GO LOCAL! HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR CONCERT / Ding Yi Music Company / Review

 

GO LOCAL! 

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR 

Ding Yi Music Company 

China Cultural Centre Theatre 

Sunday (9 February 2025)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 11 February 2025 with the title "Ding Yi's Chinese New Year concert is a musical joyride".

Ding Yi Music Company’s annual Chinese New Year concerts, supported by the Chinese Cultural Centre on Queen Street, are often remembered for their heady combination of artistry, informality and fun. This year’s offering conducted by Dedric Wong, which had a significant contribution of Hong Kong talent, was no different. 

When Law Wai Lun’s very camp Happy New Year medley opened a concert instead of closing it, one knew a musical joyride was in the offing. The big band treatment of God Of Wealth Comes (财神到) and Welcoming Spring Flowers (迎春花) and with Gong Xi Gong Xi (恭喜恭喜) turned into a tango, these overplayed seasonal favourites became hard to dislike. 

Two members of Hong Kong’s Windpipe Chinese Music Ensemble were guest performers in this concert. In Lui Man Shing’s light and catchy The Lion Dance, based on Cantonese tunes, Leung Kin Ping helmed the highest pitched huqin, the gaohu. 

He later exchanged it for a violin for Hong Kong composer Alfred Wong Hok-yeung’s Tango in Temple Street. Obliged to play demanding cadenzas which included numerous portamenti (sliding between pitches) at its beginning and close, the violin attempted to sound like an erhu. Here was a curious case of reverse appropriation which worked pretty well, being very idiomatic on this occasion. 

A touch of nostalgia was afforded with the introduction of local jazz singer-songwriter Miss Lou (卢佩莘 Lou Peixin), hailed as Singapore’s Glamour Vintage Songbird, for three songs. Attired alluringly in a cheongsam, The Spring Breeze Kisses My Face (春风吻上我的脸,made popular in the 1950s by Yao Li) sounded totally inviting in a jazz setting by Chan Nga Man. 

In A Spray of Plum Blossoms (一剪梅, championed by Fei Yu-ching in 1980s Taiwan), she reveled in its long-held high notes. Her prowess as composer came in the original composition Qing Ying Feng Ying (轻盈风影, Fresh Air), a love song which sounded even more convincing in its Mandarin version. 

The second of Windpipe Ensemble’s members was percussionist Chak Yuet Man, who partnered Ding Yi’s own kitchen department specialist Low Yik Hang in Alfred Wong’s Once Upon A Time In China. Inspired by the martial arts of Wong Fei Hong, this vibrant music saw a pitched battle between both drummers. They were unfortunately placed behind the orchestra, thus partially obstructing what would have been an epic view. 

As if that were not loud enough, the concert proper concluded with Nie Er’s highly popular and suitably rowdy Dance of the Golden Snake, as arranged by Tang Jianping, which raised the roof for the new “year of the snake”. As an encore, Miss Lou was trotted out for another of her original works, the jaunty Guo Nian Jiu Shi Jiang (过年就是酱, This Is CNY). With many local references to family dinner reunions, it closed with a lusty cheer of “Huat ah!”

DING YI CHINESE CHAMBER MUSIC FESTIVAL 2024 / Review

 

DING YI CHINESE CHAMBER 

MUSIC FESTIVAL 2024 

Esplanade Recital Studio 

Friday & Saturday 

(13 & 14 December 2024)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 16 December 2024 with the title "A feast of traditional and avantgarde music".

One of Singapore’s best-kept musical secrets is the biennial Ding Yi Chinese Chamber Music Festival, bringing together Chinese chamber ensembles from the Asia-Pacific and the homegrown Ding Yi Music Company. Three evenings of concerts are a showcase of ensemble music more diverse than the sonatas, trios, quartets and quintets that commonly define Western chamber music. 

The first evening opened with the senior citizens of Singapore Teochew Ensemble playing traditional tunes Lamps in Thousand Homes and Reminiscence in basic unison heterophony. This is the recreational music often heard in events like weddings and communal ceremonies. 

