Singapore Chinese Orchestra pays tribute to artists in harmonious blend of art and music

Titan Sculptors

Singapore Chinese Orchestra
Singapore Conference Hall
June 6, 7.30pm

The Singapore Chinese Orchestra’s (SCO) closing gala concert conducted by Quek Ling Kiong – a tribute to four of the nation’s sculptors who were Cultural Medallion recipients – was a harmonious union of visual art and music.

Opening with Liu Changyuan’s Vibrant Life from Light (his Fifth Symphony), this kinetically charged toccata dominated by percussion was accompanied by many projected images of Singapore’s outdoor sculptures dotting the urban landscape.

In SCO composer-in-residence Wang Chenwei’s Samsui Women, repeated notes of a Cantonese tune heard on plucked strings symbolised the sweat and toil of the women labourers who built Singapore.

Lin Gao’s zhonghu and concertmaster Li Baoshun’s gaohu added to the music’s poignancy before Ping Hu Qiu Yue (Autumn Moon On Calm Lake) and Rasa Sayang were heard, a spiritual meeting of their Chinese homeland and Nanyang.

In Wang’s Winds Of Affinity, Lee Jun Cheng and Ng Wei Xuan on dizis were a pair of well-balanced soloists. Playing on flutes of different registers were the aural reference to the late Ng Eng Teng’s iconic Mother And Child sculpture, which stands in front of National Gallery Singapore. The tight bonds between both unions can never be severed.

For Phang Kok Jun’s Symphonic Floras, the gentle sound of tuned percussion and plucked strings suggested a leisurely walk through a tropical rainforest. The weathering of monsoons depicted by increasingly vigorous orchestral rhythms saw how the kernels of Han Sai Por’s Seeds eventually germinate into full-grown trees.

The late sculptor Chng Seok Tin lost her eyesight after complications from a fall in 1988, and rhetorical questions such as Why Me and Where Is Love were posed in Luo Maishuo’s Compassion.

The music’s more modern idiom reflected the darker and contemplative complexion of Chng’s works, with Xu Zhong’s poignant cello solo central to the ethos that “love and faith endure, even when time cannot be turned back”.

New York-based Koh Cheng Jin’s First Generation received its world premiere, the only work that exactly matched the title of the sculpture it was inspired by. The artwork in question is Chong Fah Cheong’s much-beloved tableaux of five boys frolicking on the banks of the Singapore River.

Strings dominated its opening, a lively work which quoted two popular melodies – Singapura and Ach Du Lieber Augustin, better known here as The More We Are Together.

Both the sculpture, which stands by Cavenagh Bridge and Fullerton Hotel, and the music captured the spirit of a more innocent age now lost to time.

The concluding work, four movements from Tan Dun’s Crouching Tiger Concerto, adapted from the score of Academy Award-winning Lee Ang’s 2000 movie, seemed almost superfluous. This, however, provided an opportunity to showcase the virtuosity of associate principal of the gaohu section Zhou Ruoyu on two huqins.

The movie’s main title finally accompanied images of Singapore’s 139 Cultural Medallion recipients over the decades, including two SCO conductors and three composers-in-residence, a tribute to artists who have indelibly enriched Singapore’s cultural life.