Ensemble Virama - The Unanswered Question

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10 YEARS OF CHAMBER MUSIC AN INTRODUCTION 2014 was an exciting time in Malaysia’s Western Classical Music scene, where many new companies were in their early stages of synthesis (e.g. Bachfest Malaysia, Selangor Symphony Orchestra, Deciso Fine Violins, etc). Born in the same year, the origin story of Ensemble Virama is not the most compelling, but I hope you will indulge with me for some well-deserved nostalgia on this occasion.

At the time, I lived in my hometown of Kota Kinabalu, and worked at a construction site. One fine day, I receive a phone call from violist Angela Lou, who asked if I wanted to play some chamber music together. Angela’s call sparked the genesis of an idea: let’s create a collective of Western Classical Music practitioners who want to perform chamber music, and through it expand our horizons beyond the daily work that we do. We would gather to learn chamber music 2-3 times a year, and get ourselves to perform it, finding ways to creatively assemble a programme that would provoke resonance from the community.

Collaboration was also key; we wanted to work with different curators every year. It was an effort to create music with joy and artistry at the center of our priorities; easier said than done!

2014: Calculating pile foundations

While opportunities to create music have increased exponentially since then, many issues in 2014 prevented freelancers like myself from performing without the support of larger platforms. For example, micro venues with a good piano and acceptable acoustics were very much non-existent and inaccessible in Klang Valley back then, so privately-funded artistic work was less feasible for genres like chamber music. Deciso appeared right when we looked into forming this ensemble. “It takes a village”, as one would say, so as the community grew bigger, our motivation to sustain a regular collective became stronger.

And so, violinist Bernice Ooi, violist Angela Lou, clarinetist Lawrence Fong, bassist Eugenia Lou, pianist Yong Sue Yi and myself formed the core of Ensemble Virama, and it was this sextet that performed the music of Connesson, Bach and Prokofiev at our inaugural week in 2015. Given the highly difficult repertoire, I remember clearly the intensity, joy, excitement, and indeed the pain of our early rehearsals.

Our passion was shared by our earliest supporters, who contributed financially, logistically, or simply created opportunities to make our creation possible. They were conductor Eugene Pook (Selangor Symphony and associates), celebrated music educators Dr. P’ng Tean Hwa (UCSI University) and Emily Wu (Malaysian Youth Orchestra Foundation), luthier Tan Chin Seng (Deciso Fine Violins), Alice Smith International School, audio engineer Ong Yuan Shun, and graphic designer Jason Yu, who we are eternally grateful to.

2015: Inaugural concert at Deciso / Outreach at Alice Smith International School Since 2014, we’ve created and collaborated in more than 25 projects, spanning over 60 performances and educational events. I would like to think that we have been a part of a movement that contributed to normalizing what we do in Malaysia.

As we look back in celebration, on behalf of the ensemble, we would also like to take this opportunity to thank all our patrons, sponsors, colleagues, and members of the music community who have given us nothing but the greatest encouragement, support, and collaboration over the years.

A few posters, including “Bach at New Year’s”, which won us a BOH Cameronian Arts Award in 2019.

On a personal level, I will be stepping down as the Lead Producer of Ensemble Virama after this tour. This marks an important milestone in my musical journey, but it doesn’t end here for the ensemble; the co-founders will be searching for the next generation of leaders, who will hopefully bring the idea of such an ensemble to greater purpose, sustainability, and cultural relevance in the future.

Finally, Ensemble Virama would like to acknowledge the work of Ke Yi-Chun (coproducer and mastermind of this entire project), See Yun Chuan (Coartify Labs), 斐 亞文化藝術股份有限公司, Yamaha Music (Malaysia/Singapore/Taiwan), Hou ChuanAn (National Taiwan University of Arts), and Kenny Lim (Tunku Abdul Rahman University of Management and Technology), who worked tirelessly to ensure that we could realize this international collaboration.

Thank you for being part of our journey. We hope tonight’s concert will resonate with you into the future.

Howard Ng Co-founder, Ensemble Virama

PROGRAMME 23 & 24 July 8pm 丹第 Vincent d’indy (1851-1931) Suite dans le style ancien I. Prélude II. Entrée III. Sarabande IV. Menuet V. Ronde française 柯普蘭 Aaron Copland (1900-1990) Quiet City - INTERMISSION 艾維斯 Charles Ives (1874-1954) The Unanswered Question 湯斯曼 Alexandre Tansman (1897-1986) Divertimento I. Allegro con spirito II. Adagio III. Vivace 聖桑 Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) Septet for Piano, Trumpet & Strings Op.65 I. Préambule II. Menuet III. Intermède IV. Gavotte et Final

PROGRAMME 24 July 5pm 丹第 Vincent d’indy (1851-1931) Suite dans le style ancien I. Prélude II. Entrée III. Sarabande IV. Menuet V. Ronde française 海頓 Joseph Haydn (1723-1809) Excerpts from Trumpet Concerto II. Andante III. Allegro - INTERMISSION 艾維斯 Charles Ives (1874-1954) The Unanswered Question 柯普蘭 Aaron Copland (1900-1990) Quiet City 聖桑 Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) Septet for Piano, Trumpet & Strings Op.65 I. Préambule II. Menuet III. Intermède IV. Gavotte et Final

