Wednesday 27 March 2024

A SHORT WALK ON ARMENIAN STREET


No more cars on Armenian Street!


It was literally a walk down memory lane. Almost 15 years have passed since I set foot on Armenian Street in Singapore's historical civic district. I've been to the Armenian Church (on Hill Street) for several concerts recently, but never went further back to the Armenian Street proper, which has held many memories for me over the decades.


Now a pedestrianised precinct, it used to be a haunt for my younger self, being a regular at the old MPH bookstore at the corner with Stamford Road, the now-demolished red-bricked National Library Building (and its adjacent hawkers' food centre) and the now closed-down Substation, home to plays, concerts and art exhibitions. I remember the events vividly: a Fredi Sonderegger trombone recital, a lecture by Lukas Foss, a John Sharpley outdoor concert, Anton Chekhov short plays ...


The Peranakan Museum is still there, but that bistro (part of the Les Amis group) is long gone. Even Select Books, which moved here from Tanglin Shopping Centre, has ceased to exist. How the years have passed, but the memories remain.


Here are some photos which I took on Saturday (23 March 2024), for my own reminiscences, and to use a Tchaikovskyan phrase, Souvenirs d'un lieu cher, memories of a beloved place. 


A lovely mural on the row of shophouses
once occupied by sporting goods shops.

The Vanguard Building (now part of SMU)
was where the flagship store of MPH Bookstores
used to be. Readers of a certain age will 
remember the phrase Book Bang!

My favourite art deco building in all of SG.
There used to be a nice kopitiam with
an excellent mee pok stall.
The veteran piano teacher Lucien Wang
lived in the Loke Yew apartments upstairs. 


The Peranakan Museum of today,
formerly the Tao Nan School building.

A beloved sculpture.
I wonder where the kitten sculpture went.

An air-well in the Peranakan Museum.


Murals on the wall of the re-purposed Substation.


Tuesday 26 March 2024

YSTOI X NUSSO / Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Orchestral Institute & National University of Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

 


YST ORCHESTRAL INSTITUTE X 
NUS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA 
Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Concert Hall 
Sunday (24 March 2024)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 26 March 2024 with the title "First collaboration between Yong Siew Toh and NUS orchestras a celebratory success".

When the newly-inaugurated Yong Siew Toh Conservatory mounted its first orchestral concert in 2003, the ensemble conducted by Chan Tze Law was merely the second symphony orchestra on campus. The incumbent was the National University of Singapore Symphony Orchestra (NUSSO), formed in 1979 by the late Paul Abisheganaden. 



Strangely, the two orchestras had never collaborated over the past 21 years, even on occasion holding rivalling concerts in the same day. This joint concert marked a breakthrough, a result of Conservatory vice-dean Chan also holding the directorship of the University Centre for the Arts. 



Uniting soon-to-be-professionals with recreational musicians, the concert programme relived the conservatory orchestra’s maiden voyage with Chan again at its helm. Opening with Ho Chee Kong’s Fanfare, the rousing music centred on C major with brass and string flourishes portending early promise which would come to fruition with the present. 

Photo: Yong Junyi


Equally celebratory was Johannes Brahms’s Academic Festival Overture, composed for the University of Breslau where he received an honorary degree in 1881. Typical of the German’s humour, the work quoted student songs, culminating with the rowdy drinking song Gaudeamus Igitur. The young musicians were well-behaved in ensemble if not totally impeccable, but made a good fist of the music with cymbal clashes and ringing triangle at its close. 



The obligatory concertante work was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante in E flat major (K.297b), which highlighted four wind soloists. While the 2003 line-up was of faculty members (also Singapore Symphony principals), the four soloists this evening were their students Sho Yong Shuen (oboe), Chen Yan-Rung (clarinet), Shi Jiaao (bassoon) and Yeh Shih-Hsin (French horn). 

Photo: Yong Junyi


This foursome worked very well together, first as a unison unit as they entered, then separately as solo parts took a life of their own. Backed to the hilt by pared-down orchestral forces, here was true chamber music at work. Lyricism ruled in the slow movement while the folksy finale’s tricky theme and variations revealed what virtuosos they really are. 

Photo: Yong Junyi



Arguably best was to come in Antonin Dvorak’s Eighth Symphony in G major (Op.88), a work also associated with higher education. This was the Bohemian composer’s response to his admission to the Prague Academy in 1890 and receiving honours from Cambridge University. Although less famous than his Ninth Symphony (the “New World”), it scored high for its collegial spirit. 

Photo: Yong Junyi


The full-strength ensemble of both orchestras gave a performance of passion and polish. The opening melody on cellos could not have sounded more mellow, its singing tone soon transmitting to the rest. Conductor Chan kept a tight ship, yet allowed the lyrical music to flow. 



