CONFLUENCE / Singapore Chinese Orchestra / Review

 

CONFLUENCE 

Singapore Chinese Orchestra 

Singapore Conference Hall 

Saturday (6 July 2024)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 8 July 2024 with the title "SCO's China tour programme celebrates Nusantara heritage".

When an orchestra goes on tour, it usually performs the chosen repertoire as a test run before embarking overseas. The Singapore Chinese Orchestra (SCO) did the opposite by having a homecoming concert instead, recounting its three-city China tour which took place in March and April. Led by conductor emeritus Yeh Tsung, it was a case of better late than never. 

What can an orchestra of Chinese instrumentalists from Singapore perform in China without “carrying coals to Newcastle” or “selling sand to the Saudis”? Very astutely, it was the repertoire that mattered most. By playing contemporary Chinese works and Nanyang music, the SCO could count itself unique among Chinese orchestras in Asia. 

Both the Chinese works were large-scaled concertante pieces involving virtuoso soloists. SCO concertmaster Li Baoshun performed on three huqins (gaohu, erhu and zhonghu) in Oscar-winning composer Tan Dun’s Fire Ritual, a half-hour of what has been described as “orchestral theatre”. Part orchestral showpiece, part religious ceremony, the music also involved vocalisations from the shaman-like Yeh and orchestral members, as well as extra-instrumental sounds like paper rustling. 

Offstage wind players strategically placed around the hall provided antiphonal effects, enveloping the hall with a temple of sonorities. The wails of suonas and guans, usually associated with funerary music, stood out. Adapted from Tan’s film score Nanjing 1937, the full ensemble memorialised victims of war, and did so with stunning and dramatic impact. 

Photo: Singapore Chinese Orchestra

Perhaps even more riveting was Luo Maishuo’s Stairway To Heaven with SCO pipa principal Yu Jia, cladded in silvery tinselled finery, as trenchant soloist. She simply stole the show, opening with an imposing cadenza, then revelling in dance-like moves and a meditative slow movement for contrast. 

The work which included a prelude, five movements and finale was inspired by the Sanxingdui tree of Chinese mythology, adorned with animals including a golden crow and dragon. The link between human and spiritual realms closed kinetically charged, where rhythmic exuberance and violence became all but indistinguishable. 

Nanyang music, works which included Southeast Asian influences, came from two former SCO composers-in-residence who have long been residents here. The concert opened with Eric Watson’s Tapestries – Time Dances, which was awarded the top prize at the First International Competition for Chinese Instrumental Compositions in 2006. 

There were influences from Gustav Mahler and perhaps Ralph Vaughan Williams heard in the orchestration but percussive and gamelan-like textures placed this work right smack in the Indo-Malayan archipelago. Speaking of the Straits of Malacca, Law Wai Lun’s Zheng He – Admiral of the Seven Seas, adapted as a three-movement symphony, was a tour de force of programmatic writing and orchestral textures.

In Wandering Spirits, The Voyage and Sea Destiny, the last movement a heady marriage of Chinese and Nusantaran musical cultures, SCO’s Chinese audiences would have gotten the full sonic experience of Nanyang. The concert closed with an encore, the merry strains of Hua Hao Yue Yuan (Blooming Flowers and Full Moon) with a hearty clap-along.

SCO 25: DAZZLING RHAPSODIES / Singapore Chinese Orchestra / Review

SCO 25: DAZZLING RHAPSODIES

Singapore Chinese Orchestra

Singapore Conference Hall

Saturday 9 October 2021

 

The second of Singapore Chinese Orchestra’s 25^th anniversary concerts was devoted to works composed more recently, specifically during what we know as the Yeh Tsung era. It was the Shanghai-born American-trained conductor (Music Director since 2002) who defined and revolutionised what may be called Chinese orchestral music with Singaporean characteristics. Nanyang music was essentially his brainchild and is what identifies the SCO from other ensembles of Chinese instruments around the world.

 

The Singapore International Competition for Chinese Orchestral Competition (SICCOC), organised by SCO in 2006, 2011 and 2016, helped establish the landscape for Nanyang music to flourish. Two locally-based composers “discovered” at the first concours have now become recognised names in the Chinese instrumental scene. The first was current SCO composer-in-residence Wang Chen Wei, whose Lion City Rhapsody was given its World Premiere, conducted by Quek Ling Kiong.  

