Unboxing New Music: Sounds of Asia by Ensemble Æquilibrium (Singapore)

Ensemble Æquilibrium

UNBOXING NEW MUSIC: SOUNDS OF ASIA (Singapore)

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The Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA) has been a platform for Singaporean artists to imagine and present work they would not ordinarily have been able to create. Never has that been more true or important than it has over the past six months. In May, we launched SIFA v2.020, a digital platform to enable artists to continue to produce work in these challenging times as well as to keep audiences engaged with the arts.

I’m delighted that SIFA will be presenting the second wave of programmes for SIFA v2.020 from now till end December 2020. After months of arts venues being closed, we are also thrilled to be able to bring you selected shows that can be enjoyed in the theatre.

In this extraordinary time, we continue to witness the resilience and creativity of our artists. Many have embraced the digital medium to extend conversations around art, while others have taken this quiet time to reflect and gestate new works.

Ensemble Æquilibrium is one of those works to be born out of this period.

Created during the pandemic, Unboxing New Music explores new music from this part of the world, gathering some of the finest composers and performers from Singapore and Asia to have a conversation about their lives, their inspiration and their music.

Unboxing New Music : Sounds of Asia is a full-length digital concert which celebrates the rich diversity of sounds and stories from this region, including established Malaysian composer Yii Kah Hoe; storied Korean composer Isang Yun; Canadian composer Claude Vivier; and award-winning Singaporean composer Koh Cheng Jin. I would like to thank NAC for their support of SIFA and of our artists. I would also like to congratulate Ensemble Æquilibrium and Lien Boon Hua for their inaugural concert.

A warm welcome to SIFA v2.020!

Gaurav Kripalani Festival Director i

UNBOXING NEW MUSIC: SOUNDS OF ASIA

by Ensemble Æquilibrium (Singapore) Yii Kah Hoe (b. 1970)

Isang Yun (1917-1995)

Claude Vivier (1948-1983)

Koh Cheng Jin (b. 1996)

Wild Cursive (2010)

Gabriel Lee Christoven Tan Martin Jaggi Derek Koh

VIOLA CELLO VIBRAPHONE

Nore (1964) Martin Jaggi Bertram Wee

Pulau Dewata

Carolin Ralser Daniel Yiau Gabriel Lee Martin Jaggi Bertram Wee Derek Koh Lien Boon Hua

8.5 min VIOLIN

7.5 min CELLO PIANO

(1977)

14 min FLUTE CLARINET & BASS CLARINET VIOLIN CELLO PIANO VIBRAPHONE & GLOCKENSPIEL CONDUCTOR

YAMA (God of Hell) (2019) Carolin Ralser Daniel Yiau Christoven Tan Martin Jaggi Lynette Yeo Derek Koh Tan Jie Qing Lien Boon Hua Li Ruimin

12 min

FLUTE CLARINET VIOLIN CELLO PIANO PERCUSSION YANGQIN CONDUCTOR DANCER & CHOREOGRAPHER

Concert Duration: 50 min This concert was recorded at the Esplanade Theatre Studio on 31 October 2020, for digital viewing on SIFA v2.020 ii

ABOUT ENSEMBLE ÆQUILIBRIUM Ensemble Æquilibrium is a new music ensemble made up of the top contemporary performers in Singapore. Founded in 2020, Ensemble Æquilibrium is committed to delivering quality performances of the finest 20th & 21st century masterworks, championing and commissioning works by Asian composers, cultivating new music audiences within the region, and seeking meaningful collaborations across disciplines and genres in pursuit of new artistic grounds. The ensemble currently consists of members from Singapore, Switzerland and Italy.

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PROGRAMME NOTES Yii Kah Hoe (b. 1970)

Wild Cursive (2010)

The motif of this piece comes from cursive calligraphy of the renowned Chinese calligrapher, Huai Su. His forceful and flowing “wild cursive” calligraphy style is said to be inspired by the dagger dancing of Lady Gongsun.

Similar to the way Huai Su discovered his calligraphic idea from Lady Gongsun’s dagger dancing, I drew inspiration to write this relatively abstract piece from Huai Su’s powerful wild cursive calligraphy.

My desire is for the audience not to try and find a clear melody line in the piece, just as it is not necessary to identify the exact words in wild cursive calligraphy.

— Yii Kah Hoe

Isang Yun (1917-1995)

Nore

(1964) Isang Yun is considered one of the pioneers of Asian contemporary music and he is the one of the first Asians to gain wide recognition in Europe and America.

In 1955, Yun moved to Paris from Korea, and thereafter lived in Germany from 1957 until the end of his life.

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The title of his piece Nore for cello and piano, means “chant” in Korean. It was written in 1964 on the occasion of the South Korean president’s visit to West Germany, but unfortunately, it was never performed.

