LAN SHUI AND BOMSORI

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Esplanade Concert Hall

Friday (1 March 2024)

This review was first published in Bachtrack.com on 4 March 2024 with the title "Conductor Laureate Lan Shui's poignant return to the Singapore Symphony". 

This concert marked a return of Lan Shui, Singapore Symphony Orchestra’s second music director, after a hiatus of five years. His tenure from 1997 to 2019 was pivotal, transforming a competent regional orchestra to one of international standing with highly-acclaimed recordings and international tours. He assumed the post of Conductor Laureate after a farewell concert with Mahler’s Second Symphony in February 2019. 

The evening also saw Korean violinist Bomsori Kim return, remembered as the first international soloist to perform in Singapore after pandemic travel restrictions were lifted in 2021. On the cards was a relative rarity, Carl Nielsen’s Violin Concerto, often twinned with Sibelius’ violin concerto in recordings despite being very different. Besides their birth-year, another thing in common was a homage to J.S.Bach. While Sibelius heavily revised his to make it less Bachian, Nielsen stuck to his guns. 

Photo: Chris P. Lim

A punched-out C minor chord, followed by an opening violin cadenza in G minor with the orchestra holding a pedal-point in G provided an early shock. Kim’s adroit handling of the Praeludium, reminiscent of the Bachian beginning of Saint-Saens’ Second Piano Concerto, was admirable, with the thread of lyricism maintained throughout. Even in the boisterous Allegro cavalleresco, orchestral textures were kept light and transparent to let her musical lines shine through. The thorny cadenza at its end was superbly handled. 

The second movement’s spelling of Bach’s name – B flat, A, C and B natural – was sensitively voiced by oboist Rachel Walker, later echoed by violin in a ruminative but short-winded wallow. In the light-hearted Rondo, one of Nielsen’s cheeriest melodies with whimsicality and rusticity standing out, Kim’s nimbleness and dance-like take were totally enjoyable. Culminating in another elaborate cadenza, the concerto wound down to a retiring close and another shock - a loud orchestral chord in D major to end. Kim’s encore of Grazyna Bacewicz’s Polish Caprice, also folk-inspired, was an inspired choice. 

It was pure happenstance that Singapore audiences got to witness Mahler’s First Symphony twice within eleven days, by the Hong Kong Philharmonic (Jaap van Zweden) and now the Singapore Symphony. Comparisons were inevitable, making for a fascinating study in critical listening. 

The rapt stillness in the opening’s evocation of dawn was assiduously observed. Trumpets were kept onstage yet these sounded as if in der Ferne (in a distance), no mean feat. Principal clarinettist Ma Yue’s cuckoo calls were more sharply-delineated, leading into the movement proper which felt more organic in its build-up. The music’s natural flow, pregnant with tension-filled quiets, ensued before a fulsome climax was reached, also prompting premature applause at movement’s end. 

Lan Shui was the Singapore Symphony's Music Director from 1997 to 2019. Photo: Chris P. Lim

The Scherzo was not as vigorously driven as Hong Kong’s, instead taking a gentler and more nuanced look at the Austrian Ländler, including a Trio section that wallowed in schmaltz. Yang Zheng Yi’s excellent double-bass led the way in the funeral march, droll minor key iteration of the Frère Jacques theme. The klezmer interludes were a little more subdued, thus lending the quote from Wayfarer song Zwei Blauen Augen an added poignancy. 

The titanic struggles of the finale, emanating from that “cry from the wounded heart”, were not so much blazing triumph but a subconscious tide that constantly tugged and pulled at the heart-strings. The grandstanding close with eight French horns, trumpet and trombone up on their feet was an impressive look, but much more were concealed from plain sight. One just had to listen. 

While Hong Kong Philharmonic awed and thrilled with virtuosity, Singapore Symphony touched and moved with its humanity. Fortunate and privileged were those to have savoured both performances – and orchestras - in their prime and glory.  

