RHAPSODIES OF SPRING 2025 / Singapore Chinese Orchestra / Review

 

RHAPSODIES OF SPRING 2025 

Singapore Chinese Orchestra 

Singapore Conference Hall 

Friday (17 January 2025)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 20 January 2024 with the title "Welcoming the new year with feel-good concert".

As to be expected, the Singapore Chinese Orchestra’s annual Chinese New Year concert – Rhapsodies of Spring – was a festive and celebratory affair. Conducted by Quek Ling Kiong, it opened with Tang Jianping’s Overture for the New Century Concert. An apt greeting for the “Year of the Snake”, this was a richly orchestrated fantasy on Nie Er’s well-known Dance of the Golden Snake. 

Vibrant and vigourously percussive, that was followed by Peng Xiuwen’s The First Lunar Month, from a cycle of 12 pieces that represented a Chinese calendar year, which was equally raucous and rousing. 

There were two concertante works on the subject of spring which highlighted impressive soloists, both members of the orchestra. The first had graceful kebaya-clad Zhang Li on the liuqin in Wang Huiran’s Spring on Yi River. This high-pitched plucked instrument waxed lyrical in a slow introduction before breaking out into a lively and dazzling dance. 

This little Nonya's more than talented.

Not to be outdone was Xu Hui on guzheng, who had an elaborate solo in Ning Baosheng’s Spring on Xiang River. The music was suitably picturesque and atmospheric, before the orchestra joined in for a luxuriant finish. 

The orchestra was on its own for Lo Leung Fai’s very engaging symphonic poem Spring, which had three connected movements. Quiet string tremolos opened Dawn in Spring where Zeng Zhi’s dizi solo evoked birdsong before the emergence of a big melody resembling Molihua. 

The scherzo-like Wandering in Spring showcased Benjamin Boo on xylophone in a fast dance, while a glorious reprise of the big melody closed with the final movement Ode to Spring. 

Not just faces made for radio.

After the intermission, the familiar element of Chinese variety shows of yonder years returned in Reunion by Sulwyn Lok, a drama skit scripted by Situ Bi and directed by Judy Ngo. Acted by a host of deejays from Mediacorp’s Capital 958 radio station, this was a sympathetic look at family, filial piety and good age-old values. 

Family: then and now.

A daughter returns from overseas for a reunion to find her family restaurant business in disarray. All’s well that ends well, as it transpires that she had secretly quit college to become a chef and thus saves the day. 

She cooks the reunion dinner and also gets engaged. The music was pleasant and unobtrusive, but frankly nobody was going to hear the details over the dialogue. 

Two world premieres completed the feel-good concert. Phang Kok Jun’s Spring in the Lion City was a set of variations on an original theme, with each variation named after a flower or fruit associated with Chinese New Year. These were so well strung together that it was hard to tell when one variation ended and the next began. 

Finally, Liong Kit Yeng’s Chinese New Year Medley built around four popular seasonal songs saw the participation from children of the Purple Symphony Choir (Chorus Master: Khor Ai Ming). The singing was underpowered, and the clap-along tepid, but nobody was going to deny that new year to come is going to be a very eventful one.

A KISS FROM MUM / Singapore Chinese Orchestra / Review

A KISS FROM MUM

Singapore Chinese Orchestra

Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre

Saturday (13 May 2017)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 15 May 2017 with the title "Tribute to Mum hits high notes".

Mother's Day is a fixture that probably benefits florists, gift-shops and restaurants most, more than the very people whom that entity was meant to celebrate. However cynical one might be, few would argue that the Singapore Chinese Orchestra has honed its annual Mother's Day Concert programme to a fine art. Tickets to all three of its Mother's Day Concerts held at the Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre spanking new auditorium had long been sold out.

SCO Resident Conductor Quek Ling Kiong was in his element as maestro and cheerleader-in-chief in the matinee attended mostly by senior citizens. The first half was wholly instrumental, opening with Gu Guan Ren's The Lovable Rose. This and Phang Kok Jun's A Kiss From Mum were based on pre-existing melodies, and both opened with fine dizi and gaohu solos from Yin Zhi Yang and concertmaster Li Bao Shun respectively.

There were two concertante works featuring SCO rank-and-file musicians as soloists. Shen Qin's erhu starred in Chen Yao Xing's A Song Dedicated To Mother, which began heartfelt and melancholic but took on lively strides by its conclusion.

Xu Hui on guzheng was more of an obbligato presence in Wang Jue's San Zi Jing (Three Character Classic), which had orchestra members chanting its familiar words which also exhorted mothers' role in moulding their children's moral compass. While Confucian in intention, the work took on a martial stance with movie-like music as it progressed.

