Song Bridges

2 6 M A Y 2 01 9

4 P M | V IC T ORI A C ONC E R T HA L L

THE SSCC EXPERIENCE

9 & 10 September 2019 | 9am – 6pm Victoria Concert Hall Join us for a day of choral music-making! Help your child discover his or her own voice with workshops conducted by our Singapore Symphony Children’s Choir (SSCC) conductors. Participants will get a chance to experience a day in the life of an SSCC singer and even have the opportunity to sing on stage at the iconic Victoria Concert Hall!

The SSCC Experience is a programme for treble voices.

If you’ve got a transitioning voice and are still keen to join us, we’d be glad to have you! *Please note that the repertoire may include some liturgical works.

For treble voices, ages 8 (born 2011) to 12 Fees: $88 per participant Registration closing date: 1 September 2019 For more details, please visit www.sso.org.sg/ssccexperience

@SSChildrensChoir

26 MAY 2019, SUN

SONG BRIDGES Singapore Symphony Children’s Choir Singapore Symphony Youth Choir Wong Lai Foon, conductor Gabriel Hoe, accompanist Adriana Chiew, accompanist

Teddy Kalanda Harrison (arr. Jacob Narverud) Jambo 4’ Pärt Uusberg Muusika 3’ Hungarian Folk Song (arr. Zoltan Kodály) Túrót Eszik a Cigány 3’ Kim André Arnesen Flight Song 4’ Darius Lim Lux (SSCC Commission, World Premiere) 5’ Mark Sirett Watane 5’ Léo Delibes (arr. Francisco Núñez) Dôme Épais 5’ Craig Hella Johnson Gitanjali Chants 5’ Fabian Obispo Ili-Ili Tulog Anay 2’ Osamu Shimizu (arr. Fukunaga Yoichiro) Sohran Bushi 3’ Serbian Gypsie Song (arr. Nick Page) Niska Banja 3’ Zechariah Goh

阴阳上去 (Yin Yang Shang Qu) (SSCC Commission, World Premiere) 5’ Yeo Chow Shern Jinkly Nona (World Premiere) 3’ Jaakko Mäntyjärvi Pseudo-Yoik Lite 3’ Moses Hogan Music Down in My Soul 5’

Concert duration: Approx. 1hr 15 mins There will be no intermission

Go green. Digital programme booklets are available on www.sso.org.sg.

Scan the QR code in the foyer to view a copy.

1

©Michelle Tng Ying

SINGAPORE SYMPHONY CHILDREN’S CHOIR

Formed in 2006, the Singapore Symphony Children’s Choir has established itself as the leading children’s choir in Singapore.

With over 200 members aged 9 to 18, the choir enriches young singers through holistic choral training that nurtures artistic growth and personal development.

Rehearsal Pianist Gabriel Hoe

The children’s choir has performed great choral masterpieces with the SSO and with distinguished conductors such as Lim Yau, Claus Peter Flor, Sofi Jeannin, François-Xavier Roth and Julie Desbordes. It has toured and performed at the Philharmonie de Paris in collaboration with Maîtrise de Radio France, as well as at Dewan Filharmonik Petronas in Kuala Lumpur with the Malaysian Philharmonic Youth Orchestra in concert.

The Singapore Symphony Children’s Choir is proud to have Mr Christopher Ho and Mrs Rosy Ho as its Principal Champion.

In Singapore, the choir has an active performing calendar. It has sung at the Istana, shared the stage with critically acclaimed The King’s Singers, and most recently presented at the 33rd ASEAN Summit. The choir actively commissions and performs works by Darius Lim, Zechariah Goh, and Cultural Medallion winner Kelly Tang, amongst many others. The choir released their first recording, And I’ll Sing Once More.

Choirmaster Wong Lai Foon

2

©Michelle Tng Ying

SINGAPORE SYMPHONY YOUTH CHOIR Choirmaster Wong Lai Foon Rehearsal Pianist Evelyn Handrisanto

Comprised of Singapore’s finest young choristers aged 17 to 28, the Singapore Symphony Youth Choir is an energetic ensemble inaugurated in 2016 to complement the SSO with a chorus of vibrant voices.