Star rating: *****

The original review on Bachtrack.com may be found here: Conductor Laureate Lan Shui’s poignant return to the Singapore Symphony | Bachtrack 

Read Mervin Beng's review in The Straits Times here: 

Concert review: Lan Shui enraptures with Bomsori Kim pairing and SSO conducting comeback | The Straits Times

SIBELIUS COMPLETE 

SYMPHONIES III 

The Philharmonic Orchestra 

Victoria Concert Hall 

Sunday (3 March 2024) 

This review was reviewed in The Straits Times on 5 March 2024 with the title "Philharmonic Orchestra's perfect end to near-perfect Sibelius symphony cycle". 

Part Three of The Philharmonic Orchestra’s complete cycle of Finnish composer Jean Sibelius’ seven symphonies was a bit of unfinished business left over from the Covid-19 pandemic. Having performed the first four symphonies in 2019, this final concert of the last three symphonies was originally scheduled for a date in March 2020 when the virus intervened. 

Lim Yau addresses the audience, thanking them for choosing Sibelius over Swift.

Symphony No.5 in E flat major (Op.82) got off to a rocky start when French horns spilt the notes of the spread-out opening chord. The ship had to be steadied straight away, and the recovery was a nervy one. With the end of the introduction and into the Allegro proper, an even keel was maintained. That was when the music broadened, and a palpable sense of release from the earlier tension. 

By the central slow movement, the ensemble was a well-oiled machine, creating the expectant atmosphere for the finale’s prestidigitation of strings and sonorous sequence of bell-like French horn chorales. The build-up to the valedictory close was also excellent, and the closing chords suitably emphatic. 

Despite its minor key, the optimistic vibes were unmistakable, undimmed even with brass interjections and growling low strings. Lightness and litheness of textures were maintained through its four movements, up to the unassumingly hushed close. 

As persuasive as the Sixth had been, it played out like a prelude to Symphony No.7 in C major (Op.105) that followed almost immediately. Arguably the consummation of Sibelius’ mastery of the symphonic form, its 22 minutes constituted the shortest symphony by far, but was also his longest unbroken single movement. This paradox found fertile soil in the ever-resourceful minds of Lim and his charges. Something almost as mundane as its opening scale, rising from the depths, was made to sound vital. The dissonances and ambiguous tonality kept the mind guessing before finally brassily resolving in a reassuring C major. From there, the performance never looked back. 

Here is a concert not to miss!

Lovers of string music will either have recordings or remember the name of Lucerne Festival Strings, the legendary ensemble founded by Rudolf Baumgartner and Wolfgang Schneiderhan. Its brand of svelte, silky-smooth string sound regularly ruled the airwaves of 92.4 FM Stereo station in days of old. Its modern iteration under Australia-born violinist Daniel Dodds continues to thrill and excite with a rare and treasured virtuosity. 

Its latest Singapore performance, deferred from 2020, showcases the excellent young Korean violinist Inmo Yang, First prizewinner of the Paganini International Violin Competition (2015) and Sibelius Violin Competition (2022). This is an exciting programme not to be missed!

Programme:

PROKOFIEVSymphony No.1 "Classical"

VIEUXTEMPSViolin Concerto in A minor"Gretry"

DUBUGNONCaprice No.4 "Muss es sein"

MOZARTSymphony No.41 in C major "Jupiter"

Esplanade Concert Hall

Tuesday, 12 March 2024

7.30 pm

Get your tickets at SISTIC:

Esplanade Presents | Classics 2024 – Inmo Yang and Festival Strings Lucerne (sistic.com.sg)

Classics 2024 | Inmo Yang and Festival Strings Lucerne (12 Mar 2024) (youtube.com)

SITKOVETSKY TRIO 

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory 

Orchestral Hall

Tuesday (5 March 2024)

Some of the best things in the world are free. Tickets to Taylor Swift gigs are not among them, but a front row seat to witness the Sitkovetsky Trio performing certainly was. The small audience at Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of not more than fifty music-lovers was treated to some of the most exquisite chamber music this side of Wigmore Hall.

