SSO Chamber Series: French Flavours

10 September 2017

Victoria Concert Hall

Yang Zheng Yi

artistic administrator

Claude Debussy Sonata for Flute, Viola and Harp 18’00 Jin Ta, flute Guan Qi, viola Gulnara Mashurova, harp

Joaquín Turina Piano Trio No. 1 in D major, Op. 35 21’00 Chen Da Wei, violin Wang Zihao, cello Yao Xiao Yun, piano

Intermission 20’00

George Onslow String Quintet No. 26 in C minor, Op. 67 31’00 Ye Lin, violin 1 Chikako Sasaki, violin 2 Guan Qi, viola Ng Pei-Sian, cello Yang Zheng Yi, double bass

Chikako Sasaki violin

Chen Da Wei violin Born in Shanghai, Chen Da Wei began studies on the violin at the age of eight. His teacher was Tan Shu Zhen, a well-known violin professor at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. Chen Da Wei was also a prize winner in the Shanghai Young Musician Competition. An experienced orchestral violinist, Chen was previously with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra for eight years before joining the Singapore Symphony Orchestra in 1989 as first violinist.

Chikako Sasaki graduated from the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, Singapore in 2015 where she studied violin performance with Zuo Jun. Prior to joining the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, she has worked with the Hong Kong Sinfonietta.

Chikako began her violin lessons with Yoko Tanaka in Japan. She then moved to New Zealand in 2007 and continued her lessons with Emma Barron and Vesa- Matti Leppänen, Concertmaster of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. While in New Zealand, she appeared as soloist with the Wellington Youth Orchestra and the Manawatu Sinfonia performing concertos by Sibelius and Saint-SaÍns. In 2013, she was given the opportunity to perform chamber music with distinguished musicians, Elmar Oliveira, Barbara Westphal and Emmanuel Feldman at the Heifetz International Music Institute in the U.S. She was also invited to take part in the Ozawa International Chamber Music Academy in Okushiga in 2014 where she performed under the baton of Seiji Ozawa. She plays on a 1914 Annibale Fagnola generously loaned by the Rin Collection.

Ye Lin violin SSO violinist Ye Lin graduated from the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, Singapore in 2007, where she studied with Qian Zhou.

A National Arts Council Conservatory music scholar, she won the First Prize in the Violin Open Category of the 2005 Singapore National Piano and Violin Competition and at the First Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Concerto Competition in 2004. Ye Lin started learning the violin when she was five. From 1991 to 2000 she studied at the primary and middle schools attached to the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. She was a member of the Asian Youth Orchestra from 2001 to 2002. In 2003 she was awarded the Diploma in Music by the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts. In 2006 she was selected to study with Victor Danchenko at the Peabody Institute at John Hopkins University under an exchange programme.

Guan Qi viola Born in Yunnan, Kunming, Guan Qi studied violin and music composition under his father at age 12. In 1985 he studied viola at the Central Conservatory of Music under Sui Ke Qiang, Wang Zhen Shan, Lin Yao Ji, Csaba Erdelyi and Bruno Pasquier. Upon graduation he was appointed Principal Viola at the China Youth Symphony Orchestra, Central Opera and Dance Symphony Orchestra and Marcan Chamber Orchestra.

Guan Qi joined the SSO in 1988 and is now Associate Principal Violist. In his free time, he likes to cook, watch movies and travel.

Ng Pei-Sian cello Ng Pei-Sian was Commonwealth Musician of the Year in 2007, and winner of the Gold Medal and First Prize at the 55th Royal Over-Seas League Music Competition held in London. He has performed concertos with the major Australian symphony orchestras, Malaysian Philharmonic, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Estonian National Symphony and Oulu Symphony, among others. Born in Sydney in 1984, Ng began studies in Adelaide with Barbara Yelland and later with Janis Laurs at the Elder Conservatorium of Music before winning the Elder Overseas Scholarship to study under Ralph Kirshbaum at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, where he was awarded the RNCM Gold Medal. In 2014, Ng performed Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Variations with the Orchestra of the Music Makers under Chan Tze Law and Elgar’s Cello Concerto with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra under Arvo Volmer as part of the 2014 Adelaide International Cello Festival. Ng Pei-Sian is currently Principal Cellist of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra and faculty member at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music.

He performs on a 1764 Giovanni Antonio Marchi cello, Bologna.