More sophisticated were Ding Yi Music Company’s presentations, a slick huqin quartet in Yao Min’s Picking Red Water Chestnuts and a full ensemble in Zhou Jiaying’s Twinkling of Bonfire Night conducted by Dedric Wong. The latter was impressionist in colour, with a quiet introduction developing into a swift celebratory dance complete with rhythmic foot-stamping. 

There were a couple of cheesy pieces using
Western instruments including one work with a
title sounding like Angry Horse Shaking Its Balls.

Windpipe Chinese Music Ensemble (Hong Kong) was the Festival’s first invited guest, impressing with Cantonese melodies, old and new. Whether playing in unison heterophony in Yan Laolie’s United We Go, Luk Wai Chung’s Lan Kwai Tang Fong and Drunken Lady Yang at Pavilion of Hundred Flowers, or the more contemporary pop-inspired approach taken in Cantonese Medley (arranged by Wang Chenwei), the virtuosity in fast numbers was clearly evident. 

Both Ding Yi and Windpipe were united for two concertante works. Xu Qiwei’s New Rendition of Early Cantonese Music conducted by Szeto Kin featured five Hong Kong soloists which performed adroitly as a concertino group, while Wang Jianmin’s The Charm of Tianshan Mountain conducted by Festival Director Yeh Tsung had Festival Artist erhu soloist Yang Xue do the honours in a spectacular concerto with exotic Central Asian influences. 

Music of a far more intimate kind featured on the second evening, from the awkwardly named “Bows and Strings’ Dance” Erhu (Huqin) Ensemble (Beijing) comprising four members, Yang Xue and three young students. Liu Tianhua’s Nocturnal Peace was an erhu duet, displaying a similar polyphony encountered in Bela Bartok’s Duos for two violins. 

Chen Yunyun’s more sentimental Red Velvet saw two erhus (Yang and Feng Xiao) accompanied by Ding Yi’s Tan Jie Qing on yangqin. Yang’s own Play for two erhus and zhonghu was a playful showcase of rapid fire virtuosity, as was the Brazilian Zequinha Abreu’s Tico Tico No Fuba in a faithful and delightfully polyphonic arrangement by Rui Xue. 

The ensemble as a full quartet presented more substantial fare in Ho Chee Kong’s Whispers of Spring, an impressionist fantasy with a pastoral feel, distinguished by drone effects and Yang’s superb gaohu solo. Li Bo Chan’s modernistic Bows and Strings, named after the group, was a series of songs and dances, that vividly exploited all kinds of instrumental possibilities. 

Nothing could be more different when C-Camerata (Taipei), a mixed ensemble comprising Chinese and Western instruments conducted by Chen Tai-chi, took to the stage. Atonality does not respect the countenance of instruments, only their timbral potentials. 

Chian Yi-cheng’s Tok for six players belonged to the “ping qualified by a thud” aesthetic where extended techniques were applied to instruments, including prepared piano, a metal rod placed between a violin’s strings, blowing directly on the pipes of a sheng, and a most unsettling rattling sound produced by a guzheng. 

Tung Chao-ming’s Behind The Sounds III with added percussion and dizi was similarly explorative and experimental, necessitating vocalisations from the players. American composer Oren Boneh’s Sprout completed this avantgarde showcase, beginning with a palpable beat from Kuo Jing-mu’s guzheng, then progressing into a relentless ostinato crescendo reminiscent of the violence of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. It made for a deafening cacophony that will clear the sinuses.

REUNION: HARMONIES OF SPRING / HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR CONCERT 2024 / Asian Cultural Symphony Orchestra & Ding Yi Music Company / Review

 

REUNION – HARMONIES OF SPRING 

Asian Cultural Symphony Orchestra 

Victoria Concert Hall 

Saturday (17 February 2024)

HAPPY CHINESE 

NEW YEAR CONCERT 2024 

Ding Yi Music Company 

China Cultural Centre Theatre 

Sunday (18 February 2024)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 21 February 2024 with the title "Liu Lingling, Boon Hui Lu shine in festive concerts".