The Sitkovetsky Trio has to be the most cosmopolitan piano trio thought possible. Based in the UK, it is formed by Moscow-born Russian violinist Alexander Sitkovetsky, German-Korean cellist Isang Enders and Shanghai-born Chinese pianist Wu Qian. When people say that music is a universal language, this trio is its perfect embodiment.

The trio's varied but interesting programme opened with The Freak Show by the young Irish composer Sam Perkin (born 1995). It comprised seven very brief movements inspired by a rat circus in some World War One prisoner-of-war camp. It's odd assortment of techniques employed by the instruments amply mimicked or suggested the grotesqueries to be found in the movements, each with an equally unusual title.

For example, the third movement Living Skeleton makes use of spiccato (bow bouncing off strings) on violin and cello to create a dry and desiccated sound effect.  Angel of Death, a portrait of Joseph Mengele, is a slow grating legato of grim countenance. The longest movement was Pandora's Basket, filled with music box sound effects simulated by pizzicatos and plinking staccatos on the piano. The final movement, Armless Fiddler, employs no bows, with only pizzicatos, foot stomping and a final shout to close a fascinating musical cabinet of curiosities.

The balance of the programme was more traditional, with Ravel's Piano Trio (1914), one of the twentieth century's greatest piano trios, to complete the first half. The Frenchman uses a common theme to unite its four movements, the work being so well-crafted that one does not really notice this. The syncopated first movement (Modere) was taken at a moderate pace which sounded slower than usual, but well enough to sustain its narrative. The balance struck between all three players was close to perfect, bringing out its exquisite harmonies coherently and with much clarity.  

The second movement's Pantoum was modelled on the form of a Malay poem (pantun). Although there is nothing Malay about this music, its exoticism comes from using the pentatonic scale. Its scherzo-like spirit was well-captured, and if there were anything Oriental in feel, that would be in the solemn slow procession of the third movement's Passacaille. I cannot imagine this movement done better than this. The light and breezy Finale (Anime), also a variant of the opening main theme, was transported to a feverish climax at its close, which was greeted with very vociferous acclaim.

The second half's offering of Mendelssohn's Piano Trio No.2 in C minor (Op.66) is a relative rarity compared with its frankly overplayed predecessor in D minor. The opening movement was possessed with a Beethovenian sturm und drang, contrasted with a more lyrical second subject in E flat major. The mind boggles why this totally engaging work is not played or heard enough, especially with the sumptuous song without words at the heart of the slow movement.  

The contrasts provided by this and the glittering flitting of the short-winded G minor Scherzo were beautifully brought out. There was no let-up in the Trio section which continued in its mercurial busyness. Has anyone noticed that the dance-like finale has almost the identical theme as the Scherzo from Brahms'Third Piano Sonata? That did not occur to me until this evening's performance, which provided an uncanny sense of déjà vu. Surely Brahms could not have plagiarised Mendelssohn.

Another surprise in the quotation of The Old Hundredth, also All People That On Earth Do Dwell, or commonly the Doxology (Praise God, From Whom All Blessings Flow) in Methodist churches in Singapore. The grand apotheosis at its end was an affirmation of true faith that good music abides, delivered with authority and aplomb by the Sitkovetskis. 

Loud and prolonged applause was rewarded with another rare gem, the slow movement from Cecile Chaminade's Piano Trio No.2. A truly gorgeous piece with a prayer-like countenance rising to an impassioned high. The question arises again: why don't we get to hear this more often? Thanks to the Sitkovetsky Trio for helping us make new friends.  

RACHMANINOV’S 24 PRELUDES 

ANDREY GUGNIN Piano Recital 

Victoria Concert Hall 

Thursday (7 March 2024) 

This review was published in The Straits Times on 9 March 2023 with the title "Russian pianist Andrey Gugnin bring's Rachmaninov's lesser-known numbers to life".