Exploring the best of different musical worlds and styles, the youth choir has performed Scriabin’s Prometheus, Puccini’s La bohème, as well as recorded Borodin’s Polovtsian Dances and Mahler’s Symphony No. 2. In 2017, it also toured with the SSC and SSO, presenting Brahms’ Shicksalslied at the Dewan Filharmonik Petronas in Kuala Lumpur.

In the 2018/19 season, the youth choir performed independently for the first time, under the baton of esteemed conductor Eímear Noone.

3

PERFORMERS LIST

SINGAPORE SYMPHONY CHILDREN’S CHOIR Bryan Carmichael Anne-Sophie Cazaubon Ariane Cazaubon Ashley Chai Andrea Chee Elizabeth Chew Chin Jia Yu David Cho* Choo Yong Han* Sophie Du Toit Nia Edwards* Goh Chen Xi Ikabella Heaps Caroline Hesse Huang Ziyan Tristan Hui Tania Ibrahim Hana Kasai Corrinne Khoo Jadyn Koh Zoe Koh Trinetra D/O Kumarasan

Gabriel Hoe# Aaron Koh Laura Lee Trixi Lim Zachary Lim Jon Loh Kerris Loh Loh Shao Wei Oh Chin Aik

*Also performing as part of the Singapore Symphony Youth Choir. # Guest singers 4

Jayden Lai Lee Yun Ling Therese Lee Marisa Lee Emma Lee-Goh Ellyn Lew Ethan Lew Giselle Lim Josephine Loh Javier Loke Ron Loo Lu Huaiyao Alisha Malika Sebastini Manimohan Diego Marcotty Khayil Matthew Anna Myroshnychenko Chloe Ong* Violet Ong Hannah Pak Kate Por Summer Quek

SINGAPORE SYMPHONY YOUTH CHOIR Arnie Arfiee Jason Carranceja Adriana Chiew# Serene Chong Winsen Citra# Margaret Devadason Elizabeth Goh Maria Erika Goh Amir Hamzah

Suri Rao Michael Robinson* See To Yu Rong Caleb Seow Joy Sim Bernice Tan Tan Carine* Emily Tan Kate Tan Gabriel Tan Oliver Tay Dora Tay Shannen Tay Shanaia Teo Shauna Koh Trinidad Megan Wang Raeanne Wong Mao Yamaura Seia Yano Claris Yeo Kassia Yeo Ashley Yeo

Wesley Oon Ananya Ravi Desiree Seng Jien Nee Tai Tiffany Tam Tan Li En Tan Yulin Tan Yuqing Abigail Yeo

WONG L AI FOON CHOIRMASTER As Choirmaster of the Singapore Symphony Children’s Choir (SSCC) and the Singapore Symphony Youth Choir (SSYC), Wong Lai Foon oversees a family of choral ensembles that is dedicated to the development of young voices, and the continuing appreciation of choral and classical music. At the helm of the Children’s Choir since its inception in 2006, the choir has garnered praise for its impressive choral tone under her leadership. The choir’s recording of Bob Chilcott’s Little Jazz Mass, featured on their CD, And I’ll Sing Once More, has been complimented by the renowned composer for its “fine sound and style”.

Apart from performances with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Wong has led both choirs in collaborations with other ensembles. The Concert Choir has shared the stage with the celebrated ensemble, The King’s Singers, the Maîtrise de Radio France at the Philharmonie de Paris, and the Malaysian Philharmonic Youth Orchestra at the Dewan Filharmonik Petronas,

Kuala Lumpur. The Youth Choir performed with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra and Chorus on their tour to Kuala Lumpur. The current season has seen both choirs in SSO’s performances of Borodin’s Polovtsian Dances, while the SSYC also featured in Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, and a concert of Video Games Classics with Eímear Noone.

Committed to growing the body of treble choral works by local composers, Wong has commissioned works by Chen Zhangyi, Kelly Tang and Lee Chin Sin. Having worked with ensembles which include the Singapore Symphony Chorus, the Singapore Lyric Opera, Westminster Opera Theatre, and The Philharmonic Chamber Choir, Wong is equally adept at the symphonic, operatic and a cappella choral repertoire. She studied with Joseph Flummerfelt and is a graduate of Westminster Choir College.

5

PROGRAMME NOTES

A bridge enables people to cross from one place to another, but music needs no physical structure to reach, inspire and unite people around the world.