In 1968 it was discovered in Yun’s apartment by his publisher while he was imprisoned in Seoul due to alleged acts of espionage. At first he was sceptical about the publication of the piece, because it is far less complex and advanced than other pieces of the time like Gasa for Violin and Piano or Garak for Flute and Piano, but in the end he agreed to it.

Even though the piece is not representative for Yun’s work in the 60’s and 70’s, where he experimented with serialism, it does show a path that already prepares the characteristics that define his late style: a fine balance between Western avant-garde musical language and his traditional Korean cultural identity.

— Martin Jaggi

Claude Vivier (1948-1983)

Pulau Dewata (1977)

Pulau Dewata, whose title means “Island of the Gods” in Indonesian, is a tribute piece to the wonderful Balinese people.

The whole piece is merely a melody whose rhythmic language is sometimes drawn from the Balinese rhythmic line. A tribute with memories of this island. The ending of the piece is in fact an exact quotation of the “panjit prana,” the offering dance of the Legong*.

I wanted a simple piece: monochrome, a short piece above all full of joy, alternating single melodies— “intervalized”—and complementary melodies in the Balinese style. It is a child’s music…

— Claude Vivier * Legong is known as the dance of the virgins as it was traditionally performed by pre-pubescent girls in the palaces of feudal Bali. The word legong is made up of two words — “lega” (happy) and “wong” (person), and put together, they can be understood as “a dance that makes one happy”

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Koh Cheng Jin (b. 1996)

YAMA (God of Hell) (2019)

YAMA, or Yan Luo Wang, is the name of the Chinese deity of the Underworld. YAMA is wrathful as the judge of the dead, but I desire to portray its potentially human nature through dance, art and music. Every year, YAMA opens the gate of the Underworld for a month during the Hungry Ghost Festival so that these “hungry” souls can replenish themselves on earth and visit their loved ones.

Back home in Singapore, it is sentimental to see streets laden with candles that light the deceased’ paths home. The bright contours of fruit offerings on paths clouded with immense smoke, the crackles of paper money remnants sizzling in fire embers and the hazy shadows of young and old bending over in utmost devotion are all still clear in my memory. The dancer choreographs and plays the titular character, YAMA, and explores identities surrounding its own enigma - Is there anywhere it can return to, or is the underworld the only home it knows? To rekindle my childhood memory with this narrative is cathartic, especially with the infusion of the Yang Qin (Chinese dulcimer), which I play myself. The music is at times grotesque and powerful, with some tender and introverted moments that represent two dichotomies of the mighty god.

— Koh Cheng Jin

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(France)

Video on Demand: Now till 22 Nov, Sun $10/$15/$20 Pay-as-you-wish

For their Singapore debut, the group’s wind quintet presents a passionate overview of 20th century music.

Inspired by nature and her sounds, and reflecting her imagined spaces and peculiar discoveries, the wind quintet features music from decorated composers including Claude Debussy, Pierre Boulez, John Cage, Luciano Berio and more.

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LIEN BOON HUA Conductor

LIEN BOON HUA • CONDUCTOR Lien Boon Hua is a founding member of Ensemble Æquilibrium and a prizewinner of numerous international conducting competitions. He also leads OpusNovus, the contemporary music ensemble at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music in Singapore and is featured on the 2019/20 Peter Eötvös Foundation Mentoring Program. From 2016 to 2018, Lien served as the Assistant Conductor of the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra in Katowice and was also Assistant Conductor to the Richard-Strauss-Festival in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in 2018. During the recent COVID times, he started “Unboxing New Music”, a live online interview series with composers and musicians in South-East Asia aimed at promoting contemporary music.

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ENSEMBLE ÆQUILIBRIUM 1

BERTRAM WEE Piano

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CAROLIN RALSER

CHRISTOVEN TAN

Flute

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DANIEL YIAU

MARTIN JAGGI

Clarinet

Violin/ Viola

Cello

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BERTRAM WEE • PIANO Bertram Wee is a composer-performer whose work explores the limits of physicality and the notion of information overload in creating sonic experiences that prioritize visceral intensity and immediacy.

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Described as “a name to watch” (The Straits Times, Singapore), his music has been performed internationally at events and festivals such as the BBC Proms, Ultraschall Berlin, Darmstädter Ferienkurse, inTRANSIT Festival, Bloomsbury Festival, Asian Composers League (ACL) Festival and Conference, WMC Kerkrade Festival and Thailand International Composers Festival (TICF), among others. Awards include the British Composer Awards Student Composition prize, TICF Rapee Sagarik Composition Prize and ACL Young Composers Prize.