Chinese New Year celebrations do not usually end until after the fifteenth day, so this pair of concerts conducted by a very busy Dedric Wong De Li was par for the course. Both festive events opened with works by Young Artist Award recipient Wang Chenwei. 

The Asian Cultural Symphony Orchestra (ACSO) relived popular melodies in his Gong.He.Ying.Chun (Medley of Chinese New Year Songs). Although orchestral scoring and harmonies were decidedly Western, the tunes were unmistakable, with each word of its title representing a seasonal song. 

There was also a huge helping of nostalgia in the brassy Mediacorp Channel 8 Medley arranged by Yap Sin Yee. Familiar were themes from The Awakening and Kopi-O (The Coffee Shop), both popular 1980s television series during the Singapore Broadcasting Corporation (SBC) era, but how many of the young musicians on stage would have sung or hummed to these? 

One also suspects that the medleys of Wakin Chau and Frankie Kao songs held greater resonance with the middle-aged demographic which dominated the audience. The inclusion of Asian instruments like Chen Ning’s erhu, Ansari Abd Razak’s oud (Middle Eastern lute) and Raghavendran Rajasekaran’s bansuri (Indian flute) added to the colour of the music performed. 

Star quality came in the concert’s guest performers, Singapore Chinese Orchestra’s concertmaster Li Baoshun and “Goddess of Getai” Liu Lingling. In Love from Zhao Jiping’s Qiao’s Grand Courtyard Suite, the sole serious work on show, Li’s erhu waxed lyrical from elegiac to virtuosic. 

It was the gaudily-attired Liu, however, who stole the show with her chatty and outsized personality, singing in Hokkien and Mandarin. Memorable was the glittery 881 Medley from the iconic 2007 getai feature-film directed by Royston Tan, which she starred in, and her encore Jit Lang Jit Bua (一人一半,Yi Ren Yi Pan) which had the audience singing along. 

Even before echoes of “Huat ah!” (Get rich!) had died down, it was Ding Yi Music Company’s turn to celebrate. Also led by conductor Wong, this was a more intimate and decorous affair with Wang Chenwei’s Minnan Medley, featuring three popular Taiwanese songs, opening the concert. 

Following that was Luk Wei Chung’s Tan-tiao Rock which highlighted the plucked string sonority of two ruans and one pipa, which might have sounded just as vivid on three guitars. 

This concert also saw a collaboration with two visiting virtuosos from Hong Kong’s Windpipe Chinese Music Ensemble. In Medley of Guangdong Classics arranged by William Wu, Ding Yi’s Chen Ning and Windpipe’s Chan Kai Him were paired on two erhus for immortal Cantonese melodies like Han Tian Lei (旱天雷), Ping Hu Qiu Yue (平湖秋月) and Bu Bu Gao (步步高). 

The best work on show was Germaine Goh’s Odyssey – A Rock Fantasia for double ruans, receiving its world premiere, with Ding Yi’s Wong Wai Kit and Windpipe’s Chan Sze Tung as dual soloists. This sojourn on the Silk Road wafted with exotic scents and aromas of the Middle East and Central Asia, the strummed timbres of both instruments leaving an indelible impression. 

The concert’s obligatory vocalist was singer-songwriter Boon Hui Lu, who projected a wholesome girl-next-door image, in contrast to the worldly-wise getai auntie from the evening before. Her songs, including Hang Around (theme from television series Jalan Jalan), Reset and Till The End, may someday become instantly recognisable. 

The concert closed with Sim Boon Yew’s Chinese New Year Medley (Gong Xi, Gong Xi and more) and as an encore, Boon in a song heard in both concerts, the Tsai Chin classic Chun Feng Wen Shang Wo De Lian (春风吻上我的脸, Spring Wind Kisses My Face). Just delightful.