TUNGGU SEKEJAP: THE P.RAMLEE SUITE / Wild Rice, Julian Wong, Foo Say Ming & re:mix / Review

 

TUNGGU SEKEJAP: 

THE P.RAMLEE SUITE 

Wild Rice Ngee Ann Kongsi Theatre, 

Funan Centre 

Thursday (14 May 2025)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 17 May 2025 with the title "Virtuoso strings of Foo Say Ming and re:mix shine in P.Ramlee tribute show".

Singaporeans and Malaysians rarely agree on many issues, especially the origins of hawker food, but an exception is the musical genius of Tan Sri P.Ramlee (1929-1973). Born in Penang, he made his career as multi-talented singer, actor and film director in Singapore (with Shaw Organisation’s Malay Film Productions) during the 1950s and 60s, before dying in relative obscurity in Kuala Lumpur at the young age of 44. 

A military industrial complex has been built around his cult on both sides of the Causeway, including covers from personalities as diverse as President Tharman Shanmugaratnam, British pianist Sir Stephen Hough and countless bathroom singers. 

Photo: Ung Ruey Loon

The latest tribute is Tunggu Sekejap: The P.Ramlee Suite, a 75-minute documentary-styled musical-concert by Wild Rice, directed by Ivan Heng with nine of P.Ramlee’s songs orchestrated as a classical three-movement suite by local composer-arranger Julian Wong. 

Photo: Ung Ruey Loon

Following the successful mould set by Wong’s Don’t Call Him Mr. Mari Kita, his tribute to Zubir Said, this production had the luxury of Singapore’s crack string ensemble and purveyor of musical nostalgia, the 30-person re:mix led by Singapore Symphony Orchestra first violinist Foo Say Ming. 

Foo had already premiered the Suite in 2018, but this was to be a fully fleshed-out performance with Wong as a highly personable host in conversation with a reincarnated Ramlee, played by his uncanny doppelganger Fadhli Ramlee (no relation despite the name). As tribute artists go, this beats every Elvis impersonator ever to step on stage. 

Photo: Ung Ruey Loon

Recounting a life’s work in English and a smattering of Malay (with projected English surtitles for those who have forgotten their Bahasa Kebangsaan), this was a touching profile of career highs and lows with lots of good humour thrown in. Well-researched and illustrated with black and white footage from movies and pre-independance Singapore, much can be gleened by just paying attention. Factoid: The P in P.Ramlee stands for Puteh, his father’s name. 

Photo: Ung Ruey Loon

As a prelude, Di Tanjong Katong from Kelly Tang’s Sketches of Singapore opened the show, setting the mood for the songs to come. Wong and both Ramlees are crooners not belters, thus more sympathetic to the music’s sentimentality. The svelte strings, however, stole the show. 

Photo: Ung Ruey Loon

Foo’s solo violin part in the opening Moderato movement set hearts aflutter, doing so with no little virtuosity. The songs Azizah, Jangan Tinggal Daku and Malam Bulan Dipagar Bintang, though stirring, were not as familiar as those in the slow movement’s Adagio, coupling No.1 hit Getaran Jiwa (Soul Vibrations) with the eponymous Tunggu Sekejap (Wait A Moment). Both were moving slow numbers which have a similar beginning. 

The Vivace finale was written in Rondo form, with Anak-ku Sazali being the recurring theme. With three other songs filling the gaps, the Suite was brought to a grandstanding close with scenes of P.Ramlee’s life strung together as an apotheosis. Wong was hauled onstage for a sung encore of Tunggu Sekejap, another precious moment well worth waiting for. 

Photo: Ung Ruey Loon

This very enjoyable production runs till 31 May, with shows from Wednesdays to Sundays. 

Book your tickets here:

https://tix.wildrice.com.sg/wr/booking/ramlee0525

Director Ivan Heng acknowledges
everyone involved in this production.