As a pianist for various new-music projects, he performs most notably with the award-winning B-L Piano Duo. Hailed as “two truly virtuoso players performing death-defying pianistic feats in tandem and with such apparent ease” (The Straits Times, Singapore), they have worked with living legends as diverse as David Lang and Michael Finnissy on their music - furthermore, they have also been privileged to give the premieres of several new works written for them.

They were winners of the prestigious Royal Over-Seas League Competition (Ensemble Category) in London in 2017.

CAROLIN RALSER • FLUTE Carolin Ralser studied music performance (flute), music education, chamber music and contemporary music at the Kunstuniversität Graz, mdw Vienna, Hochschule für Musik Freiburg & Hochschule für Musik Frankfurt am Main and completed all her bachelor and master studies with distinction.

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Carolin received various grants and scholarships, e.g. from the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and the International Ensemble Modern Academy in Frankfurt/Main. She is a 1st prize winner of the International flute competition Friedrich Kuhlau (Germany) and former principal flute player of Guiyang Symphony Orchestra. A dedicated performer of contemporary and classical music, she performed at festivals such as Salzburg Festival, Transart Festival, Klangspuren Festival, Manifeste at IRCAM/Paris, Darmstädter Ferienkurse für Neue Musik & Festival Royaumont as a member and guest musician of various orchestras and ensembles such as the Ensemble Modern. Carolin is currently a faculty member of School of the Arts Singapore and on the artist faculty at Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music.

3 CHRISTOVEN TAN • VIOLIN/ VIOLA Singaporean violist, Christoven Tan, is a contemporary artist with a passion for constant redefinition of viola performance and the artist, himself. He actively performs in solos, ensembles, orchestras in public and commercial galleries and artist-run spaces in London, Lithuania, Kuala Lumpur, Macau, Spain and Singapore. Christoven served 9

as Artist-in-Residency at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts(AUS) in 2018. Christoven has commissioned works from composers Siting Jiang, Goh Toh Chai, Alicia Joyce de Silva and Kelly Tang. Christoven can be heard on BBC radio 3 in the recording of Hymnen II by Stockhousen with the London Sinfonietta. He has also released his single Viola Viola by George Benjamin on Spotify as a solo artist. It is his focus to make new works of the viola relevant, played to the widest range of audience.

Christoven is a graduate from the Royal Academy of Music and the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts. His principal teachers included Garth Knox, Mgr. Jiri Heger, Michelle Li Min Zhe and Volker Hartung, Jon Thorne and Paul Silverthorne. Christoven is a recipient of the Trailblazer Foundation Fund.

4 DANIEL YIAU • CLARINET Daniel Yiau is currently based in Singapore, having studied Wind/Brass band conducting in the Conservatorium van Amsterdam and the Sibelius Academy under the tutelage of Jan Schut and Petri Komulainen. Daniel also minored in bass clarinet with Erik van Deuren and Heikki Nikula whilst in Amsterdam, and Helsinki, having premiered numerous works while living in Europe.

As an active performer, Daniel plays all ranges of clarinets, and has performed in various iconic performance venues across continents, mainly championing music written for the bass clarinet, and auxiliary clarinets. Daniel is currently clarinetist of K口U, a mixed instrumental quartet, and dBm, a clarinetsaxophone duo with Michellina Chan.

5 MARTIN JAGGI • CELLO Martin Jaggi was born in Basel, Switzerland in 1978. He studied cello and composition in Basel, Zurich and Hamburg with Reinhard Latzko and Walter Grimmer (cello) and Rudolf Kelterborn, Detlev Müller-Siemens and Manfred Stahnke (composition) as well as chamber music with the Trio del Trieste in Duino (Italy).

From 2000 until 2013 he was a member of the piano quartet Mondrian Ensemble which he cofounded and with whom he won several prices. Martin Jaggi is a member of the Ensemble Phoenix Basel and a principal cellist of the Basel Sinfonietta. As a chamber musician and soloist he has performed in many festivals and concert halls in over 30 countries.

As a composer Martin Jaggi has received commissions from many orchestras, chamber ensembles and festivals including the Basel Symphony Orchestra, the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra, the Collegium Novum Zurich, the Munich Chamber Orchestra, the Austrian Ensemble for New Music, the Festival Archipel Geneva and the Donaueschinger Musiktage. His works have been played in many European and Asian countries as well as in Argentina, Mexico, the USA, Canada, Israel and South Africa.

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GUEST PERFORMERS BIOGRAPHIES GABRIEL LEE • VIOLIN Singaporean violinist Gabriel Lee enjoys a multifaceted career: he performs in diverse sound worlds with his baroque and modern violins, and builds new frontiers in the Southeast Asian musical landscape as a music educator and entrepreneur.

