IN FULL BLOOM
The ROS Singers
Esplanade Recital Studio
Friday (16 May 2025)
THE ONE THING
One Chamber Choir
Victoria Concert Hall
Saturday (17 May 2025)
This review was published in The Straits Times on 19 May 2025 with the title "ROS Singers and The Chamber Choir flex vocals in accessible concerts".
It is hard to believe that Resonance of Singapore (ROS) is just celebrating its third anniversary, considering its prominence as the nation’s first charitable organisation helmed by a professional choral ensemble. All its eight singers (two each of sopranos, altos, tenors and basses), led by Young Artist Award recipient Toh Ban Sheng, are mature professional singers and vocal teachers.
For this fund-raising concert, the ROS Singers performed a light and accessible programme comprising popular songs from musicals and operas. Its singers trooped in with The Impossible Dream from Man of La Mancha (1965), with each voice standing out before coalescing into a pleasing whole. To demonstrate versatility, the next number was something more contemporary, For Good from Wicked (2003).
The ability of this vocal octet to master wide-ranging repertoire with highly idiomatic and authentic performances was a major strength. More proof was provided in John Rutter’s I Will Sing with the Spirit (1994), Leonard Bernstein’s Make Our Garden Grow from the operetta Candide (1956) and Elton John’s Can You Feel The Love Tonight from The Lion King (1994).
In between, its individual singers shined in solo items, soprano Charmaine Tan in Part of Your World from The Little Mermaid (1989), soprano Suzanna Pua in O mio babbino caro from Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi (1918), tenor Tseng Wen-Yu in George Gershwin’s I Got Rhythm (1930) and bass Wong Yang Kai in Out There from The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996). All the songs were accompanied by pianist Matthew Mak.
Guest performers including violinist Lynnette Seah, jazz singer Reggie Pryor with his team (Fabian Lim (saxophone) and Mei Sheum (piano)) and British operatic soprano Kezia Robson added to the variety and allure of the occasion. Over twenty-one thousand dollars was raised by silent auction for charitable and educational causes.
One Chamber Choir led by Lim Ai Hooi was established in 2009, but its 38 singers are wholly young working adults. The diverse programming showed how comfortable they were singing in multiple different languages. First was Latin in Jacobus Gallus’s Musica Musarum Germana (Music, Sister of the Muses), a six-part madrigal where polyphony was negotiated with clarity and tonal beauty.
The many consonants sung in Chinese of Xia Yanbin’s Xuan Huang (Black and Yellow) and Tian Jing Sha: Qiu Si (Autumn Thoughts) were matched by skillful portamenti (bending of pitches). The repetitive notes in Japanese composer Ko Matsushita’s Hashiru (Running) were quickfire, breathless but exciting.
Local colour and nostalgia were injected in the calypso beat of Singapore Town (1967) by The Sidaislers and the Xinyao of Eric Moo’s Kopi-O (1985), conducted respectively by their arrangers Cherie Chai and Ang Yi Feng.
All facets of choral excellence came together for a few crowning minutes in South African composer Franco Prinsloo’s Salve Regina (Hail, Holy Mother). Here, tenderness, gentility and cinematic colour found their equals, closing with the final word “salve” left hanging in the air.
Two school choirs led by conductor Lim, from Eunoia Junior College and Hwa Chong Institution, showed exactly where choral discipline begins - in the classroom. One will not find more polished performances respectively of Antonio Lotti’s Crucifixus or Felix Mendelssohn’s fugal Tag fur Tag sei Gott gepriesen (Day By Day, Praise Be To God), later topped with two more Matsushita songs.
All three choirs got together for a final sing-along in The Clouds Give Way, Indonesian folksong Soleram, Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Rest and Filipino Ryan Cayabyab’s hip and hilarious Da Coconut Nut. Both these varied but very satisfying concerts showed that one cannot be too young or not-so-young to make good music together.
