MUSIC RESIDENCY SHARING CONCERT / Chamber Music & Arts Singapore / Review

 

MUSIC RESIDENCY 

SHARING CONCERTS

Chamber Music & Arts 

Homegrown Artists

Objectifs Chapel, Middle Road

Sunday (21 June 2026)

The final day of Chamber Music & Arts’ (CMAS) Chamber Music Residency programme yielded one last concert by four of its Homegrown Artists, whom over a two-week course were mentored by three established international artists. Their Sharing Concert, just like the formal evening concerts, focused on all-French repertoire.

Titled The Conclusion of the War, it opened with Claude Debussy’s late Violin Sonata in G minor (1917) with violinist Isabelle Ong and pianist Tian KeXin. This was the terminally-ill composer’s attempt to relive Gallic characteristics and sensibilities in music, moving away from the German model that had influenced composers like Franck and Chausson. 

Penchant for melody and lightness in textures were key, which informed Ong’s perceptive playing and Tian’s fluid accompaniment. This was a performance strong in flavour and sensitive to nuance, not least in the middle movement’s subtle humour and the finale’s scintillating caprices.

This was followed by Gabriel Faure’s Cello Sonata No.1 in D minor (Op.109, 1917) performed by Singapore-based Korean cellist Cho Hang-oh with Tian again on piano. This underrated gem should be as popular and often played as Debussy’s late Cello Sonata, which remains a mystery. An elusiveness in melodiousness may be a reason, the lyrical glories of the Belle Epoque being well left behind by the horrors of war. 

Still, the duo mastered the opening movement’s rhythmic quirkiness and the finale’s emotional vagaries. However, the tender beauty of the slow movement’s plaint remains the abiding memory of this reading. Cho’s tone is simply gorgeous, and the outpouring of emotion by both players totally palpable. Bravo!

The matinee concluded tumultuously with Maurice Ravel’s La Valse (1919-20), in the version for piano four hands by Lucien Garban. Here, young pianist Tay Shu Wen was partnered by mentoring Scottish pianist Alasdair Beatson. The duo could not completely escape the Yamaha’s tendency for percussiveness, but Beatson’s ever-steady waltz rhythm in the secondo part was met with alacrity by Tay’s flashily swooning primo role. 

Before long, both musicians were waltzing on their seats, while busily avoiding collisions of bodily parts. A sense of danger was ever present, and one was almost half-expecting the piano to collapse in the heap. The reality was that both pianists were on top of their game, and the message of societal decadence and collapse was well and truly received.

This Sharing Concert was more than a show-and-tell session after two weeks of music professionals working today. It was a clear indication that thanks to CMAS, chamber music performance in Singapore is heading in the right direction.

OFF THE PIANO BENCH / Tian Kexin, Piano Recital with Kerim Vergazov & Lucas Cheong / Review

OFF THE PIANO BENCH

Tian Kexin, Piano

with Kerim Vergazov & Lucas Cheong

Esplanade Recital Studio

Tuesday (2 August 2022)

 

Summer is the season when students pursuing music overseas return to their homeland to perform, sharing with local audiences what they have learned and experienced during their course of study. This was one of many such concerts this year, given by Tian Kexin, an undergraduate at the New England Conservatory of Music.

 

She opened her recital with the first ten pieces from Prokofiev’s cycle Visions Fugitives (Op.22). Its unusual title comes from a verse by Russian poet Konstantin Balmont, “In every fugitive vision, I see worlds filled with the fickle play of rainbows.” These are essentially short prelude-like pieces, fleeting impressions dabbed with a variegated palette of colours.

 

With the young Prokofiev, one senses an enfant terrible but also a Romantic at heart. Tian’s interpretation of these miniatures does nor aim for shock value, evident from its angular melodies, jagged harmonies or seeming grotesqueries. She rather brings out the aural beauty inherent in the harp-like figurations of Pittoresco (No.7) or the lyrical Commodo (No.8). Prokofiev isn’t Prokofiev if he cannot thumb his nose at tradition, which is best heard in the final number, entitled Ridicolosamente (No.10), which Tian plays straight but with tongue firmly lodged in cheek.

 

The late Brahms was a master of short essays, with his Three Intermezzi (Op.117) being prime examples. The hymn-like melody of the first piece was followed with the dark smouldering textures of the second, both of which were keenly contrasted by Tian. The more complex third intermezzo was the most difficult to pull off, and it felt somewhat episodic in her hands. It nonetheless brought her solo segment to a satisfying end.

 

This recital afforded a short cameo for 14-year-old Lucas Cheong, who studies with Kexin’s mentor in Singapore, the Russian pianist Kerim Vergazov. One will rarely encounter more passion than his take on Rachmaninov’s very early Elegie in E flat minor (Op.3 No.1) which also displayed a mastery of sonorities. In the familiar Prelude in G minor (Op.23 No.5), he showed power and projection, and could have better brought out the inner voices from its lyrical central section.

 

The short Rachmaninov pieces served as a teaser for the evening’s tour de force with Kexin joined by Kerim Vergazov in Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances (Op.45). This was the Russian’s final masterpiece, almost a symphony in conception. There has not been a public performance here of the two-piano version since Dmitri Alexeev and Nikolai Demidenko at the 2003 Singapore International Piano Festival, thus this was a rare treat. Like the famous Russian duo, Kexin (Piano I) and Kerim (Piano II) played with the keyboards placed side-by-side rather than at opposite ends, thus facilitating better communication.

 

This is music of nostalgia that lays bare Rachmaninov’s Russian soul, expressing his sorrow and regret of leaving his homeland for good. After opening outbursts from both pianos, the first movement’s plaintive melody (heard on alto saxophone in the orchestral version) was well brought out. Just as resonant was the famous quote from his First Symphony, now sounding resigned and retiring, greatly contrasted from the earlier boldness and defiance of his youth.

 

A keen awareness of his mortality drove this work, not least in the spectral waltzing of the central movement. Tinged with sentimental sweetness, this ghostly ballroom dance recalling bygone Tolstoyesque nights was given a chilling realisation by the duo. The finale, now dominated by bells and chants of the Russian Orthodox church rang out in all its glorious clangour. Other quotes, the ever-present Dies Irae and one from his Vespers (All-Night Vigil, Op.37) now came into the fore, standing out through the plethoric textures of both pianos. There was much to enjoy in this performance, mostly because there was a lot of heart and soul in it. The small audience (with Russians among the guests) heartily concurred, according the duo with long and appreciative applause.