NEW NOTES IN THE PIPELINE 6 AUGUST 2017 VICTORIA CONCERT HALL
NEW NOTES IN THE PIPELINE CHOK KERONG Disquiet 12’00 (Commissioned by Singapore Symphony Group for VCH Organ Series) Ang Shao-wen, conductor Margaret Chen, organ Chan Yoong Han, violin Cindy Lee, violin Christina Zhou, violin Karen Tan, violin Margit Saur, violin Ye Lin, violin Janice Tsai, viola Marietta Ku, viola Christoven Tan, viola Wang Zihao, cello Wang Yan, cello Brandon Wong, double bass CHEN ZHANGYI The Sixth Angel 5’00 PHOON YU Prelude and Fugue on Wynne’s Theme 8’30 Piece for Organ and Trumpet 3’00 J.S. BACH Prelude and Fugue in C major, BWV 545 5’30 Phoon Yu, organ Lau Wen Rong, trumpet
Go green. Digital programme booklets are available on www.sso.org.sg. Scan the QR code in the foyer to view a copy.
MARGARET CHEN ORGAN
Margaret Co Chen is an organist, an organ-consultant and a lecturer in Music History and Liturgy. She received her training at Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, where she earned a bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree and a Doctor of Music degree, all with highest distinction. At Indiana, she held the John Edwards Fellowship, which is awarded to the most outstanding doctoral student every year. Margaret has played in many concert halls and churches in Asia, the US and Europe. In the past few years, she has performed in Suntory Hall, Tokyo; Wuhan Qintai Concert Hall, China; Cologne Cathedral, Germany; Overture Center, Madison, WI; and many others. She was organ consultant for the Victoria Concert Hall, The Esplanade Concert Hall, Singapore; Dewan Filharmonik Petronas, Kuala Lumpur; The Recital Hall of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, China; Qintai Concert Hall, Wuhan, China; and the Overture Center in Madison, WI, USA. As a concert organist, she has performed in organ concertos and symphonies under the baton of Sergiu Commissiona, Okko Kamu, Leon Gregorian, Marius Janowski, Muhai Tang, Jajha Ling, Lan Shui and many others. She has also done continuo work for Robert Shaw, Jan Harrington and Donald Chen.
After 13 years of living in Hong Kong, Chicago and Tokyo, Margaret has returned to Singapore. She is elated to be back at the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, playing the organ, presenting pre-concert talks, writing programme notes and curating the organ series for the Victoria Concert Hall.
PHOON YU ORGAN
Organist and composer Phoon Yu is active both in Singapore and in the United States. He has performed in multiple concerts and masterclasses arranged by the Methodist School of Music and the American Guild of Organists. He has also played previously in the 2015/16 VCH Organ Series, as well as abroad, having played several times in the Peabody Organ Department’s Thursday Noon Recital Series, as well as in multiple other venues in the United States. Phoon Yu’s performance career as an organist is supplemented by his composing ability. Premieres of his compositions include works for various solo instruments and chamber groups across various venues in Singapore, China and the United States. Notable premieres include his solo piano piece Prelude (Chorale Prelude
on ‘Singapura, Oh Singapura’) (2013), his chamber work Elegy for Violin, Piano and String Quartet (2014), two solo organ works Prelude on ‘Lenggang Kangkung’ and Toccata on ‘Singapura, Oh Singapura’ (2015), and his Sonatina for Dizi Quintet (2016) for the Dicapella Dizi Ensemble. Phoon Yu will pursue his Doctor of Musical Arts degree in organ performance at The Juilliard School this coming fall. Previously, he did his Bachelor of Music in music composition at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, and has just completed his Masters of Music in organ performance at the Peabody Institute. His teachers include Donald Sutherland and Evelyn Lim (organ) and Ho Chee Kong and Oscar Bettison (composition).
CHOK KERONG COMPOSER
Chok Kerong has established himself as one of Singapore’s most versatile talents. Since graduating from the Manhattan School of Music with a Master’s degree in jazz performance, he has developed into a striking pianist, organist and composer whose work exhibits a keen intellect combined with emotional depth. To date, Kerong has had the privilege of performing with distinguished artists such as saxophonist Steve Wilson, drummer
John Riley, guitarist Yotam Silberstein and trumpeter Alex Sipiagin. While known primarily as a jazz pianist and organist, Kerong is also active as a composer and arranger, and his work has been performed by artists and ensembles such as Jeremy Monteiro, Rani Singam, T’ang Quartet, the Singapore Wind Symphony, and his own chamber ensemble, ELEVEN. Kerong is also known as a key member of The Mothership, an ensemble led by singersongwriter Charlie Lim.
