyn’s star pupil) arose from their respective studios, performance of their current students will need to be taken seriously.

This concert by The Inspiring Trio – Chen Jing, Toby Tan and Jessie Meng - three students of Winnie Tay, in support of The Business Times Budding Artist Fund may have important implications for the future. Dr Andrew Freris, President of the Chopin Society of Hong Kong, once referred to child prodigies as “real artists who happen to be really young”. Hence there is evidence that something serious and exciting is going on in those studios.

Chen Jing (8 years old) was the first to perform. Close your eyes, and you would not imagine Brahms’ Intermezzo in A major (Op.118 No.2), late Brahms to be certain, being played by someone this young. Her warm, cushioned sound was a balm to the ears, and she was also able to bring out the inner voice of the swifter central section. In two of Chopin’s waltzes (Op.64 No.2 and Op.18), an innate feel of rubato was evident, allied by a silken touch and limpid fingerwork. This was an excellent opener to the recital.

Toby Tan (9 years old, but almost a head shorter) put his prodigious fingers to work in Debussy’s Arabesque No.1, Chopin’s posthumous Nocturne in C sharp minor and Schubert’s vertiginous Impromptu in E flat major (Op.90 No.2). The repetitive nature of the last seemed a tad unrelenting, and the reading could do with more charm. However there were no reservations in Toby’s original composition Sorrow of Love, a pop and New Age influenced piece which showed development of ideas, culminating with a stormy central interlude with a short cadenza to boot.

Jessie Meng (10 years old) was recently awarded 1^st prize at the Singapore National Piano & Violin Competition (Intermediate category), and her performances showed exactly why. I cannot imagine Balakirev’s transcription of Glinka’s The Lark being played any better. Her shaping of its melancholic melody, colouring of the accompaniment, capped by virtuosic ornamentations made this a dream performance. Her view of Chopin’s Scherzo No.2, a new work for her, was less formed. There were wrong and missed notes for sure, but there was no denying her passion.

And that was only the first half (entitled The Affectionate). The second half programme, The Exhilaration, saw changes in outfits for all three pianists. Chen Jing emerged to have a heartfelt account of the 1^st movement Mozart’s Sonata in F major (K.332). At once, the realisation that she does not play to the metronome but breathes the music with all its myriad dynamic changes showed she is a thinking artist. What was there not to like in a selection from Shostakovich Dances of the Dolls (innocence, irony and droll humour are not alien to her) and the note-spinning of Wang Yu Shi’s Sunflower? 

Toby Tan, now attired in a three-piece suit and spiffy hat, looks the born entertainer in his playing of Astor Piazzolla’s Street Tango, Gershwin’s Prelude No.1 and I Got Rhythm. In all of these, he displays an assurance, swing and pizzazz which adults would be envious of. This was topped by Fazil Say’s Alla Turca Jazz, a ragtime version of Mozart’s popular rondo, which was a charmer through and through.

Jessie Meng returned with the meat of her programme, which began with the 1^st movement of Mozart’s Sonata in C major (K.330). This was a very assured reading, and it got even better with the 1^st movement of Dmitri Kabalevsky’s Sonata No.3, a work once championed by Vladimir Horowitz. She took its alternating dissonances and lyricism in her stride, which all but suggests that she is ready to tackle the early Prokofiev sonatas. The barnstorming ended with the tempestuous final movement of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata.  

The Inspiring Trio, as the threesome is called, gave an encore composed by Toby Tan called Magical Music Box. It was not so much a tinkling musical box miniature but more of a rumbling and punchy barn dance with musical boxing along the way – very entertaining and a surefire way to close the concert proper.

This concert was in aid of The Business Times Budding Arts Fund, and one of its previous beneficiaries, a vocal group called Harmonix formed by four rather self-conscious teenagers, performed two pop songs Don’t Stop Believing and You Raise Me Up. They were more of an incidental side show in an evening dominated by three quite incredible children.

Some Photographs from PIANO MARATHON 2017

After a hiatus of some 15 years, the Piano Marathon returned to public consciousness on Saturday 16 December 2017 (incidentally Beethoven's birthday) at the 1st floor plaza of ION Orchard. Organised by Steinway Gallery Singapore and The Rice Pte Ltd, the voluntary public piano-playing event attracted over 120 participants who performed continuously for 13 hours to raise funds for charity. The beneficiary of Piano Marathon 2017 was the Business Times Budding Artist Fund. 

Just a bit of background history, the first ever Piano Marathon was held in 1998 at Raffles City Atrium. That and the three subsequent marathons (Music Marathon 1999, Children's Music Marathon 2000 and Music Marathon 2002) were organised by the Singapore Symphonia Co. Ltd. in aid of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra. 

The masterminds of the endeavour were Phan Ming Yen, former SSO General Manager Tisa Ho and yours truly. The first marathon saw 122 pianists perform from 10 am to 11 am, and was opened by the late  then-Chairman of SSO and former Attorney General Mr Tan Boon Teik who played Chopin's L'Adieu Waltz. At 70, he was the Marathon's oldest performer, a record I believe still stands. Late in the evening, Ming Yen and myself closed with a 4-hand version of Rossini's William Tell Overture.

The second marathon in 1999 involved other instruments and voice in addition to the piano, and took place over two days (24 hours in total) at SUNTEC City, involving over 200 performers. In those days, the Singapore Book of Records did not exist and the "records" set then had not been documented. This year's statistics were however captured by the Singapore Book of Records, and hopefully preserved for posterity. 

This year's Piano Marathon was opened by
14-year-old Pung Rae Yue who performed a
recital with music by Chopin & Debussy.

Kion Chew exhibited remarkable maturity
by performing 15 of J.S. Bach's Sinfonias.

A very dapper Ryan Phuan mastered
a selection of Tchaikovsky's Seasons.

Kion and Ryan in a very interesting
medley of tunes from Mozart's Magic Flute.

Some of the youngest performers with their
teacher Christine Gan and Celine Goh
from Steinway Gallery Singapore.

The youngest performer at the Piano Marathon
was only 4 years old.

More youngsters and budding pianists.

There were older performers too, like this duo of young adults
who played William Bolcom's Serpent's Kiss.

Celebrity performer time:
Former Nominated Member of Parliament
Eunice Olsen tickles the ivories in a Christmas medley.

This teenager sang Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah.

All dressed up to perform!

Piano teacher Corinna Chang with one of her students.

Less cute and less cuddly, then came my turn to sub
for any pianist who failed to turn up,
playing Bach-Siloti Air in D major.
Photograph by: Emily Gouw

Now a larger crowd had gathered in the early evening
to witness Lucas Ong playing Grieg's March of the
Internet Trolls and Fazil Say's Paganini Jazz.

After hanging around for close to eight hours, it was time to take my leave. Needless to say Piano Marathon 2017 proved to be a big hit, and it is hoped that this event continues to engage the public as it did 19 years ago.