 

This short bustling overture with its kinetic Nanyin theme Trotting Horse employed characteristic instruments and timbres associated with the five Chinese dialect groups in Singapore, namely Hokkien, Teochew, Cantonese, Hakka and Hainanese. These groups of instruments operated like the concertino section of a baroque concerto grosso, distinguished by their piquant and higher-pitched sounds, lending the work a particularly distinctive flavour. Add Teochew percussion and voice-overs in the five dialects (with well wishes to the SCO), this made for a memorable opener.

 

There was also a nod to sentimental Mandopop with Phang Kok Jun’s Medley of Singapore Chinese Pop, conducted by Moses Gay, which included songs popularised by Kit Chan, Stephanie Sun, Eric Moo, JJ Lin and Crowd Lu. I concede not knowing a single of these hits, but enjoyed the solos on guan (Jin Shiyi), erhu (Zhao Jianhua), sheng (Guo Changsuo) and dizi (Yin Zhiyang), backed by Shen Guoqin’s enthusiastic drum beat.

 

Yeh Tsung conducted the rest of the concert, including two concertante works. The first was Tang Jianping’s Spring and Autumn, a single movement concerto for pipa featuring principal Yu Jia in all her vermillion sequined splendour. This is a stunning work in a modern idiom which recalled the chunqiu shidai (Spring and Autumn era, circa eighth to fifth century b.c.), a tumultuous period of Chinese history. There are virtuoso cadenzas aplenty, after which a procession of Central Asian flavour took place, leading to a feverish climax where Yu’s pipa stood out above the din. Completing the spectacle was a wild chase, which was breathtaking to say the least.

 

The other concerto was Liu Xijin’s The Legend of the Merlion, already an established classic. Commissioned by the SCO in 1999, and taken on tour several times, this gaohu concerto is unusual for its slow-fast-slow three-movement form. Forget the programmatic story of a tourist-board created chimera (PR-generated fiction at its most contrived), it still has good thematic material that was well brought out by SCO concertmaster Li Baoshun.

 

The first movement (Seek Blessings) was meditative and reflective, contrasted by a scherzo-like middle movement (Raging Sea) which closed with the reassuring chimes of tubular bells. The lyrical finale’s (Nanyang’s Affection) broad melody was given an added touch of poignancy with gaohu heard alongside Xu Zhong’s cello - a veritable love duet – before its sublime close. Rare is a Chinese concerto that does not end with a big bang.

 

Concluding the celebratory concert was Eric Watson’s Tapestries – Time Dances, the winning work of the afore-mentioned composition competition in 2006. Since that triumph, the highly accomplished and eclectic British composer has been the SCO’s composer-in-residence in 2016 to 2018. While Tapestries may not exactly be Nanyang music, it nonetheless possessed Pan-Asian influences including hints of Indonesian gamelan, Southeast Asian dance rhythms and Indian drumming. However it is the Western model of symphonic poems which it most strongly resembles.

 

The long-held pedal point in D at the rapt beginning is reminiscent of the opening dawn scene from Mahler’s First Symphony, while the pastoral air of Vaughan Williams hangs over the work’s latter half. The point of it all was not trying to imitate Chinese idioms, but the skilful use of Chinese instruments to serve musical ends. The performance itself was energetic and finely detailed, bringing the concert to a suitably spirited close.  

 

I have little doubt that this is the whole ethos of the Singapore Chinese Orchestra, to stimulate and make good music that the general public can identify with and also enjoy. Not for nothing has the SCO been hailed as “The People’s Orchestra”.   

 

SINGAPORE CHINESE ORCHESTRA ON TOUR Berlin Concert / Review

SINGAPORE CHINESE ORCHESTRA ON TOUR
Berlin Konzerthaus Gendarmenmarkt
Saturday (31 August 2019)

This review was published by The Straits Times on 2 September 2019 with the title "Singapore Chinese Orchestra's European tour de force".

Almost 19 years ago, the Singapore Symphony Orchestra made its Berlin debut at the historic Konzerthaus Gendarmenmarkt. This year was the turn of the Singapore Chinese Orchestra (SCO) conducted by Yeh Tsung, in the first concert of its four-city European tour. On its programme included four works representing the unique sound world that is Chinese and Nanyang music.

