CROSS-CURRENTS / Yong Siew Toh Orchestral Institute

CROSS CURRENTS

Yong Siew Toh Orchestral Institute

Conservatory Concert Hall

Saturday (14 February 2026), 7.30 pm

It seems that the Yong Siew Toh Orchestral Institute led by Jason Lai has perfected the art of crafting the short concert, one that tells a story by uniting the themes into a complete and coherent whole. All within the space of an hour, music is delivered in digestible doses, fulfilling the credo of quality not quantity.

The evening opened with the haunting sound of the solo flute, Debussy's Syrinx (1913) heard from high up in the dress circle by the Conservatory's new head of winds, brass and percussion, Eric Lamb. Its ambiguous and fluid tonality makes it sound mysterious, and the purity of the sonority a close to unforgettable impression.

Lasting all but three minutes, it segued into the third movement of Mahler's Fourth Symphony, an ode to nature. Opening quietly, the strings crafted an oasis of inner peace, living up to its direction of Ruhevoll (calm, literally full of rest), which gently rose in temperature and volume in a most subtle of crescendos as the other instruments joined in. A passionate climax later, it returned to the solace it opened with.

Night turned to day with strokes of a tam tam leading to the opening pages of Debussy's La mer (The Sea), in a most riveting performance yet to be heard from these young players. From Dawn to Noon on the Sea, the balance of sound came close to perfect, particularly vivid were the low strings whipping up the tension of undercurrents, and it was easy to be swept away by the fantastical musical imagery conjured. To quote another composer (was it Stravinsky?), I particularly liked the part at about quarter-to-ten. Or was it quarter-past-ten?

The Play of the Waves intrigued and titillated the senses, while the final Dialogue of the Wind and the Sea whipped up a storm which seemed perilous at the time. Sureness and safety were key as the voyagers securely navigated the squall as the work blew to a frenzied but impressive close. I can conclude that this young orchestra is already playing at a higher level than the nation's first professional orchestra during its early years, and that cannot be a bad thing.

Jason Lai has every reason to feel proud.

Eric Lamb and his flute get the applause,
and so does the orchestra.

HEALING ARTS SINGAPORE OPENING CONCERT / Photographs

This was the Opening Concert (Monday, 8 December 2025) of the 5-day symposium (8-12 December 2025) organised by Healing Arts Singapore in conjunction with the Centre of Music and Health based in Yong Siew Toh Conservatory. There was lots of music performed, and here are some of the photos from a colourfully varied concert.

Opening the evening were excerpts from
Chen Zhangyi's opera Lily, a probing work
about the ravages of dementia.

Soprano Wong Su Sun played the role of Lily,
a singing teacher alongside her son,
sung by tenor Jonathan Charles Tay.

Singapore's only hearing-impaired concert pianist
Azariah Tan related how his performance of
Beethoven roused a patient with dementia.

Here Azariah Tan performed the first movement
from Beethoven's Piano Concerto No.5 "Emperor".

It was a reading of true grandeur,
which he mastered in a matter of a few weeks!

Applause alongside YST Orchestral Institute
conductor Jason Lai.

Seeding The Floor - 
performing mindfulness of everyday
by Arts Fission

Movement and plants.

Finding beauty in the mundane.

The pastoral setting was telling:
country folks are happier people.

Musicians from Beautiful Mind Charity and
YST Orchestral Institute perform popular tunes.

Teng Ensemble joins the fray.
Young Artist Award recipient Syafiqah Sallehin
plays the accordion in Chow Junyi's Journey
with Geylang Sipaku Geylang and Rasa Sayang.

Phoon Yu's contrapuntal
Transi For The Common Man.

Western and traditional Chinese instruments
are highlighted in these works.

A rousing end to the concert
with Chow Junyi's Little White Boat.

THE AGE OF BECOMING / Yong Siew Toh Orchestral Institute / Review

 

THE AGE OF BECOMING

Yong Siew Toh Orchestral Institute

Conservatory Concert Hall

Saturday (6 September 2025)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 8 September 2025 with the title "A deft combination of art and music by Yong Siew Toh Orchestral Institute".

There was a time during the early 1980s when the Singapore Symphony Orchestra’s first performance of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony was a major landmark for the local music scene. To illustrate how that scene has progressed, the last 17 days saw no less than three performances of the 50-minute masterpiece.