Wang Zihao cello Born in Jilin, China, Wang Zihao started to play the cello at the age of four. At 13 he was admitted to the middle school of the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, where he studied with Na Mula. With his outstanding accomplishments, he won the outstanding professional award at the conservatory.

Wang was Principal Cellist of the China Youth Symphony Orchestra. For three consecutive years, he was admitted to the Morningside Music Bridge International Academy in Canada, where he won the First Prize in the Concerto Competition and Etude Competition with a published CD recording.

As a result he was invited to perform with the Symphony Orchestra of Gdan ´sk in Poland.

Wang recently graduated from Singapore’s Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music where he studied under Qin Li-Wei and won the First Prize of the Concerto Competition. He plays on an 1896 Muller Joseph on generous loan from the Rin Collection.

Yang Zheng Yi double bass Born in Shanghai, Yang Zheng Yi started learning the violin at the age of four, and switched to the double bass when he was nine. He spent six years in the Middle School of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music under Cao Jian and was promptly offered a scholarship from ABRSM to study at the Royal College of Music in London under Neil Tarlton and Enno Senft. Before joining the SSO as its Associate Principal Double Bass in July 2006, Yang worked with the Philharmonia Orchestra (London), Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, The Hallé Orchestra (Manchester) and London Symphony Orchestra and was invited to join these orchestras on their international tours, performing at the UBS Verbier Music Festival, Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival and Pacific Music Festival. He is currently also an Academic Associate at the Republic Polytechnic in Singapore.

Jin Ta flute Jin Ta joined the Singapore Symphony Orchestra as Principal Flutist in 1998.

A graduate of the University of Michigan and the New England Conservatory, his teachers included Zhu Tong De, Keith Bryan, Leone Buyse, Fenwich Smith and Paula Robison. Jin Ta was the First Prize winner in the Boston Pappoutsakies Memorial Foundation Competition, the Memphis Young Artist Competition, and the 2000 Haifa International Flute Competition in Israel.

He was also a prize winner at the Flute Talk Competition and the National Flute Association Young Artist Competition. Jin Ta has toured extensively all over the world. His recordings of works by Fauré, Poulenc and Ibert, among other composers, can be heard on the Taiwanese label, NewArt.

Gulnara Mashurova harp Gulnara Mashurova was born in Almaty, Kazakhstan. She started piano studies at the age of six and by age nine was chosen to study harp at the Pre Moscow Conservatory with Natalia Sibor. From 1991 to 1993 she studied with Vera Dulova at the Moscow Conservatory. Mashurova received a Bachelor and Master’s degree in Harp Performance from the Juilliard School as a Jerome Green full scholarship recipient studying under Nancy Allen, Principal Harpist of the New York Philharmonic. She received her second Masters in Orchestra Performance with a full scholarship from the Manhattan School of Music studying under Deborah Hoffman, former Principal Harpist of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra.

Mashurova was a regular substitute with the New York Philharmonic both in live performances and recordings and has toured extensively with the orchestra. She has performed with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Concertgebouw Orchestra, Suspeso Contemporary Ensemble, Absolute Ensemble, Stamford Symphony, Empire State Opera and the Silk Road Ensemble with Yo-Yo Ma. In 2003, Mashurova joined the Singapore Symphony Orchestra as Principal Harpist and is on the faculty of the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music.

Yao Xiao Yun piano Yao Xiao Yun began her piano studies at the age of five. In 1999, Yao was offered a full scholarship from the Singapore Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA) to study under Yu Chun Yee. In 2003, as NAFA’s top graduate, she was awarded an Honours Degree by the University of Wales. Yao’s numerous awards include winning the Third Prize in the 1st ASEAN International Chopin Piano Competition in Malaysia (2004), First Prize in the 24th New Acropolis International Piano Competition in Madrid and First Prize at the Singapore National Piano Competition (Open Category, 2005).

In recent years, she was invited to work with her father in a concert organised by the NAFA Club. They presented their new creations by combining arts and piano music, which attracted a lot of publicity in TV, magazines and newspapers. In 2015, Yao Xiao Yun was invited to play in a piano recital as a guest artist in the International Culture Arts Festival in New York. In July 2017, Yao presented her piano recital in Victoria Concert Hall and it was highly appreciated by experts and scholars.