Slavonic qualities of the central movements came to the fore, the slow movement’s rusticity contrasted with the third movement’s lilting dance. Excellent brass ruled the cheerful finale, which also delighted in a celebration of counterpoint. 

Photo: Yong Junyi

The very warm audience reception was rewarded with a contemplative encore, the slow movement from Ho’s Of Passion and Passages, reflecting hope for a bright future ahead.


Monday 25 March 2024

SINGAPORE COMPOSERS FESTIVAL: FINAL CONCERT / VENU NADAM: A SYMPHONIC CONFLUENCE / Composers Society of Singapore / Vamshika Quintet

 


SINGAPORE COMPOSERS FESTIVAL: 
FINAL CONCERT 
Peranakan Museum 
Saturday (23 March 2024)

VENU NADAM: 
A SYMPHONIC CONFLUENCE 
Vamshika Quintet & Friends 
Black Box, Drama Centre 
Saturday (23 March 2024) 

This review was published in The Straits Times on 25 March 2024 with the title "Contemporary dissonance at Singapore Composers Festival, Vamshika Quintet's aural feast".  

The Singapore Composers Festival was a one-day event organised by the Composers Society of Singapore (CSS) which included two talks and and two concerts. Its closing concert was a showcase by six young composers from CSS and its cross-Causeway counterpart, the Malaysian Composers Collective (MCC). 

Interesting and thought-provoking may describe the works performed by the aptly-named Weird Aftertaste, a contemporary music ensemble comprising keyboardists Bertram Wee and Lynette Yeo, saxophonist Michellina Chan, violinist Christoven Tan and cellist Chee Jun Sian. 


Music from the guests came first, opening with Sebastian Ooi’s Mujo for alto saxophone, which explored myriad capabilities of the instrument. Lyrical lines were interjected with assorted snorts and gasps, and clicks emanating from depressed keys, a representation of the state of impermanence suggested in its title in Japanese. 


Ainolnaim Azizol’s Miroirs of Malay Rebab: Menghadap Rebab highlighted the modern cello’s kinship with the Malay spiked fiddle, with accompanying electronics sampling recorded sounds of techniques employed including pizzicatos, slides and the knocking of wood. 


Spare a thought for those sitting near the speakers as Jellal Koay’s oMGgggG hOW dAR3 yoOouUwUu!!!!!1! for keyboard four hands blasted without apology the musical equivalent of Greta Thunberg-inspired expletives. Listen beyond the ear-shattering white noise, one may find a modicum of rhythm and demented organ-like chorales. 


From the Singaporean composers, Avik Chari’s Cities I for saxophone, cello and electronics provided the most repeatable listening, its funky jazz-like themes and rhythms suggesting the chic of urban sophisticates. 14-year-old composing prodigy Nathanael Koh’s Of Eternal Time for synthesisers, violin and cello relived the reassuring chords of Frenchman Olivier Messiaen and a quest for inner peace. 



Closing the hour-long concert was Ding Jian Han’s P. p. P. p., a play of contrasting sound textures and rhythms featuring all five players. With motivic fragments, pulsed ostinatos, alternating long-held and staccatos notes coming into the mix, the pointillistic score brought the festival to a resounding conclusion. To the creators, one can only heed, “Carry on composing!” 



There are few things in this world more haunting or sensuous as the tones of the bansuri or Indian bamboo flute. Bring together five bansuri exponents, Niranjan Pandian, Raghavendran Rajasekaran, Logindran, Vishnu Veluri and Bian Tong who formed the Vamshika Quintet in 2022, an aural feast is the result. 

Directed by bansuri veteran Ghanavenothan Retnam, the ensemble does not function like a typical Western ensemble with polyphony as a main goal. Instead, each player takes turns as his own virtuoso with others providing heterophonic backing and harmonies in fixed intervals. In addition, the quintet was accompanied by Lazar T. Sebastine (Carnatic violin) and percussion, Jayagowtham Annadurai (mridangam) and Lalit Kumar Ganesh (tabla). 


The music was based on ragas, the quintessential framework and basis for Indian composition and improvisation. Titles like Pandian’s Divine Echoes and Ballad of Quintessence, Muthuswami Dikshithar’s Vathapi Ganapathim, and visiting composer-lecturer Vidwan Amith Nadig’s Leaf merely served as vehicles for musical magic – a free-flowing and almost improvisatory outpouring of expressions and emotions - to emerge. 


In Nadig’s Ragam Thanam Pallavi, the concert’s centrepiece and longest work, guest-performer Samuel Phua’s mellow saxophone blended seamlessly into the ensemble. The music’s complex and ever-changing meters were comfortably negotiated, and there was even a segment of communal beating out of rhythms with no winds being heard. 


Nadig’s Nuances saw Jonathan Tan’s dizi (Chinese bamboo flute) join the love-in. Far from being an interloper, his higher pitched and shriller timbre were absorbed as an integral part of the flute family. Adjectives like mesmerising, hypnotising and other-worldly came to mind all through the concert’s 90-odd minutes, performed without intermission. 