MUSICAL SOUVENIRS / Koh Jia Hwei & re:mix / Review

 

MUSICAL SOUVENIRS 

Koh Jia Hwei (Organ) 

& re:mix 

Victoria Concert Hall 

Sunday (21 July 2024)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 23 July 2024 with the title "Koh Jia Hwei and re:mix give Victoria Concert Hall's Klais organ a workout".

Part of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra’s innovative Organ Series, local pianist-turned-organist Koh Jia Hwei pulled out the stops for an unusual recital which combined Anglo-French repertoire with music for organ and strings. For about 55 minutes without intermission, the Victoria Concert Hall’s Klais organ was given a workout to a receptive Sunday afternoon audience demonstrating that interest in the “king of instruments” is far from dead. 

20th century English composer Herbert Howells is better known for his choral music, but his take on Psalm 34 Verse 6 (The Poor Man Cried, And The Lord Heard Him) is worth hearing. Its quiet opening and slightly chromatic language soon give way to the organ’s full voice. This was best heard in Victoria Concert Hall’s circle seats, now with an unobstructed view of the organ’s glorious pipes. 

The blind French organist-composer Louis Vierne is perhaps best remembered for having collapsed and died while playing on the organ of Notre Dame Cathedral. Koh chose two short items from his 24 Pieces in Free Style, which fittingly included the Epitaphe and Postlude. The subdued chordal voices in the former and the free-wheeling flourishes of the latter were starkly contasted, amply illustrating what the instrument was capable of. 

For the concert’s second part, Koh was joined by 25 string players of re:mix, led by SSO first violinist Foo Say Ming. This crack string outfit specialises in playing modern arrangements of old standards and film music. Right up its alley was Georges Delerue’s Concerto de l’adieu, adapted from his music for the 1992 feature film Dien Bien Phu. 

This neo-baroque elegy for the loss of French Indochina to the Vietnamese in 1954, as arranged by Chen Zhangyi, resembled in spirit the famous Albinoni-Giazotto Adagio in G minor heard in the movie Gallipoli. Typical of such heart-wrenching and emotional scores, Foo’s violin played prime protagonist, his digital calisthenics and sumptuous tone overcoming all odds to emerge like a cantor in a moving confessional. 

The unequal balance of forces between mighty organ and puny strings were surprisingly not a big issue given the skilled writing. Organ bluster was mostly reserved for big chords and febrile climaxes, with muted figurations filling in the textures alongside the strings. 

Koh took a well-earned break in Xiong Meiling’s Crying For Love (Ku Sha, or Crying Sand), a 1990 Mandarin lovesong famously covered by Tracy Huang and A-Mei, also in Chen’s arrangement. Foo and his charges positively wallowed in nostalgia, with the most poignant moments coming with his solo accompanied by pizzicato strings. 

The concert closed with the familiar Chaconne in G minor attributed to Tomaso Antonio Vitali as arranged by Ottorino Respighi with the organ returning to the fray. Its series of short variations on a ground bass unfolded majestically, with each change in key adding to the music’s inevitable sense of destiny. Here, violin solo, string ensemble and pipe organ shared the spotlight, and deservedly became first among equals.

TURNING THE PAGE: FROM SCHINDLER TO FIDDLER / re:Mix / Review

TURNING THE PAGE:

FROM SCHINDLER TO FIDDLER

re:Mix & Foo Say Ming (Violin)

Esplanade Recital Studio

Sunday (6 February 2022)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 9 February 2022 with the title "Rich exploration of Jewish music".

 

The Covid-19 pandemic had wreaked havoc on the activities of many arts groups. One of the victims was string ensemble re:Mix, which had not performed live since February last year at the Huayi Chinese Festival of Arts. For self-presented events, one has to go back further to April 2018.