After performances by the Singapore Youth Philharmonic Orchestra (20 August) and re:Sound (30 August), third in line was the Yong Siew Toh Orchestral Institute led by Jason Lai. Each reading had its own selling point: the SYPO’s youths, re:Sound’s use of early instruments, and YSTOI’s tie-in with two major figures of 18th century Enlightenment. They were Spanish painter Francisco Goya (1746-1828) and German composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827).

Enlightenment figures:
Goya & Beethoven

Both were artistic visionaries. While documenting the trials and tribulations of their times, they also cast long shadows into the future. Their very personal and banal frailties also marked them for greatness and immortality. This thoughtfully curated hour-long concert linked the two through music accompanied by projected paintings and drawings by Goya animated by Yong Siew Toh alumna Stephanie Tan.

Opening the evening was the Interlude and Dance No.1 from Spanish composer Manuel de Falla’s opera La Vida Breve (The Brief Life). Its verismo elements echoed Georges Bizet’s Carmen where the jilted female protagonist gatecrashes her duplicitous lover’s wedding and dies at his feet. The music turned from still and atmospheric to raucous and animated, well realised by the orchestra.

Photo: Lucas Kwai Ming Yang

Another Spanish composer, Enrique Granados, would have been more appropriate as he had himself written an opera – Goyescas – inspired by Goya’s art. But as a stirring prelude, Falla’s offering worked very well all the same.

The Orchestral Institute’s view of Beethoven’s symphony, with its original dedication to Napoleon Bonaparte angrily scratched off after he crowned himself emperor, was the most mainstream of the three performances. This is meant in a good way as students get future music jobs by simply mastering and excelling in the basics, which this performance represented.

Photo: Lucas Kwai Ming Yang

The opening movement bristled with passion and tension, never flagging in pulse or impetus. The sound generated was full-bodied and vividly projected. Visual artist Tan’s use of Goya’s art poignantly came to the fore in the second movement’s Funeral March. The Third of May 1808, of terrified civilians facing execution by firing squad, is the most celebrated painting, but his stark black and white images of war and death could have come from Gaza today.

This beating heart of the symphony, unfolded with purpose and its inexorable trudge was not so much a last rite but an indelible memory of lives and innocence lost forever. Accompanied by Goya’s famous El Pelele (The Straw Man), the Scherzo and Trio bubbled over exuberantly, with the trio of French horns distinguishing themselves at every turn.

The finale’s variations on a simple dance from Beethoven’s ballet The Creatures of Prometheus was a case of turning the ridiculous to the sublime, bringing the concert to an impressive close.

SUBITO CON FORZA! / Yong Siew Toh Orchestral Institute / Review

 

SUBITO CON FORZA! 

Yong Siew Toh Orchestral Institute 

Esplanade Concert Hall 

Saturday (19 April 2024)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 22 April 2025 with the title "Graduating students from Yong Siew Toh Conservatory triumph with Rachmaninoff's Second".

It is the end of an academic year, and the Yong Siew Toh Orchestral Institute led by principal conductor Jason Lai performed its last concert before the students take their exams and finally get to graduate. For an emotional close to the season, a more apt programme would have been hard to find. 

Photo: Jellal Koay

subito con forza (2020) by contemporary Korean composer Unsuk Chin (born 1961) opened the evening. Translated from Italian as suddenly with force, the 5-minute work was a tribute to Ludwig von Beethoven. The first bars quoted the beginning of Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture, two strident chords which become a leitmotif and a crash of percussion. 

Through scurrying string figurations, there are sudden loud interjections typical of the German’s tempestuous nature. Reminders of the Leonore Overtures flash across and repetitions of the Fate motif (from the Fifth Symphony) are heard on horns and trumpets, and without warning the music segues into Beethoven’s very familiar Egmont Overture. 

Chakrit Khanonvej (Thailand) played
the demanding piano part in this work.

Force of personality defined both composer and his heroic Goethe subject, Count Egmont of the Netherlands who defied the conquering Spanish to the death. The young orchestra played this passionate music as if their lives (and grades) depended on it, generating a rich sonority and nervous tension that did not flag for a single moment. 

A very short first half lasting not more than a quarter of an hour was followed after the intermission by Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Second Symphony in E minor (Op.27), which clocked in a few minutes short of an hour. Despite its expansiveness, this performance was never allowed to lag. Conductor Lai kept a tight rein, and from the moment low strings announced its lugubrious opening, one instinctively knew this was going to be special. 