He has performed solo recitals in the United States, Singapore, Malaysia and Myanmar, and has been featured as a soloist with the Baltimore Baroque Band, Red Dot Baroque, Resound Collective, Asian Cultural Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra of the Music Makers, Malaysia Bach Festival, Jakarta Festival Orchestra, PSPA International Ensemble, Braddell Heights Symphony Orchestra and the Peabody Conductor’s Orchestra.

Gabriel has received various awards and scholarships, including the JC Van Hulsteyn Award in Violin and the Paul Abisheganaden Grant for Artistic Excellence. He graduated with two Master of Music degrees in Violin Performance and Baroque Violin Performance from the Peabody Conservatory, and a Bachelor of Music (Hons) degree from YSTCM as Valedictorian of his cohort.

DEREK KOH • PERCUSSION Touted as one of the most promising musicians of his generation, (The Straits Time Singapore), percussionist Derek Koh’s sensitive musical voice and varied musical ventures have afforded him the opportunity to perform extensively in the United States, Europe and Asia. His burgeoning rise as a dynamic and flexible musician has led him to work with art forms of all genres and mediums, from western and Chinese classical music to theatre and dance.

Part of Ding Yi Music Company since 2010, Derek appears regularly as a freelance percussionist with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra and the Singapore Chinese Orchestra. He has also been invited as guest percussionist for the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of Europe and guest timpanist for the Szechuan Symphony Orchestra.

With percussive music at its formative stages, Derek is a proponent for contemporary music and is dedicated to creating new works for his instrument. He has premiered solo and chamber works from composers including Zhou Long, Liu Qing, Eric Watson, Dr Zechariah Goh, Julian Wong and Phang Kokjun.

Derek is a graduate of the Mannes School of Music, Royal College of Music and Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts where he studied with Maya Gunji, Joseph Tompkins, Mark Suter, Christian Schiøler and David Hockings.

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TAN JIE QING • YANGQIN Tan Jie Qing is currently doing her fourth year of Bachelor of Music (Honours) in the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, majoring in yangqin under the tutelage of Ms Qu Jian Qing, principal yangqin player from the Singapore Chinese Orchestra. Jie Qing had also participated in various competitions, including the National Arts Council Chinese Music Competition, clinching the 1st prize for the yangqin solo open category in 2018 and also the Nanyang International Music Competition, 3rd prize in the yangqin solo open category 2017. She is a familiar face in the Singapore music scene, playing for various orchestra and ensembles, including the Ding Yi Music Company, the Singapore National Youth Chinese Orchestra as yangqin principal, and was also featured as a cimbalom player with the NAFA symphony orchestra. Jie Qing also guest played in Singapore Chinese Orchestra and Toa Payoh West CC Chinese Orchestra.

LYNETTE YEO • PIANO Lynette Yeo is a pianist with an interest in the music of today, with a forward-looking repertoire that includes music by composers such as Thomas Adés and Salvatore Sciarrino. Her advocacy of this music led to her winning the Contemporary Music Prize at the Royal College of Music in 2016. Lynette performs with the award-winning BL Piano Duo, a project which focuses on the performance of contemporary concert music. She studied with acclaimed pianist Gordon Fergus-Thompson at the RCM.

LI RUIMIN • DANCER Li Ruimin graduated from the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts (HKAPA) with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honors) Degree in Dance, majoring in Chinese Dance. Ruimin was awarded the Chinese Dance Faculty Scholarship and the William Au Arts Education Scholarship during her studies. She is also the recipient of the Singapore National Arts Council Arts Scholarship (Overseas). Ruimin is currently engaged in dance choreography, performance and education.

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ABOUT SIFA V2.020

As Singapore’s annual pinnacle arts festival, the Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA) presents captivating and diverse works across theatre, music, dance, film and visual arts.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the festival team created and launched SIFA v2.020, and its line-up of virtual talks, vodcasts, and performances. SIFA v2.020 is presented by Arts House Limited, as part of the #SGCultureAnyway campaign.

SIFA 2021 will return next May.

ABOUT ARTS HOUSE LIMITED

Arts House Limited (AHL) is a not-for-profit organisation committed to enriching lives through the arts. AHL manages two key landmarks located in the heart of Singapore’s Civic District — The Arts House, a multidisciplinary arts centre with a focus on literary programming, and the Victoria Theatre & Victoria Concert Hall, a heritage building that is home to the Singapore Symphony Orchestra.

It also runs the Goodman Arts Centre, Aliwal Arts Centre and Drama Centre.

AHL presents the Singapore International Festival of Arts, the annual pinnacle celebration of performance and interdisciplinary arts in Singapore commissioned by the National Arts Council.

#SIFAv2020

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#SGCultureAnywhere