Although there are works by a few dead composers presented in this concert, it is mostly music of ones who are active today, and relatively young at that.

Included are three works that will be premiered at this concert: Lux by Darius Lim, Zechariah Goh’s 阴阳上去 (Yin Yang Shang Qu), and Yeo Chow Shern’s Jinkly Nona.

The inspirations for these three very different pieces — spiritual, natural and folk — are the same ones that inspire composers around the globe and continue to make choral music such a vibrant music genre.

6

Jambo was composed in 1980 by the Kenyan composer Teddy Kalanda Harrison (b. 1951) and was a hit recording for his music group, Three Mushrooms. An upbeat Swahili song, this piece opens with “Jambo” (Hello or Welcome) and asks the audience “Habari gani? Nzuri sana” (How are things going? Very well) and Hakuna Matata (No Problem!). American composer Jacob Narverud (b.1986) made this lively, energetic arrangement of Jambo that is embraced by people from around the world.

Muusika is a breathtakingly beautiful setting of a poem by the Estonian poet Juhan Liiv (1864-1913) by Pärt Uusbergs (b.1986), an Estonian actor, composer and conductor.

Liiv was born into extreme poverty and died of unfortunate circumstances. The song is a meditation on the mystery and wonders of music.

Somewhere the original harmony must exist, hidden somewhere in the vast wilds.

In Earth’s might firmament, in the far reaches of swirling galaxies, in sunshine, in a little flower, in the song of a forest, in the music of a mother’s voice, or in teardrops – somewhere immortality endures, and the original harmony will be found.

How else could it have formed in human hearts – music?

Hungarian composer Zoltán Kodály (18811967) was inspired by the folk music of the many ethnic groups that live in his country and its environs. Túrót Eszik a Cigány, which translates to “See the gypsy eating cheese”, begins with a fast, fiery tune that depicts an argumentative, almost violent young man, whose anger abates once the girl yields. The music evolves into a lilting love song, after which the first section is reprised.

Euan Tait’s (b.1968) poem, Flight Song, begins with the statement, “All we are, we have found in song”. Norwegian composer Kim André Arnesen’s (b.1980) setting of it is a progression of beautiful melodies shared between the voices and piano that ends quietly as if a bird were taking flight.

The piece is a progression of musical and poetical images that serve as a metaphor for life that unite the promise of youth with the movement of a conductor’s arms as he makes music.

Lux, meaning light in Latin, is a work that explores the colours and sounds of the different facets and concepts of light - Light as a symbol of hope, Light as an imaginative entity of fantasy and beauty, and light as a medium of expression through life experiences. Inspired by Lim’s experience in South Africa while at the Knysna Heads, the music paints a picturesque canvas of

7

PROGRAMME NOTES

different colours and the rich harmonies seeking to express the beauty of life.

Vitae lux Light of life Vitae vis Strength of life Lux Aeterna Light eternal Luceat lux vestra Let your light shine Dona Nobis Pacem Grant us peace (Dixitque Deus fiat lux et facta est lux) And God said let there be light, and there was light

In contrast to the other works on the program, Canadian Mark Sirret (b.1952) uses sounds rather than texts to evoke a primeval world in Watane. It is an evocative and deeply spiritual work, in which he combines Iroquois chants, bird calls and percussion to capture the atmosphere of the Eastern Woodlands in North America and its native peoples.

The Flower Duet (‘Dôme Épais’) is from Lakmé, an opera by Léo Delibes (18361891) set in British India in the mid-19th century. Its beautiful, gentle melodies are regularly used in commercials and films.

As they sing, Lakmé, the daughter of a

8

Brahmin priest, and her servant Mallika, gather flowers by a river under a canopy of fragrant jasmine and roses.

In his Gitanjali Chants from 2006, American Craig Hella Johnson (b.1962) set verses from the Bengali poet and Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore. The work begins with the words “Ever in my life have I sought thee with my songs”. Johnson followed the contour of the lines of the text to create music that he calls modern plainsong chant, which creates the space to express their own shapely essence.

The Filipino-American composer Fabian Obispo (b.1947) is noted for his music for stage and theatre. In Ili-Ili Tulog Anay, he arranged a lullaby from the Panay Islands in Ilonggos, a language common to the region.

The song is traditionally sung by an older female relative to pacify a baby and lull it to sleep when the mother is away.