In Lalgudi Jayaraman’s classic Mohanakalyani Thillana, the pristine tone of Rachel Ho’s Western flute in perfect conversation with any of the bansuris became true objects of beauty. One might add a glimpse of paradise itself.


Visiting bansuri specialist Vidwan Amith Nadig
addressing the audience and performers.

Friday 22 March 2024

DARK STORIES - THE DEBUT RECITAL / PRODIGIOUS: TROUT QUINTET & FOUR SEASONS / Jessie M. Piano Recital / re:Sound Collective / Review


DARK STORIES – 
THE DEBUT RECITAL 
Jessie M. Piano Recital 
Victoria Concert Hall 
Tuesday (19 March 2024) 

PRODIGIOUS: 
THE TROUT & FOUR SEASONS 
re:Sound Collective 
Victoria Concert Hall 
Wednesday (20 March 2024) 

This review was published in The Straits Times on 21 March 2024 with the title "Young Singapore talents rule at two recitals".

Fact: there are more young musical virtuosos in Singapore now than any other time in history. Two consecutive concerts at Victoria Concert Hall were all the proof one needed. 


Jessie M. sounds like one of the Spice Girls, but is the stage name of 17-year-old Jessie Meng YiRuiXue, Singapore’s latest and youngest Young Steinway Artist. Winner of multiple age-group piano competitions, her debut recital showed what the fuss was about. 


In two Transcendental Etudes by Franz Liszt, she demonstrated an astonishing adroitness coupled with nuanced responses to technically demanding music. Fast, furious octaves and outsized chords in Wilde Jagd (Wild Hunt), and stampeding runs of Mazeppa seemed like child’s play. Poetry and lyricism were never in short supply, evident in the “simple” measures of Liszt’s Consolation No.2 and melancholic Russian song of Mily Balakirev’s highly-filigreed transcription of Mikhail Glinka’s The Lark



Two modern American composers provided more display of her versatility. William Bolcom’s ragtime novelties showcased graceful insouciance in Last Rag and terminal velocity in The Serpent’s Kiss, the latter including foot stomps, knuckles rapping on the piano’s fallboard, tongue-clicking and even a spot of whistling. For two of Lowell Liebermann’s Gargoyles, she delighted in haunting music-box effects and relentless percussiveness. 



Best of all was M’s hair-raising account of Maurice Ravel’s La Valse, an intoxicating celebration of the Viennese waltz built upon seemingly unending waves of vertiginous whirling. Here was high stakes risk-taking with a true sense of danger courted at every turn. Cataclysm being averted, there could only be final triumph, which the encore of Jack Fina’s Bumble Boogie – in her own edition with multitudes of added notes – duly confirmed. 

Jessie M. with her parents, teacher
Winnie Tay and Steinway Gallery's Celine Goh

@Joelcaptures / re:Sound

Some 16 years older but still young is Berlin-based Shaun Choo who joined members of the Concordia Quartet – violinist Edward Tan, violist Martin Peh, cellist Lin Juan – with bassist Julian Li in a sparkling performance of Franz Schubert’s Piano Quintet in A major, popularly known as the Trout Quintet

@Joelcaptures / re:Sound


This is Hausmusik, music for domestic consumption, usually shared by close friends over hearty meals and imbibed spirits. The camaraderie developed by the players all through its five movements was infectious, best exemplified in the fourth movement’s variations on the song Die Forelle (The Trout, hence its nickname). It was just fun to see the ever-busy Choo slaving away on the keyboard while his string partners took turns to luxuriate in the melody. 

All this congeniality scarcely prepared one for Antonio Vivaldi’s perennial favourite The Four Seasons performed by re:Sound featuring mere children as soloists. One wondered whether child labour laws applied when youngsters do adults’ work with equal authority and conviction. 


Spring was the domain of Yuto Lim (12 years old), whose confident demeanour suggested he was the boss, but he blended perfectly with leader Yang Shuxiang and Kim Kyu Ri’s violins for the birdcalls. Sophia Fang (11) was a little self-conscious in the opening of Summer, but once the Allegro got underway, she became a total natural. Helming the music’s portrayal of a pelting rainstorm, she mastered arguably the most demanding season of all. 


@Joelcaptures / re:Sound

Autumn saw the most mature soloist in Jacob Cheng (15), who physically towered over the others. His was the most personal of performances, showing individuality but worked very well with cellist Lin. The most diminutive performer was Mark Chia (11), who gave the edgiest performance of all in Winter, contrasting an icy chill with the warmth of a fireplace. 

@Joelcaptures / re:Sound

Shut your eyes, and one imagined both concerts being helmed by performing adults. That mere babes accomplished the same was just a frightening thought.

@Joelcaptures / re:Sound