There are artists who distinguish themselves as being special the moment they craft their first musical sounds. Russian pianist Andrey Gugnin, winner of international piano competitions in Sydney (2016) and Dubai (2024), is one of them. The first three notes of Sergei Rachmaninov’s infamous Prelude in C sharp minor (Op.3 No.2) were telling, and he delivered these to perfection. 

Why infamous? This was the Russian pianist-composer’s very early creation which made him world famous. He earned no royalties from the trifle, yet was obliged to perform at every recital ad nauseam simply because adoring audiences demanded to hear it. Gugnin took it with broad strokes, voicing each ensuing chord with sonorous heft, and completing the work with an idiomatic authority that felt completely natural and unforced. 

Thus began an arduous journey through 24 of Rachmaninov’s most personal and expressive miniatures. Rachmaninov never recorded the full set, and neither did Vladimir Horowitz nor Sviatoslav Richter, great pianists associated with his music. The kaleidoscopic range of the pieces, alternating major and minor keys, had Gugnin summoning the utmost of his interpretive and technical resources. 

He did so with stunning aplomb, breathing life into lesser-known numbers which do not often get heard. The D minor Prelude (Op.23 No.3), crafted like a minuet, delighted in the left hand’s sardonic laughter while maintaining an apparent poker face. The E minor Prelude (Op.32 No.4) was a foray into outright dissonance, its procession of alarum bells portending impending danger was ramped up to a crazed frenzy with frightening intensity. 

In the more familiar pieces, Gugnin was never intent of dispatching mere notes. In the nocturne-like D major Prelude (Op.23 No.4), a lily was being gilded, while the G minor Prelude (Op.23 No.5) had one guessing as to whether it was a march or a dance. There could not have been a more seamless singing line in the G major Prelude (Op.32 No.5) while the wellspring of melancholy that is the G sharp minor Prelude (Op.32 No.12) was poignantly realised. 

On the technical front, Gugnin was mostly unimpeachable. The roaring left hand arpeggios and cascading chords in B flat major (Op.23 No.2), and treacherous right hand flutterings in E flat minor (Op.23 No.9) were overcome with almost nonchalant ease. Only in the A flat major Prelude (Op.23 No.8) did he get lost in its thickets, but without flinching or stopping, he artfully improvised a way out to safety and the home key. 

Rachmaninov touches the heart by being a passion merchant, his stentorian chords often doing the trick, and Gugnin’s mastery of the B minor and final D flat major Preludes (Op.32 Nos.10 & 13) truly brought out the bittersweet side of his Slavic inscrutability and vulnerability. 

Gugnin’s three generous encores were further reasons to celebrate his pianism. Felix Blumenfeld’s Etude for the left hand and Mikhail Pletnev’s Andante Maestoso transcription from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker epitomised beauty on the keyboard while Prokofiev’s Precipitato (from Sonata No.7) romped home with thunderous panache.      

All photos by Ung Ruey Loon, 

by courtesy of Altenburg Arts. 

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Concert Hall 

Saturday (9 March 2024) 

This review was published in The Straits Times on 11 March 2024 with the title "Carion Wind Quintet balances serious virtuosity and entertainment."

After an overload of orchestral and piano concerts, it was refreshing to encounter wind music for a change. Copenhagen-based Carion Wind Quintet, helming the Ong Teng Cheong professorship at the Conservatory, presented a programme striking a fine balance between serious virtuosity and unalloyed entertainment. This ensemble, whose players come from Denmark, Latvia and Sweden, was undoubtedly the finest wind group to have played here in recent memory. 

The entire concert was performed standing, and most of its first half without scores. With freedom of mobility and placements, that translated into neatly choreographed movements in the opening works. 20^th century Hungarian composer Gyorgy Ligeti’s Six Bagatelles was the perfect showcase of slickness of delivery, from pin-point articulation to resounding clarity. 