 

There was thus a sense of anticipation when its players took to the stage, followed by its director-leader violinist Foo Say Ming, to perform a programme wholly devoted to Jewish music. Foo led from the violin, with his seated charges surrounding him on three sides, straight into Simchas Torah (Rejoicing) from Swiss-American composer Ernest Bloch’s Baal Shem Suite. It is also known by its sub-heading Three Pictures of Chassidic Life.  

 

Ironically, this was the most cheerful music to be heard tonight, a reflection of care-free and happy times. Even this was tinged with nostalgia, as if the celebration and gaiety displayed were in the past. It was also interesting to note that the movements of the suite had been reordered to fit a narrative arc within the three linked chapters of the concert.

 

Next was Vidui (Contrition), prayer-like in its beseeching quality, followed by its longest movement Nigun (Improvisation). This is repertoire that Foo positively revelled in, where long-breathed elegiac strains found the greatest resonance in his playing. His tone is full and rich, sometimes wandering into rougher edges which suited this earthy music best.

 

In this string arrangement by Dominic Sargent, the ensemble backed Foo’s solos with much sympathy and warmth. Just as good was Chen Zhangyi’s arrangement of John Williams’ familiar Suite from the multiple Oscar-winning feature film Schindler’s List. About the liquidation of the Jewish ghetto in Krakow, the music that accompanied the Steven Spielberg-directed Holocaust movie is tear-jerking yet life-affirming.

 

Its main theme in the minor key provided the DNA of the music to come, its inherent sadness later ratcheted into profound depth of feeling in Remembrances. Here, Foo’s totally heartfelt reading channelled memories of Jewish-American violinist Itzhak Perlman, who performed in the original soundtrack. With another reordering of movements, Jewish Town – with its sinuously lilting Klezmer dance – was played last in order to better align with the concert’s final work.

 

That was a short medley from Jerry Bock’s broadway musical Fiddler On The Roof, about life in a Jewish shtetl (village) in turn of the century Russia, as arranged by Julian Wong. The eponymous fiddler, famously depicted in Marc Chagall’s painting Green Violinist, is the classic representation of the heady Klezmer tradition. Foo’s irrepressible free-wheeling now paid tribute to another Jewish-American violinist, one from an even older generation: Isaac Stern.

 

A pity it had to end so soon, but Foo had one last ace up his sleeve, an encore that came like a breath of fresh midnight air: Li Jinguang’s Ye Lai Xiang (Fragrance Of The Night), a promise of better times to come.        

Photo: Pianomaniac

Photographs by Regina Setiawan, courtesy of re:Mix.

CD Review (The Straits Times, May 2018)

WILD & IN LOVE

re:mix  / FOO SAY MING

re:mix #002 / *****

Remember those suites of Beatles hits arranged and dressed up as baroque concerti grossi? Here is a new album of popular songs, golden oldies mixed with more recent ones, performed by the land's leading purveyor of musical nostalgia, the crack string ensemble re:mix led by Singapore Symphony Orchestra first violinist Foo Say Ming.

The two major works are by Hong Kong-based British composer-conductor Dominic Sargent. Sonatina headily brings together the Bee Gees' Night Fever, Lady Gaga's Bad Romance (masquerading as a Mahlerian ländler) and Michael Jackson's Billie Jean. Longer and in five movements is Sonata Latina, which recycles songs like Solamente Una Vez, Quizas Quizas Quizas, Besame Mucho and Desafinado. Whoever thought that Gloria Estefan and Miami Sound Machine's Conga could be spoofed so deliciously as the finale from Bartok's Concerto For Orchestra?

Singaporean arrangers Chen Zhangyi (Chinese evergreens Everlasting Love and Sands Of Sorrow, and the Beatles’ Eleanor Rigby) and Derek Lim (Ye Lai Xiang) also get a look in, but by no means a token one. Foo and his charges are totally into this music and they are sumptuously recorded, making this classy trip to yesteryear a most memorable one.  

RE:COMPOSED / re:mix with FOO SAY MING / Review

RE:COMPOSED

re:mix

Esplanade Recital Studio

Sunday (29 April 2018)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 1 May 2018 with the title "Sumptuous tribute to P.Ramlee".