MUSICIANS Trumpet - Hou Chuan-An 小號 - 侯傳安

Violin - Andrew Ng Wen Hao 小提琴 - 黃文豪

Oboe/Cor Anglais - Howard Ng Su Chee 雙簧管/英國管 - 吳書琪

Violin - Bernice Ooi Khai Ern 小提琴 - 黃凱恩

Flute - Ke Yi-Chun 長笛 - 柯宜均

Viola - Angela Lou Chai Hong 中提琴 - 盧彩虹

Flute - Wong Xue Fen 長笛 - 黃雪芬

Cello - James Ng Wen-Liang 大提琴 - 黃文良

Clarinet - Kenny Lim Yong Jia 單簧管 - 林永佳

Double Bass - Sukol Sirisak 低音提琴 - 蘇克．西里薩克

Piano - Elaine Yap Sin Yee 鋼琴 - 葉芯妤

PROGRAMME NOTES

by Howard Ng, July 2024 The idea of creating a chamber music concert which centers around the trumpet is certainly unorthodox. After all, the chromatically homogeneous keyed/valved trumpet that we know today wasn’t even invented until the mid-19th century, an innovation that is largely credited to the Austrian virtuoso trumpet player Anton Weidinger. Today, the modern trumpet, under the hands of a virtuoso, can create not only the strongest and most heroic tones which we typically associate with the trumpet, but also the softest and most lyrical timbres; this makes for an instrument that is curiously wonderful for chamber music.

丹第 Vincent d’indy (1851-1931) Suite dans le style ancien I. Prélude II. Entrée III. Sarabande IV. Menuet V. Ronde française Vincent d’indy’s “Suite dans le style ancien” for 2 flutes, trumpet, 2 violins, viola, cello, and bass represents an early attempt to incorporate the diverse characteristics of the ‘modern trumpet’ in a chamber music setting. The composer was tremendously proud of the work, which combined ancient dance forms with romantic musical sentiments. The piece was composed for La Trompette, a chamber music society founded in 1861 to propagate chamber music in Paris, so it was only appropriate that we include this piece in our programme, which mirrors the work of Kuala Lumpur’s Ensemble Virama in the 21st century.

(Duration: 16 mins)

柯普蘭 Aaron Copland (1900-1990) Quiet City We like to think that a musical composition is complete if it survives in the form of an autograph manuscript; this cannot be further from the truth. Take Johann Sebastian Bach for instance, who often reworked old material to cope with new obligations, or even Malaysian composer Yeo Chow Shern, whose “Celebration and Dances” has been re-orchestrated several times to reach audiences of differing cultural backgrounds. Aaron Copland was no stranger to this practice, and in 1940 he reworked Quiet City, incidental music for a play, into this version that you hear tonight. The main motive, according to Copland, was to expand on the themes of the original play, putting into a musical narrative the story of removing one’s original identity for material gains. Given the abstract nature of the music, it has grown over the decades to better represent the sound of melancholy and rhetoric, represented through instrumental dialogue. Often referred to as the “Dean of American Composers”, Copland is also well known for his wealth of writing, such as the book, “What To Listen For In Music”.

(Duration: 10 mins)

艾維斯 Charles Ives (1874-1954) The Unanswered Question Three parties are represented on/off stage in Charles Ives’ highly theatrical composition. A group of strings creates a quiet and distant bed of sound, while a solo trumpet poses “questions of existence”, against which a quartet of woodwinds attempt to provide answers (to no avail). Like Copland, heard earlier in the programme, Ives is often regarded as the leading American composer of art music of the 20th century. In my opinion, Charles Ives’ music is better experienced than explained, and it was in this spirit, that we named our concert tour with the title of this seminal and modernist masterpiece.

(Duration: 7 mins)

湯斯曼 Alexandre Tansman (1897-1986) Divertimento I. Allegro con spirito II. Adagio III. Vivace Alexandre Tansman’s “Divertimento” for oboe, clarinet, trumpet, cello and piano is a relatively unknown and under performed composition. Amusingly, when I ordered the music from a distributor, his much better known Divertimento for orchestra was accidentally sent to me instead. To my knowledge, no commercial recording of the piece remains in print, and a digital transfer has never been made.

Written in 1944 and dedicated to Arnold Schoenberg, the trademark sound of Tansman’s language is evident in this rhythmically exciting and harmonically colorful piece of chamber music. Tansman’s music is strangely absent from the repertoire today; his music was so popular in the 1940’s that there were an estimated 500 performances annually, championed by some of the most illustrious names of the Western musical world. Tansman made an unprecedented artistic tour around the world in the 1930’s, which included a stopover in Malaya - for this wonderful fact, and for the music’s attractive nature, we place this wonderful piece in today’s programme.

(Duration: 10 mins)

聖桑 Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) Septet for Piano, Trumpet & Strings Op.65 I. Préambule II. Menuet III. Intermède IV. Gavotte et Final Like d’indy’s “Suite”, Camille Saint-Saëns’ Septet in E-flat Major, Op. 65, scored for trumpet, piano and string quintet was also created for La Trompette. The septet inspired d’indy’s tribute to the past, and contains a similar structure inspired by 17th century French dances. Many observers of the time greatly admired the work, and considered it a brilliant success. The work balances a curious orchestration with what one might consider to be brilliant musical pastiche. Today, it is considered an often neglected and under appreciated masterpiece of the iconic composer.

Curious music lovers will be delighted to know that his eternal Le carnaval des animaux (a permanent success that resulted in great displeasure to the composer), was also written for the same society.

(Duration: 18 mins)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Musicians of Ensemble Virama 2014-2024 Ke Yi-Chun (co-producer) Hou Chuan-An / National Taiwan University of Arts Kenny Lim / Tunku Abdul Rahman University of Management and Technology See Yun Chuan & staff / Coartify Labs 斐亞文化藝術股份有限公司 Tan Chin Seng & staff / Deciso Fine Violins Hua Chunyung, Pan Yuli / Yamaha Music, Taiwan Patricia Leow / Yamaha Music, Malaysia Domonique Wong, Lim Wen Jie / Yamaha Music, Singapore

ENQUIRIES ensemblevirama@gmail.com Virama - Malaysia @viramamalaysia

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