These movements, from the composer’s transcription of Musica Ricercata originally for piano, play on a fixed number of tones in a most creative manner possible. Far from being forbidding, the music was quirkily approachable, also boosted by the players’ motions and mutual interactions. 

Mozart’s Divertimento No.1 (K.113), transcribed from strings and winds, displayed a more classical side to the ensemble’s configuration. High winds, Dora Seres’ flute, Egils Upatnieks’ oboe and Egils Sefers’ clarinet, carried most of the melodic lines, and were steadfastly backed by the low winds of Niels Larsen’s bassoon and David Palmquist’s French horn. 

David Palmquist & Egils Sefers

Brazilian composer Julio Medaglia’s Belle Epoque en Sud-America presented three delightful dances: a swinging Tango, a Waltz with a lovely oboe tune, later capped off by Requinta Maluca (translated as Crazy Refinement) where the clarinet went to town on unbuttoned samba riffs. Spoken introductions mostly by Palmquist, regaling with droll and sometimes irreverent humour, also enhanced the appreciation of the music. 

Photo: Yong Junyi

For the second half, the quintet was joined by five young members of Amity Quintet from the Conservatory. Together the decet (the actual musical term for ten players) launched into Franz von Suppe’s Overture to Banditenstreiche (The Jolly Robbers) in Palmquist’s arrangement. It opened slow, then gained speed, coloured by comedic turns, before a headlong final rush of excitement. 

The longest work at 27 minutes was Joachim Raff’s Sinfonietta for double quintet. Virtually unknown outside of wind circles and Germany, its four movements repaid listening by sheer craftsmanship and all-round pleasantries. The first movement’s sonata form had a little fugue to relish while the scherzo-like second movement’s quick gallop was the test of agility and nimbleness which passed with flying colours. 

The slow third movement reveled in the oboe’s plaintive quality, cushioned with gorgeous sonorities, while the animated finale brought to a brilliant close a performance with virtually – pun fully intended - no rough edges. 

Photo: Yong Junyi

Closing the evening were two more witty Palmquist arrangements, of Shostakovich’s Tahiti Trot (listeners will know this as Tea For Two), and the carnival-like Waltz No.2 (from Suite for Variety Orchestra), familiar from the Stanley Kubrick-directed movie Eyes Wide Shut. Back to the quintet, Carion’s fun encore was Eduardo di Capua’s O Sole Mio, with each player vying to see who played the longest held note. 

INMO YANG AND 

FESTIVAL STRINGS LUCERNE 

Esplanade Concert Hall 

Tuesday (12 March 24)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 14 March 2024 with the title "Inmo Yang, Festival Strings Lucerne join forces to make magical music."

Music-lovers of a certain age will remember Singapore’s old 92.4 FM stereo station which regularly broadcasted recordings by Festival Strings Lucerne led by its founder-director Rudolf Baumgartner. Those were the days before period instruments, when string music sounded full, lush and luxuriant, qualities for which the ensemble was renowned. This cherished group is still thriving, now led by Australia-born violinist Daniel Dodds, its music director since 2012. 

Its Esplanade debut was not just about strings, but a chamber orchestra with woodwinds, brass and a sole timpanist. The evening opened with Sergei Prokofiev’s Symphony No.1, called “Classical” because its four movements were a 20^th century pastiche of Haydn and Mozart’s 18^th century symphonies. 

Despite not being led by a conductor, immediately apparent was the ensemble’s cohesion, impressing in the fast and tricky outer movements. Its fabled string sound was highlighted in the slow movement, with a graceful melody sung by violins above a gently throbbing accompaniment. The third movement’s Gavotte was taken with much rubato, lending a comedic sense of ungainliness but togetherness was never in doubt. 