Nanyang music was a genre promulgated by the SCO and Music Director Yeh, conceived to encompass specific subjects, flavours and idioms of Southeast Asia. Opening the concert was the symphonic poem Krakatoa by Wong Kahchun, presently the Chief Conductor of the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra.

Originally written for wind band, its sound textures translated very well on Chinese instruments. Dizis and percussion playing a modal tune conjured the tranquil mood of Javanese slumber before the violence of volcanic eruption, generating abrupt and startling contrasts. Suonas strategically placed high up at the back of the circle also created the effect of stereophony, contributing to the work’s raw and tumultuous impact.

Winner of the 2015 Singapore International Competition for Chinese Orchestral Composition, Hong Kong composer Gordon Fung Dic-Lun’s Arise, You Lion Of Glory provided another vista to Nanyang music. Its subject was the life cycle of the lion dance of local Chinese celebrations. Splendidly coiffed SCO pipa principal Yu Jia was at her extroverted best, portraying the lion’s stirring, passionate moves aided and abetted by rhythmic percussion, all the way to its eventual demise. The quiet and spiritual close of the work was accompanied by tinkling sounds of Tibetan prayer bowls. 

More familiar was Chen Gang and He Zhanhao’s Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto, undoubtedly China’s greatest compositional export. London-based Singaporean violinist Kam Ning wrung out all the pathos possible from the rhapsodic tale of Liang Zhu, the Chinese version of Romeo and Juliet. Her duet with cellist Xu Zhong provided tender moments which tugged on the heart strings. The encore was Fritz Kreisler’s Tambourin Chinois, typical Viennese chinoiserie but made to sound totally charming.

The fourth major work was Yellow Earth, an early work by Tan Dun, arguably the most famous living Chinese composer today. Its four movements depicted the parched, rugged landscapes and raucous celebrations of the Chinese outback. Exploiting the full range of instrumental capabilities, the orchestra provided a tour de force of virtuosic and cohesive playing.

As if to further showcase the orchestra’s wide-ranging versatility, it also took on the music of J.S.Bach. The famous Air On G String sounded quaintly idiomatic with yangqin replacing the harpsichord, and the melody tenderly carried on sheng, gaohu and dizi.

Chatty and engaging, Yeh clearly had the audience eating from his hands. Two encores of Dvorak’s Slavonic Dance in G minor (Op.46 No.8) and the Gavotte from Bach’s Suite No.3 had listeners in raptures and on their feet. Judging from the response, this concert was both a musical and cross-cultural triumph. SCO continues on its tour with further concerts in Prague, Imola (Italy) and Athens.

A Berlin standing ovation for the 

Singapore Symphony Orchestra.

A proud moment for Singapore.

SCO musicians with Chairman Mr Ng

& Deputy Chairman Mr Wu post concert.

SCO musicians Foong Chui San (zhongruan),

Tang Jia (cello), Huang Ting-Yu (cello)

& Cheng Tzu Ting (zhongruan).

TRADITIONAL MODERNITY / NAFA Chinese Orchestra / Review

TRADITIONAL MODERNITY

Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts 

Chinese Orchestra

Lee Foundation Theatre

Thursday (7 April 2016)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 9 April 2016

The oxymoron in the title of this concert by the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts Chinese Orchestra arises from the fact that Chinese orchestras of today do not just perform the classics. They have to adapt to performing new music and non-Chinese compositions. This versatility has enabled an ancient art to survive, thrive and remain relevant to today's audiences.

The concert's first half, conducted by Moses Gay, opened with two jazzy numbers. Law Wai Lun's Old Shanghai was specially composed as the prelude to music for the 1930s silent movie The Goddess starring the tragically short-lived Ruan Lingyu. Infectiously rhythmic winds were the highlight, contrasted with the rigourous beat of percussion that dominated Law and Tan Kah Yong's more sultry arrangement of One Night in Beijing.

Three familiar American numbers allowed the orchestra to relive the “big band” era. Eric Watson's arrangement of Gershwin's Strike Up The Band unfortunately saw the melody submerged  beneath an overzealous march rhythm, but it got better for Law's arrangement of W.C.Handy's St Louis Blues with a piano part added, and the more relaxed trot of Leroy Anderson's Horse and Buggy, arranged by Sim Boon Yew.