After a hiatus of one year, the crack string ensemble re:mix led by violinist Foo Say Ming returned with a vengeance, doing what it does best: delivering nostalgia by the earful and more. Its 80-minute-long concert served up familiar music but dressed up in new garb, such that well-loved originals are viewed through lenses of many different tints.

German-British composer Max Richter found himself a hit in 2012 with The Four Seasons Recomposed, essentially Antonio Vivaldi's four most popular violin concertos brought up to speed through a quasi-minimalist update.

Without issues of copyright to worry about, all the original movements were reprised in sequence but modified by highlighting certain themes while downplaying or excising others, altering harmonies and chord progressions, switching rhythms and even throwing in a new tune or two. How Borodin's “Stranger in Paradise” melody from Prince Igor sneaked into the 3^rd movement of Spring seemed a mystery.

Foo was in his element for the virtuosic solo part, which he commanded with consummate ease alongside leading his players, which included a harpsichordist and harpist for good measure. The sound they produced was sumptuous for a relatively small group. Its core members have been together for 12 years, and that definitely has something to do with it. 

Winter threw up some surprises. Its slow movement dispensed with the rhythmic accompaniment of falling snowflakes and a crackling fireplace, instead Foo's solo was backed by string harmonics, which was bleakly ethereal. And the hypnotic minimalist last movement gave the feeling of “the end of times”, a definitive sense of finality.

Arguably better was the world premiere of young local composer Julian Wong's P.Ramlee Suite, which relived nine of the Penang-born musical icon's favourite songs in three movements. The titular suite seemed almost modest by name, as it was more like a 20-minute symphony given its classical form and architecture. It was also dedicated to Wong's composition teacher Iskandar Ismail, who like Ramlee, departed way before his time.

Wong gave a most eloquent preamble, providing short sung passages in Malay which were totally idiomatic and engaging. The music that followed was no less enthralling, string sonorities multiplied manifold for spine-tingling effect, joined by percussionist Riduan Zalani with some authentic Malay drumming. The 1^st movement was a concertante showpiece for Foo, quoting songs like Azizah and Jangan Tinggal Daku, while turning Malam Bulan Dipagar Bintang into a Viennese waltz. Erich Korngold's Violin Concerto, which used his Hollywood movie tunes, came to mind.

The slow movement luxuriated in Ramlee's most popular song bar none, Getaran Jiwa. With no solo to helm, Foo used both his bow and violin to direct, circumscribing wide arcs in the air. The finale, which relived Anak-ku Sazali, Senandung Malam and three other songs was in rondo form and even included a short fugue. Climaxing with a virtuosic cadenza, a standing ovation greeted the work's close. No surprises what the encore was to be: Getaran Jiwa, milked to the very last tear-drop. 

WILD AND IN LOVE / re:mix and FOO SAY MING / Review

WILD AND IN LOVE

re:mix with Foo Say Ming (Violin)

Victoria Concert Hall

Sunday (8 November 2015)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 10 November 2015 with the title "Oldies in strings".

One has to be of a certain age to fully appreciate music performed by the crack local string group re:mix led by violinist-conductor Foo Say Ming. Purveyors of nostalgia non pareil, re:mix thrives on the music which baby-boomers (born in the 1950s and 60s) and their parents grew up with. Its latest concert takes its title from two Wong Kar Wai films, Days Of Being Wild and In The Mood For Love.

Within these are oldies which have been seared into the memories of many, and good tunes do not fade easily. The concert was turned upon its head with Hollywood film composer Franz Waxman's Carmen Fantasy, a work usually performed at the end of concerts. Bizet's opera Carmen would have made a splendid movie, and the soloist in Foo made the showpiece come alive with its hit arias, the Habanera, Seguidilla and Bohemian Dance.