Young Korean violinist Inmo Yang, winner of multiple international violin competitions, was guest soloist in Henri Vieuxtemps’ Violin Concerto No.5 in A minor. Cast in one continuous movement lasting some 22 minutes, the work united the best qualities of virtuoso concerto and symphonic poem. Built upon two main themes, this was also a perfect vehicle for Yang’s immaculate technique and grasp of musical drama. 

Photo: AlvieAlive

Combining an innate feel for the lyrical and impeccable intonation, and backed by the orchestra poised on a razor’s age, the performance was a treat from start to finish. As if that were not enough pyrotechnics, Yang’s fearsomely showy solo encores of Nicolo Paganini’s last and first Caprices (Nos.24 and 1 in that order) did the trick. 

Photo: AlvieAlive

The orchestra performed the concert’s second half on its feet. First was the Singapore premiere of living Swiss composer Richard Dubugnon’s Caprice No.4 entitled “Es Muss Sein!” (It Must Be!). Based on Beethoven’s final string quartet (Op.135) which posed the rhetorical question “Muss es sein?” (Must it be?), the 14-minute-long work became a tug-of-war between the two Beethovenian three-note-motifs. It showcased slick string calisthenics and even moments of Mantovaniesque cascading strings, just to name another very famous string ensemble. 

The concert concluded with Mozart’s final symphony, No.41 in C major, nicknamed “Jupiter” after the Roman god because of its breadth and grandeur. The incisive clarity of the booming opening chords was telling, heralding a lithe but not lightweight account of this masterpiece. Tempos were generally swift but never in expense of savouring details, which were many. 

The slow movement’s sleekness mirrored the earlier Prokofiev, while the third movement’s Minuet now reflected refinement and courtliness. The glorious finale, rich with counterpoint, was simply the embodiment of joie de vivre, bringing the concert to an emphatically valedictory close. The encore of Schumann’s Abendlied (Evening Song), sumptuously arranged by Johan Svendsen, was ironically the only all-string work on show. That, too, was a pleasure to behold.  

Voices of Singapore Capitol Studio

Sunday (17 March 2024)

Canadian pianist Tony Yike Yang came to prominence as a 16-year-old finalist at the 2015 Chopin International Piano Competition, when he also became the youngest-ever laureate in the competition's history. His last appearance in Singapore was a recital at Esplanade's Huayi Chinese Festival of Arts in February 2020, just before the Covid-19 pandemic struck.

Already a prodigious talent then, his most recent recital at VOS Capital Studio showed he has further matured as an artist. His demanding 80-minute-long recital, performed without a break, was a supreme test of endurance for the pianist, besides being an unmitigated pleasure for those who attended.

The recital opened with Mozart's early Sonata in E flat major (K.282), which was more Romantically than Classically-inclined. He coaxed a rich sonority from the Yamaha C5 grand, and eschewed the mincing prissiness usually associated with the period movement. The central Minuet was kept lively rather than coy, and fluent swiftness in the finale suggested we were not listening to 18th century drawing room music.

The good start continued into the Chopin set with the three Waltzes Op.34 performed as a suite. Sheer brilliance informed the opening A flat major dance, contrasted with wistful melancholy of the A minor, and completed with the F major waltz's prestidigitation, which even in its high speed did not neglect the vital element of rubato. By the end of the barnstorming Polonaise Op.53 in A flat major, the "Heroic", where Yang conquered the left-hand octave fusillades (that Polish cavalry episode) with stunning aplomb, he had more than fully warmed up.

What followed without a break was an astonishing sequence of three great Franz Liszt masterpieces. First was Ballade No.2 in B minor, with its opening subterranean rumblings, from the depths of which the main theme emerges. This was a breathtaking reading, where the full plethora of pianistic sonorities are exploited to the max. Its glorious climax of alternating big chords and earthshaking scales (which no doubt influenced the Lisztian cadenza of Grieg's Piano Concerto) was judged to perfection, and even if he took the chordal ossia instead of the ascending scales that followed, the effect was nonetheless still spectacular.