The homogeneity and full-bodied hum of strings made for pleasurable listening. Avoidance of excessive portamenti (slides), which coloured much of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra’s CD recording, also prevented the music from sliding into cloying sentimentalism. 

Photo: Jellal Koay

The high voltage sustained in the lengthy opening movement continued into the Scherzo, with a variant of the Dies Irae theme (often quoted by Rachmaninoff in many works) bristling with energy. The ante was further upped in the furious fugato, where a debt to mentor Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s manic lashings out was paid in full. 

Edgar Rodriguez (Venezuela) was the
concertmaster in this very fine performance.

And who was not waiting for the romantic strains of the Adagio, the melody of which became a pop song (Eric Carmen’s Never Gonna Fall In Love Again)? Ma Yi-Ting’s solo clarinet was the star in this languid wallow, providing a well-deserved respite from the earlier exertions. 

For the fast swirling tarantella rhythm of the finale, it was as if all on stage had been equipped extra battery packs. Playing at such high speeds entailed risks, but there was no gain without that extra effort, and this collective spirit won the day. 

This orchestra has performed the Rachmaninoff Second three times, previously in 2009 and 2017, but this evening’s was undoubtedly the best one of all.

SOUNDS OF THE CITY / Yong Siew Toh Orchestral Institute / Review

 

SOUNDS OF THE CITY 

Yong Siew Toh Orchestral Institute 

Conservatory Concert Hall 

Saturday (22 February 2025)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 24 February 2025 with the title "Spontaneous mix of composition and improvisation".

Jazz was in the air again when the Yong Siew Toh Orchestral Institute conducted by Jason Lai performed a concert of mostly American music. Aaron Copland’s Clarinet Concerto, composed in 1948 for jazz legend Benny Goodman and scored with harp, strings and piano, opened the evening. YST Concerto Competition prizewinner Zheng Shanxi gave a very polished account that lacked nothing in virtuosity, spirit and verve. 

Conceived in two continuous sections, it began with a pastoral drawl where the clarinet sculpted a long-breathed lyrical song over slow ambling steps from the accompaniment. Zheng’s beautifully-shaped tone carried into an animated syncopated finale where she traded wits and barbs with the band. 

In between was an elaborately sinuous cadenza, sounding almost improvised on the spot. This music was all carefully score and scripted, but the trick was to make it appear totally spontaneous, and in a word – jazzy. This was the essence of 20th century concert-hall jazz, where the divide between actual composition and improvisation is rendered almost invisible. 

Without a break, a New Orleans-styled marching band trooped down the aisle in a procession that opened We Build This City, a collaborative work by the orchestra involving improvisation. With input from faculty members, Dutch improvisation specialist Karst de Jong and local composer-pianist Jonathan Shin, it was performed with neither conductor nor scored parts. 

What could have sounded like complete musical mayhem however came across as intelligent and almost structured. Its 14 minutes relived the plodding beginning of the earlier Copland, over which seemingly random ideas were poured into the mix. The music drifted into Erik Satie’s Gymnopedie territory before coming to a C major pedal point where the Dawn from Richard Strauss’ Also Sprach Zarathustra could have achieved lift-off. 

Those examples showed that from a primordial soup of dabbling and doodling would eventually emerge composition, an art so eloquently demonstrated for the Asia Pacific Improvisers Symposium which this concert was its closing event. Over further ostinatos came a menagerie of animal sounds, and later the more familiar themes and fragments which coalesced into the first page of George Gershwin’s An American in Paris. 

Conductor Lai had slipped onto the podium almost unnoticed as this concert showpiece went into full stride. The first Singapore performance of the unabridged critical edition by Mark Clague, reliving original sounds that Gershwin had conceived before its 1928 premiere, was a total triumph. With some 104 bars restored, the work was brought past its 20-minute mark. 

All the memorable moments were retained, including the famous honking klaxons (taxi horns), now sounding refreshingly different, and that beguiling Blues section with its silvery trumpet solo, possibly the classical canon’s sexiest music. 

Particularly ear-opening was the “new” music, with glances into Gershwin’s ever-evolving creative soul and mind. Did one briefly spot flashes from his opera Porgy and Bess or Igor Stravinsky’s early ballets? Possibly, and a beloved flute solo was now heard in its full extended glory. Loud cheers erupted at the uproarious conclusion of the hour-long concert, and what an hour it was.