Foo's virtuosity is of a fearless kind, surmounting thorny passages and cadenzas with swashbuckling abandon, while commanding his string players with frequent glances and bodily feints. The main body of strings responded with a svelte, gorgeous tone and an unanimity of attack. In a way, this was a tribute to the great Jascha Heifetz, teacher of Foo's teacher Pierre Amoyal.

The next six short pieces could have easily been a game of “Guess The Melody”, so familiar to the ear that their titles and composers are often forgotten. Cultural Medallion recipient Kelly Tang was responsible for four arrangements, including Guglielmi's Cherry Pink Apple Blossom White, Menendez's Aquellos Ojos Verdes, Martohartono's Bengawan Solo and Evans/Livingston's Mona Lisa. The technique of cascading strings, patented and perfected by Mantovani and his Orchestra, was put to good use, as sustained notes and echoes provide a truly haunting effect.

Derek Lim's arrangement of Li Qinguang's Ye Lai Xiang (Fragrance Of The Night) was simple yet effective, one where Foo's violin sang above perfumed string harmonies. This was contrasted by the plaintive tune of Umebayashi's Yumeji's Theme accompanied by a gentle waltz rhythm.

The longest work of the 75-minute-long concert was the World Premiere of British composer Dominic Sargent's Sonata Latino, a 5-movement string serenade using Spanish and Latin American hit songs dressed in the style of works by Tchaikovsky, Elgar, Britten and others. Commissioned by re:mix, its old-meets-new, East-meets-West stance truly embodied the ensemble's spirit.

The 1^st movement was an allegro in sonata form based on Augustin Lara's Solamente Una Vez, while the slow movement Notturno included a fugue on Osvaldo Farres' Quizas, Quizas, Quizas, popularised by Nat King Cole. The Barcarolle's rocking rhythm mashed up Besame Mucho with Perfidio, while the Tango dwelled sultrily on Antonio Carlos Jobim's Desafinado. The finale was an energetic Conga and Lambada in perpetual motion, but wittily taking some measures off the corresponding movement of Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra.

A well-filled Victoria Concert Hall erupted in loud applause, and was rewarded with three encores, Kelly Tang's by now notorious “pizzicato polka” arrangement of Tian Mi Mi (by way of Danny Elfman's The Simpsons Theme), Jakob Gade's Tango Jalousie and another welcome airing of Ye Lai Xiang. The second CD recording by re:mix is well worth waiting for.   

SINGAPORE THROUGH THE GLASS / re:mix with FOO SAY MING / Review

SINGAPORE THROUGH THE GLASS

re:mix with FOO SAY MING, Violin

Esplanade Concert Hall

Sunday (26 April 2015)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 28 April 2015 with the title "Singapore's colourful seasons".

There was once a trend to perform Vivaldi's Four Seasons in juxtaposition with Piazzolla's Four Seasons of Buenos Aires. Violinist Foo Say Ming was the first in Singapore to attempt that tandem, and he later added the Singapore Seasons by four Singaporean composers to that mix. 

This concert by crack string ensemble re:mix, in conjunction with the SG50 celebrations, now couples the Singapore Seasons with four short films by local directors, interspersed by movements of Philip Glass's American Four Seasons in its Singapore premiere.

Glass's second violin concerto does not present anything new from his earlier output. He has truly created an artform besides making a fortune by generating repetitive patterns based on triads, rehashed endlessly to please his legions of fans. Each of its four movements began with a neo-Bachian violin solo, which Foo stated and shaped with coherence if not always in perfect intonation. The main body of strings later joined in for the movement proper, which resembled his film music by way of conjuring moods and emotions.

Putting down his violin, Foo then led the ensemble in Kelly Tang's Spring! with Zen Yeo's film of dynamic Singapore in alternating fast and slow sequences projected on the biggest screen ever erected in Esplanade Concert Hall. This visual and aural treat was made more special as the film closely paralleled the musical tempos. The music was cheery, based on Chinese-styled themes, while the film built on the premise that Singapore's rapid and inexorable progress was built upon the grassroots of hardworking women (and men).