The big work was an abridged version of Law's The Celestial Web, with confident drama students Lei Jian and Kang Ying Yu narrating poetry by Cultural Medallion recipient Tan Swie Hian, with subject matter relating to the goddesses Vasumitra and Gaia, brotherhood of man and the eternal cosmos. The recitations were crisply delivered amid celebratory music, and only non-Sinophones need fret about the absence of English translations.

The second half was conducted Quek Ling Kiong, who exuded the same exuberant energy as Yeo Puay Hian's Hard Rock 2002, which basked in a drum set and electric bass. He also introduced the familiar strains of Watson's Mahjong Kakis, a most congenial original work about friends indulging in a favourite pastime which evoked no little memories of 1980s television series themes.

Almost an overdose of nostalgia arrived in Sim's arrangement of Jim Lim's music for the short film Xiao Zhi Tiao (Little Note) by Royston Tan. The orchestra accompanied a screening of the movie about the mutual love of mother and child through the years, a tearjerker that invariably gets viewers clutching onto their Kleenex.

This concert of variety closed with Wang Dan Hong's Colours of Jiangnan, a single-movement triple concerto featuring soloists Sunny Wong (Head of Chinese Instrumental Studies, on erhu), Yu Jia (pipa) and Yin Zhi Yang (dizi). Arguably the most traditional of the works, it was veritable showcase for the varied timbres and techniques of all three instruments in solo and not too complicated polyphony.

The orchestra's accompaniment was both sensitive and non-intrusive, allowing the soloists to stand out in the limelight. Its most important achievement, however, was its mastery of different styles and genres, which will stand the players in good stead for future performing careers.

SINGAPORE SUN FESTIVAL 2010: SILK ROAD ODYSSEY / Review

SINGAPORE SUN FESTIVAL 2010

Silk Road Odyssey
Singapore Chinese Orchestra
Esplanade Concert Hall
Saturday (6 November 2010)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 8 November 2010.

At the closing gala of the Singapore Sun Festival, the Singapore Chinese Orchestra led by Yeh Tsung performed a typically East Meets West programme. Bartok’s Romanian Dances opened on a spirited high. Folk music translates well for Chinese instrumentation, with the ruan, dizi and erhu sounding totally idiomatic in their solo passages.

Moving eastward, Zhao Jiping’s Silk Road Fantasia Suite featured an unusual collaboration with Chinese sand artist Ruan Yun Ting, whose work was projected on screen in real-time. From a blizzard of sand, images of a distant fort, gnarled trees, wind-beaten paths and a camel caravan soon came into view.

With gently sprinkles, broad finger strokes and sweep of the hand, visions came and went. A peacock’s plumage was transformed into dancing dervishes, accompanied by music of Central Asian flavour and Han Lei’s superb guanzi, alternating between sounding like a saxophone and Klezmer clarinet.

Less successful was the partnership with young Korean-American violinist Rachel Lee. Despite perfect intonation, her violin projected a small sound, barely registering above the orchestra for Vivaldi’s Spring from The Four Seasons and Saint-Saens’ Introduction & Rondo Capriccioso. The arrangements did not add anything new, although an erhu soloist would have been far more interesting.

A masterstroke of programming paired a Chinese pipa concerto with a Spanish guitar concerto. Tang Jian Ping’s Spring and Autumn was arguably the more interesting work. Percussion outbursts and the pipa’s stormy entry indicated that this was not about the seasons but a turbulent period of Chinese history (Chun Qiu Shi Dai).

Both violent and meditative in turn, SCO Principal Yu Jia’s pipa played both agent provocateur and peaceable mediator, baiting and calming the orchestra at every turn of this colourfully scored masterpiece. It was a pity that the audience was so parsimonious with its applause that it abruptly ended before soloist and conductor left the stage.

More fortunate was Montenegrin guitarist Milos Karadaglic who starred in Joaquin Rodrigo’s popular Concierto de Aranjuez. Sympathetically accompanied, one did not miss the western orchestra and the famous slow movement’s cor anglais solo, now played by the organ-like blown sheng. His complete mastery of the instrument was rewarded with one curtain call and one encore in Tarrega’s Lagrima.

Audiences for Chinese orchestral music could learn to applaud more unreservedly. The artists on stage deserve to know that they are being appreciated.