Vallee d'Obermann from the Swiss book of Annees de pelerinage (Years of Pilgrimage) was another epic tone poem from piano. The cello-like main theme and its subsequent transformation provided the drama of this work which Yang worked built up to a feverish frenzy. The pastoral and storm episodes were very well contrasted and the triumphant end no less impactful. 

Completing the Liszt trilogy was Rhapsodie Espagnole, a showpiece where the La Folia and Jota Aragonesa themes from the Iberian peninsula were whipped into an intoxicating brew. Again, Yang's mastery of the myriad technical difficulties made this fiendish number seem almost like light work. As a Lisztian, Yang combines the mercurial spirit of Horowitz with the pulverising power of Lazar Berman. It was very satisfying to have witnessed all of this live.

Yang's two encores included Gershwin's Prelude No.1 (with the ritmato and deciso aspects notched up to the nth level) and Chopin's Minute Waltz (Op.64 No.1), with brilliance prized over mere charm. One looks forward to Tong Yike Yang's next performance in Singapore.

THE MUSICIANS' STAGE

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.

A new sculpture, part of SMU's Law School.

This is the season for piano recitals, and here are two not to be missed. The first is by young Hungarian pianist ZOLTAN FEJERVARI, who represents a new vibrant generation of Hungarian pianism. His all-Romantic recital displays a wide-ranging palette of genres that encompasses salon miniatures to concert hall classics. Be swept by his sensitivity and virtuosity.

Programme:

TCHAIKOVSKY The Seasons, Op.37a

BRAHMS Four Piano Pieces, Op.119

SCHUMANN Humoreske, Op.20

Victoria Concert Hall

Saturday 6 April 2024, 8.15 pm

Zoltán Fejérvári | Frédéric Chopin: 24 Préludes op. 28 (youtube.com)

Get your tickets here:

Piano Recital by Zoltán Fejérvári (sistic.com.sg)

ZOLTAN FEJERVARI 

is presented by ALTENBURG ARTS

KENNETH HAMILTON Piano Recital

MORE DEMONIC AND DIVINE

Programme:

CHOPIN Nocturne 

   in E flat major, Op.55 No.2

CHOPIN Prelude in C sharp minor, Op.45

CHOPIN Barcarolle 

   in F sharp major, Op.60

LISZT Scherzo & March

LISZT Andante Lagrimoso

MEYERBEER-LISZT Cavatine 

   from Robert le Diable

LISZT Reminiscences de Robert le Diable

Get your tickets here:

More Demonic and Divine by Kenneth Hamilton [G] (sistic.com.sg)

PRIMARILY PIANO: 

DEBUSSY PRELUDES 

Kuo Lyu-Cen

Chen Bo-Yu

Venus Chai

Soh Wei Qi

Wang Chien-Jou

Cheryn Pandora

Edenia Maureen

Wong Jean Ying

Liang Ray-Heng

Xian Ruofei

Darrell Lim

For contrasts in colour and mood, it was hard to beat the sequence leading from Les collines d’Anacapri (Hills of Anacapri), Des pas sur la neige (Footsteps in the Snow), Ce qu’a vu le vent d’ouest (What the West Wind Saw), La fille aux cheveux de lin (Girl with Flaxen Hair) through to La cathédrale engloutie (Engulfed Cathedral). Within a matter of minutes, one experienced jollity, desolation, violence, innocence and monumentality through the capable hands of Edenia Maureen, Fong Jean Ying, Liang Ray-Heng, Xian Ruofei and Darrell Lim. 

Lee Ann

Vernis Chua

Goh Kai Cheng

Panyakorn Lertnimitphan

Ashley Chua

Toby Tan

Papan Lertchanvit

Lin Sin-Yue

Maw Li Awng Mi

Chakrit Khanovej

Lin Shih-En

Cheryl Pandora

We're not gangsters. We are YST students!