Clearly the stars of the show were to be the local segments, with the Glass movements serving as interludes. The variety of each film and the feelings evoked by the music and images within far outstripped the static and often-limited material offered by the American, and soon one longed for the latter to end and the former to begin.

Denise Lee's Barely Restrained, was nervous and edgy in its pacing, and Idzwan Othman's film with close-ups of body parts, foliage and scurrying insects, focussing on the nation in a micro level, seemed totally apt. Likewise, Derek Lim's Weep was a funereal dirge in the best tradition of musical mourning, and one turns to Beethoven, Richard Strauss and Hindemith as plausible antecedants.

The imagery in Ler Jiyuan and Yap Teng Wui's film was haunting, of sandcastles washed by lapping waves, abandoned HDB apartments, cemeteries and long-forsaken landmarks. Lim wrote, in his notes, about his grandmother's funeral procession, and this most moving episode was about nostalgia and a seemingly futile yearning for a past that will never return.

Interestingly, as the Singapore Seasons got darker in colour and mood, Glass's Seasons began to gain in pace and vibrancy. The last of which provided soloist Foo with many a virtuosic turn, supported by his players to the hilt, which in turn was heartily applauded by the audience.

The final Singapore film by Shawn Lee Miller shot the nation by night, an almost ambiguous statement that portrayed an LRT ride and seamy Geylang in the same light. Chen Zhangyi's Ariadne's Lament had similarly shadowy intentions, with an impassioned viola solo by Janice Tsai as the final word in a cycle which ended in an eerie quiet.

To cheer things up, Foo and his charges played two encores, and the mood once lightened with Kelly Tang's surefire arrangement of Tian Mi Mi, with the melody of Dayung Sampan dressed up as “The Simpsons meets Pizzicato Polka”. Could there be anything more Singaporean than that?

ALTERED STATES: CLASSICS REDEFINED / re:mix in Hong Kong / Review

ALTERED STATES

re:mix and Friends

Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts

Sunday (13 October 2013)

You may call me a musical groupy, what with all that standing in line to get classical musicians’ autographs and attending Singaporean musicians’ and ensembles’ concerts overseas. My latest subject was the classy crossover string group re:mix on its Hong Kong debut. I was already attending The Joy of Music Festival (organised by The Chopin Society if HK) this week, and since violinist Foo Say Ming and his gang were performing a day earlier, so why not?

The HK Academy of Performing Arts (HKAPA) is located in Wan Chai, and getting there from the MTR station is a matter of safely negotiating a rather long stretch of girl bars, gwailo pubs overflowing with hoards of street walkers. It were as if NAFA or YST Conservatory was placed right smack in Geylang or Patpong, probably no great harm for musical inspiration, but still…

The concert was held in the Academy’s concert hall, a nice sized auditorium fronted by a magnificent looking organ and slightly dryish acoustics, which still suited the ensemble pretty well. Like most re-mix concerts, the programme was filled with transcriptions and transmogrifications but it opened with an original work, Mozart’s Don Giovanni Overture. Straight off, one was impressed by the tautness and cohesion in ensemble, and how crisp each phrase sounds. This group is known for its precise intonation and appropriate response to cues. As the temperature of the music rose, the intensity also peaked accordingly, reaching a feverish climax. This was immediately followed by Michael Nyman’s brief In Re Don Giovanni, with repetitive series of chords based on the D major triad with further embellishments thrown in with each ensuing repeat.