The concert's second half was more contemporary and popular in appeal. Wang Jue's Medley of Sichuan Folksongs was performed by the 13-member SCO Pop Music Ensemble, which included drum-set, bongos and electric bass guitar alongside traditional instruments. One has not lived until one has heard Kangding Love Song in the rhythm of Dave Brubeck's Take Five.

The concert's highlight had to be the appearances of pop singers Lee Peifen and Hao Hao in the segment entitled I Really Love You – Songs Dedicated To Mothers. They enlivened the proceedings with youthful spunk, dialect-speaking and quickfire repartee with conductor Quek. The audience lapped it all up with keen relish.

Both had two solo songs each, in Mandarin and Hokkien. The locally-based Li, dressed in gaudy flower-themed gowns, was a livewire throughout. Her contrasted emotions in Mum in the Dream and Ka Ao (Wife) were immediately engaging. The Taiwanese Hao, sporting navy blue hair, was at home in Ah Ma Ei Wei (Grandmother's Words) and Han Jiang Xue (Frosty River Snow). For the latter, he sang falsetto, did a spot of female impersonation, and had listeners in stitches.

Together, the dynamic duo performed three songs including I Really Love You (mixing Cantonese and Mandarin) and finished off with Liang Wern Fook's xinyao classic Old Clothes Are Better Than New Ones. No further encouragement was needed for an encore, with Yang Yao Dong's catchy Mothers Of The World Are The Same clapped along by the full-house.     

A GIFT TO MUM / Singapore Chinese Orchestra / Review

A GIFT TO MUM

Singapore Chinese Orchestra

Singapore Conference Hall

Saturday (7 May 2016)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 9 May 2016 with the title "A charming and nostalgic Mother's Day concert".

The Singapore Chinese Orchestra's annual Mother's Day Concert this year was not so much about motherhood than about the memories of childhood. Directed by Resident Conductor Quek Ling Kiong, the concert opened with Lullabies, a medley of familiar cradle songs orchestrated by Sim Boon Yew.

Schubert's Schlafe, Schlafe (Sleep, Sleep) and Brahms' Wiegenlied from the West were balanced by songs from Dongbei and Kyoto, the last featuring the Japanese shakuhachi, and this was incongruously followed by Five Little Monkeys On The Bed, which sounded all too flippant. More appropriate was Lo Leung Fei's Memories Of Youth which featured nostalgic child-like melodies, accompanied by a projected montage of baby photographs of SCO musicians and their families, which was a nice touch.

Two concertante works completed the first half, beginning with Gu Guan Ren's arrangement of Charms Of Jiangnan, with soloists Yin Zhi Yang (on qudi), Ling Hock Siang (erhu) and Xu Hui (guzheng). This was much like a Chinese concerto grosso, with each instrument having separate flourishes and joining the general ensemble for a grand finish.

The outright virtuoso concerto of the evening was Phoon Yew Tien's Rhapsody On Dinuhua for yangqin, based on a popular Cantonese operatic melody. Qu Jian Qing, its dedicatee, gave a spectacular performance, easily transcending the orchestral textures in her stirring runs, and also casting a ruminative spell in the work's slower and more reflective moments. This work deserves a place among the Yellow River and Butterfly Lovers of the Chinese canon.

The concert's second half had the feel of a pop concert, with dimmed lighting and flashing spotlights. Law Wai Lun's medley of six Luo Tayou popular songs constituted Love Song (2016), which employed a different solo instrument for each melody. Conductor Quek was also on hand to quiz members of the audience as to which instrument played a starring role.

The stage was now set for Singapore-born singer-songwriter Hanjin Tan, a pop icon presently based in Hong Kong, to charm the hearts of mothers. Boyish in appearance, laconic in humour (occasionally referring to himself in a third person), and possessing a Barry Manilow kind of crooning voice, he was a natural slayer of aunties.

His Mandopop ballads, Marry Me, Wo Men Dou You Cuo (Nobody's Perfect) and Yi Bu Yi Bu Ai (Love Step By Step) had a contemporary feel which would easily appeal to listeners younger than the concert's pioneer generation audience. That he could get a usually-reticent crowd to clap, respond and shout “encore” (with a little coercion) - no easy task - was a testament to his entertaining abilities.

Fearing for their safety, he spared the audience the need to stand for his final song, Zhan Qi Lai (Stand Up), which closed the programme on a high. Quek and the orchestra were not done yet, and a clap-along to the popular melody Tian Xia De Ma Ma Dou Yi Yang (Mothers Are All The Same) was indeed the perfect encore.

 HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!