(1862 -- 1918 y s s u b C lau d e D e

)

Sonata for Flute, Vi

ola

and Harp 1. Pastorale: Lento, dolce rubato 2. Interlude: Tempo di Minuetto 3. Finale: Allegro mo derato ma risoluto

18’00

Against the backdrop of “the war to end all wars”, Debussy declared “I want to work, not so much for myself, but to give proof, however small it may be, that not even 30 million Boches (German soldiers) can destroy French thought”. So in 1915, he started work on a series of six sonatas, of which three were completed and signed, “Claude Debussy, musician français” (French musician). These were to form part of his determination to advance a style of music, free from all German influence, focusing on clarity, refinement and grace.

The second of these six sonatas, for Flute, Viola and Harp, was written in a month. Clear textures abound, with the unique timbres of each instrument clearly delineated. Debussy wrote about this sonata as being “terribly [melancholic] – should one laugh or cry? Perhaps both at the same time?”

The Pastorale presents its disjointed themes briefly before each fades away to give way to a subsequent theme. The cycle then repeats itself. The Interlude reflects Debussy’s inspirations - the French baroque masters, Couperin and Rameau. Triple and Duple meter passages alternate with leaping melodies, while the harp adds an underlying pinch of oriental spice. The uneasily desperate but vigorous pentatonic tunes in the Finale recall the oriental influence which permeated much of Debussy’s earlier works, before a brief recollection of the pastoral spirit of the first movement brings the sonata to a close.

Joaquín Turi

na (1882 -- 1949)

Piano Trio No. 1 in D major, Op. 35

21’00

1. Prelude et Fugue 2. Thème et Variations 3. Sonate

Joaquin Turina studied at the Schola Cantorum in Paris with French composer Vincent d’Indy. His loyalty to General Franco’s regime may have damaged his reputation, and he is generally viewed as a poor cousin to the other leading Spanish composers of the 20th century – Albeniz, Granados and de Falla.

The Piano Trio No. 1 combines the continental European forms – which Turina certainly picked up while in Paris – with Spanish folk elements. The opening Prelude et Fugue synthesises the dotted rhythms of the French Overture and German counterpoint, while incorporating Iberian drama in generating some dark, emotional intensity.

The Thème et Variations provides a whirlwind tour of Spain, with folk music from different regions coming to the fore in each variation. The theme evokes the Andalusian cante jondo, after which a muñeira (miller’s dance) takes us to Galicia.

A visit to the capital, Madrid, brings the schotis dance into the movement, followed by the piano’s introduction of the 6/8 dotted rhythms of the Basque zortziko.

The string instruments alternate between bowed and plucked strings to recall the Aragonese jota in the fourth variation, before Turina returns us to Andalusia with its solemn soleares. Turina recalls themes from the first movement in the development and coda of the concluding Sonate, transforming the subject of the first movement’s Fugue in a grand, Franck-ian apotheosis.

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w

3)

185 (1784 --

String Quintet No. 26 in C min

or, Op

. 67 1. Introduzione – Molto moderato e grandioso 2. Scherzo 3. Andante 4. Finale: Allegretto quasi allegro

31’00

George Onslow, born to an English father and French mother, lived in France. Much of his compositional output revolved around chamber music, though he wrote symphonies and operas as well. He wrote 36 string quartets and 34 string quintets – which were held in the highest regard by Beethoven and Schubert. Later, Berlioz, Schumann and Mendelssohn even ranked his chamber music on the same level as that of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven’s, but somehow, after the First World War, his works were forgotten.

At a performance of one of Onslow’s string quintets, the second cellist failed to turn up, and the part was covered by the virtuoso bassist, Domenico Dragonetti. Onslow was so impressed that he subsequently composed four string quintets without a second cellist, but with a double bass part instead. His 26th string quintet, the Op. 67, was one of them.

Written in four movements, the Quintet opens with a slow Introduction which seems to recall the stately French Overture style, before a march-like Molto moderato e grandioso moves the proceedings along. An unyielding Scherzo provides dramatic contrast, with quick, scampering quavers and rhythmic sleights of hand. The lyrical Andante provides a delicate melody for the first violin and cello to luxuriate in.

Opening with a melancholic and longing theme, Onslow provides some operatic moments in the Finale. The string instruments take turns with the forlorn theme while alternating with melodramatic outbursts, before the tempo intensifies to bring the Quintet to a dramatic close.

Programme notes by Christopher Cheong

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