ANG SHAO-WEN
CONDUCTOR
After graduating from Columbia University in 2011, Shao-wen went on to obtain a Master of Music in Choral Studies from the University of Cambridge in 2012 where he studied conducting under Stephen Layton. Shao-wen is equally at home with the polyphonic vocal music of the Renaissance as with symphonic works of the classical canon. He especially enjoys premiering music by contemporary composers as well as exploring nonclassical genres of music. In September 2015, he was the conductor for ELEVEN, a concert featuring the works of jazz pianist and fellow Singaporean, Chok Kerong. The ensemble for the concert comprised some of Singapore’s finest classical musicians, including select members of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra.
In May 2017, he was the conductor for Hong Kong Episodes, a series of concerts in China celebrating the cosmopolitan cityscape of Hong Kong. The concerts featured the music of Teriver Cheung and Fung Lam with cinematic visuals by Anthony Lai. The concert was performed by eleven select players from the Hong Kong Contemporary Music Group together with a jazz quartet. Shao-wen is passionate about music education and regularly works with school orchestras in addition to teaching music theory and violin privately. His other musical interests include composition and electronic music production.
PROGRAMME NOTES CHOK KERONG (b. 1983)
CHEN ZHANGYI (b. 1984)
Disquiet is my first attempt at writing for the pipe organ. The title describes the overall feeling of the piece, in which obvious harmonic resolution is largely absent and polyrhythms are a constant feature. The resulting ambiguity allows the themes to develop and transform without becoming too freewheeling. Working on this piece has broadened my perspective as a composer, and I would like to express my thanks to the Singapore Symphony Group for this opportunity.
The Sixth Angel here references the angel blowing the sixth trumpet (out of a group of seven angels with trumpets), as recorded in the Book of Revelations (Rev. 9:13 – 9:21), thereby summoning four ‘great angels’ and an army of horsemen to destroy a third of all sinful mankind.
DISQUIET
— Chok Kerong
THE SIXTH ANGEL
Fittingly, the musical direction given at the beginning of the piece is “with authority”, reflecting the powers of command vested in the trumpet blast. The increasing intensity of the build-up of notes, as well as the flurry of fingerwork passages all seem to depict the assembling of the armies and the hosts being unleashed with utter brutality upon the masses of mankind.
PROGRAMME NOTES PHOON YU (b. 1990)
PRELUDE AND FUGUE ON WYNNE’S THEME
PIECE FOR ORGAN AND TRUMPET
Based on the eponymous theme that the Singaporean composer Chen Zhangyi wrote as a proposal surprise for his then-fiancée Wynne, this piece uses as its building blocks fragments of the theme to derive the rest of the material.
As the title indicates, this lively piece is just that – a “piece” of music designed to be a little musical morsel in a musicmaking session or concert involving the instrumentalists. After a short introduction, the trumpet and the organ alternate the short theme (a fragment, really) between each other and transform it in various ways. The use of seconds and fourths, whether vertical or horizontal, dominate the piece as a reference to the fragmental theme.
The prelude is a slow, meditative piece, alternating between dense chords and free recitative-like melodies. In a sense, the prelude itself functions as a pseudointroduction to the theme, with fragments of the theme being incorporated vertically and horizontally throughout. In addition, the theme itself is spelt out in long notes played by the pedal at various moments. At the end of the prelude, the theme is introduced in its entirety. The fugue, in contrast, possesses a relatively more lively character, dominated by flowing melodies, the theme now inspiring a fluid fugue subject. Like in the prelude, the pedal is used mainly to spell out the theme. In the middle of the fugue, a chordal section complete with some recitative-like melodies evokes the character of the prelude, before returning to the main texture of the fugue. Towards the end, the pedal assumes a more virtuosic character, with hints of the theme being re-introduced in the manuals before the whole piece recedes.
JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (1685 - 1750) PRELUDE AND FUGUE IN C MAJOR, BWV 545
One of J.S. Bach’s earlier and shorter preludes and fugues, it was presumably written and revised during his time in Weimar. Written during a period where he was especially productive in composing organ music, the piece demonstrates much of what has been commented about Bach’s organ technique – someone with magisterial control over both hands and feet. The prelude opens majestically, with energetic pedalwork and long drawn-out chords. Throughout the prelude, constant semiquaver action punctuated with weighty cadences serves to push the piece forward, eventually culminating in a reprise of the opening bars to a glorious conclusion. Disquiet programme note by Chok Kerong All other programme notes by Phoon Yu
The fugue, in contrast, starts simpler – it eschews rapid action initially and opens with long drawn-out minims in the subject. Like in the prelude, constant movement (this time in the form of quavers) drive the fugue through various tonal centres and points of cadences, before it comes to its majestic end, with the fugue subject intoned in the bass for the last time. Throughout the fugue (and unlike the prelude), the pedal is not always employed all the time, giving a sense of contrast between the parts of the piece with and without the pedal.
CONCERTS YOU MAY BE INTERESTED IN SSO Chamber Series
FOR THE EMPEROR
11 & 12 Aug 2017, 7.30pm Victoria Concert Hall Two nights of string quartets fit for a king, by Haydn and Mozart, pinnacles of the Neo-Classical era. The central hymn from Haydn’s Emperor Quartet was the national anthem of Austria for a time, while Mozart’s Prussian Quartets, written with the Prussian King’s interest in the cello in mind, were published two weeks after his premature death.
VCH Organ Series
PHANTOM OF THE OPERA
26 Oct 2017, 7.30pm Victoria Concert Hall A renowned international organist popular for her sold-out silent film programmes, Dorothy Papadakos brings the Phantom of the Opera film’s raw terror to justice on the magnificent organ with an imaginatively improvised score that is sure to frighten even the Concert Hall’s resident Phantom.
Tickets available on SISTIC!
THE KLAIS ORGAN First installed in 1987, the Victoria Concert Hall’s Klais organ was purchased through fundraising efforts from the then-newly formed SSO Ladies’ League as a replacement for the St. Clair organ that had been built some 50 years earlier in 1931. The St. Clair organ was named after Major W. G. St. Clair, founder of the old Philharmonic Society and the first editor of the Singapore Free Press, and its façade was retained after the installation of the Klais organ. In 2010, with the redevelopment of the Victoria Concert Hall and Victoria Theatre, the organ – consisting of a total of 2,012 pipes – was methodically removed piece by piece, repaired and stored in climate-controlled warehouses during the refurbishment period. Being the only mechanical organ in Singapore, the Klais organ has strong emotional links with generations of audiences and many donors and supporters of classical music, notably the Lee Foundation, who have stepped forward to provide financial support for the restoration. When the Victoria Concert Hall reopened in the second half of 2014, the organ once again took centrestage, providing awe-inspiring and delicate strains of music to old and new audiences.
We would like to thank the following organisations and individuals for donating towards the restoration of the Klais Organ. Lee Foundation, Singapore Goh Yew Lin Far East Organization Ho Ching Mrs Christina Ong Low Check Kian Tan Kong Piat (Pte) Ltd Tow Heng Tan Bernard Tan Tiong Gie Winston Hauw Michael Koh Ann Kheng Richard P Armstrong Joseph Grimberg One North Capital Pte Ltd Tan Corporate Advisory Pte Ltd United Overseas Bank Ltd
Leong Wai Leng Wing Tai Holdings Limited Yeoh Chee Yan ComfortDelGro Corporation Limited Paul A. J. Supramaniam Auric Pacific Group Limited Heidrick & Struggles Bryan Manaf Ghows Santa Lucia Asset Management Andreas Sohmen-Pao Tan Boon Ngee American Women’s Association Chng Hak-Peng Dr Warren Lee’s Paediatrics Growth & Diabetes Centre Pte Ltd
ABOUT THE KLAIS ORGAN Mechanical Stop and Keyboard Action Windpressure: Manuals: 100mm Pedal: 120mm 3 Manual Combination Pedals Builder: Klais, Bonn 1987
SWELL
GREAT
Hautbois 8’ Basson 16’ Scharff 4 Ranks Sesquialter 2 Ranks Octavin 2’ Blockflöte 4’ Principal 4’ Vox Coeleste 8’ Gamba 8’ Rohrflöte 8’ Tremulant
Cromorne 8’ Trompete 8’ Mixture 4 Ranks Larigot 1 1/3’ Superoctave 2’ Traversflöte 4’ Octave 4’ Offenflöte 8’ Principal 8’ Quintaton 16’ Tremulant
PEDAL Trompete 8’ Posaune 16’ Rauschpfeife 3 Ranks Choralbass 4’ Bourdon 8’ Octave 8’ Subbass 16’ Principal 16’
Couplers: I/Ped II/Ped II/I II/II 16’
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