It was a very good way to make an initial impression, and leader Foo Say Ming then followed up with the impossibly camp solo for Fritz Kreisler’s Concerto In One Movement, a single movement relook at the first movement of Paganini’s First Violin Concerto in D major (Op.6). The principal themes are the same, but the accompaniment is “updated” to embrace whole-heartedly late 19^th century and early 20^th century Viennese schmaltz. Harmonies take on a heady decadence, with the harp’s arpeggios (played expertly by Hongkonger Barbara Sze) supplying the last word in outrageous affronts. With added woodwind and brass arabesques, one either loves it for its sheer craziness or hates it for its just being there. I am not a great fan of the straight-laced original accompaniment (imagine if Chopin had written six piano concertos) so I guess I’ll have to eat humble pie and enjoy it for what it’s worth, and perhaps wallow.

Say Ming as a soloist is no less than intrepid; the risks he takes are quite extraordinary in this hell-for-leather part. Never mind if there are moments of less than secure intonation in the thorniest passages, it is that live wire verve that comes through most winningly which makes live music-making such an enjoyable experience. Kreisler’s own recording is stuff of legends, but listening to it live lends an added dimension not to be found on disc. The players of re:mix respond splendidly as if this were a true masterpiece; everything is played to the hilt.       

The second half was opened by guest performers Zephyr Flutes from Hong Kong, itself led by a Singaporean Poh Tiong Wee, in the first movement of Schubert’s Arpeggione Sonata, arranged by Shaul Ben-Meir. Very pleasant and totally innocuous, this was merely a diversion from more transcribed high jinks, as everything else in the balance of the programme was inspired by popular music. I did not know any of the Hong Kong and Cantopop melodies in Dominic Sargent’s Do Not Worry - Medley Of Popular Songs (a crude translation of its Chinese title) but the local audience did, as audible humming emanated from somewhere deep in the circle seats. This enjoyable arrangement for both re:mix and Zephyr Flutes, accompanied by the composer on the piano (he also doubled up as one half of the evening’s hosts) was very well received.

Another local hero was violinist Michael Ma, Head of Strings at the Academy, who was the guest soloist in three Beatles songs arranged in the baroque styles of Bach and Vivaldi by Peter Breiner (the indefatigable Naxos arranger). Ma is a gentleman in his 60s who was also concertmaster of the Hong Kong Philharmonic during the 1990s. He carried a stooped posture (in fact he appeared more like a surgeon in search of an appendix than a musician) but created a wealth of sound with the minimal of movement or fuss. He did try out some groovy moves with his feet to the music of Help!, Girl, She Loves You Yeah Yeah Yeah, and then thought wisely to desist and concentrate on the music instead. It was a touching sight to see the duo of Ma and Foo, both heads of strings in respective academies, entertain the sizeable audience as if it were Bach’s Double Violin Concerto.

The balance of the concert was vintage re:mix in all those Kelly Tang arrangements that defined their sound and aesthetics. Latin favourites by way of Nat King Cole such as Aquellos Ojos Verdes, Quizas Quizas Quizas and Mona Lisa have become their unofficial standards, and it was pleasurable to revisit these oldies in their lush, warm string textures that is quintessential re:mix. The largely Chinese audience would have also responded to two Teresa Teng hits, Lover’s Tears (Qing Ren De Yan Lei) and Your Sweet Smile (Tian Mi Mi). I can never resist a chuckled whenever I hear the melody of Dayong Sampan in the latter number dressed up as a pizzicato polka a la The Simpsons. It remains one of the most amusing and endearing pieces that re:mix have made their very own.

Say Ming was once again under the solo spotlight for Jakob Gade’s Tango Jalousie, another flashy showpiece to compliment the earlier Paganini-Kreisler. Needless to say, it was another enjoyable romp. I don’t remember re:mix ever giving a concert that lasted over two hours, or one with an intermission for that matter, but this was Hong Kong, and the very enthused audience was rewarded with two encores, the iconic Shanghai Beach (its emphatic first three notes are immediately recognisable) and a totally un-rock like arrangement of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody.  

It was a hard day’s night for the ensemble, and the rounds of post-concert drinks and late night bites at a Wan Chai Irish pub (sans streetwalkers) was their welcome reward and just desserts.