Sohran Bushi is one of Japan’s most famous folk songs, a sea shanty that was first sung by the fishermen of Hokkaido as they worked. Osamu Shimizu (1911-1986) united his deep knowledge of traditional Japanese music with his thorough grounding in Western classical musical theory and compositional techniques in

his version of the song, readily displayed in this arrangement by Japanese conductor Yoichiro Fukunaga (1926-1990).

good weather; and the second emphasises the oddities of strange encounters and behaviours. The four-character Chinese idioms used in this song includes

Niska Banja is a Serbian Roma dance popular throughout the Balkans infused with rhythms indigenous to the region. The song’s title refers to the baths in the spa town of Nis, which is famous not only for its healing waters, but also a potent local brandy. The lively song is in keeping with Nis’s reputation as a haven for pleasure seekers of all sorts. This arrangement is by Boston-based composer, Nick Page (b.1952).

阴阳上去 yin yang shang qu Four tones in Chinese 山明水秀 shan ming shui xiu Picturesque landscapes of hills and rivers 风调雨顺 feng tiao yu soon Good weather or conditions 花红柳绿 hua hong liu lu Red flowers and green willow 飞禽走兽 fei qin zou shou Birds and beasts running about 千奇百怪 qian qi bai guai Strange and bizarre 獐头鼠目 zhang tou shu mu With the head of a deer and the eyes of a rodent 妖魔鬼怪 yao mo gui guai Of demons and ghouls 鸡鸣狗叫 ji ming gou jiao Crowing like a rooster and barking like a dog 飞檐走壁 fei yan zou bi Leap onto roofs and vault over walls

The four Chinese characters 阴阳上去 (Yin Yang Shang Qu) describe the four tones in modern Chinese Mandarin. These four tones are characterised as: (1)straight and horizontal, (2)rising in pitch, (3)falls and rises again in pitch, and (4)drops with a heavy accent. In this choral setting, Goh has chosen different Chinese idioms to set different moods. For example, 风调雨顺，which means good weather or conditions for crops, and 千奇百怪, which means fantastical oddities. All these Chinese idioms follow the four tones in the same order of 1, 2, 3, and 4 as described earlier. 阴阳上去 is written in two large sections.

The first describes the beauty of nature and

Jinkly Nona is the most famous branyo, a dance popular throughout the Portuguese settlement in Melaka. This version is in Kristang, a language spoken by the people of mixed Portuguese and Asian ancestry.

The broad geographical distribution of the

9

PROGRAMME NOTES

song’s lyrics, the lack of recent contact between the locations in which it is still found, and the appearance of Portuguese words in an otherwise Kristang text from Melaka (e.g. minya, meaning “my”, is used in the chorus instead of the more common Kristang word yossa) combine to suggest that the song is very old, even if it does not date back to Portuguese times.

originating in America that were created by African American slaves. The gospel praise song, Music Down in my Soul, was inspired by the spiritual Over My Head. It starts off quietly with a tinkling in the piano, but ends with rousing hand-clapping exaltation to an exciting piano accompaniment.

Malay joget tunes are frequently called branyo when performed at Settlement celebrations and, conversely, branyo tunes such as Jinkly Nona are called joget when performed by Malay musicians. Set in the present-day Settlement, Jinkly Nona is glossed as beautiful young girl with jingling bells on her ankles.

Pseudo-Yoik Lite by Jaakko Mäntyjärvi (b. 1963), who in addition to studying music and being a choral singer, earned degrees in English and Linguistics. He is a traditionalist in his compositional style, but the song’s text has no meaning and only exists to provide form to the music in a humorous riff on stereotypical Lapland folk music.

Moses Hogan (1957-2003) ushered in a resurgence of interest in choral arrangements of spirituals, a genre of songs

10

Programme notes by Rick Perdian, Darius Lim, Zechariah Goh and Yeo Chow Shern.

SSCC AUDITIONS The SSCC offers training and performance opportunities to children by developing their vocal technique, music literacy and musicianship, with an aim to help fledgling singers achieve their fullest musical potential. Besides our own concerts, the SSCC offers the extraordinary experience of performing monumental choral classics with the combined forces of the Singapore Symphony choruses and orchestra.

29 September 2019 10am onwards

*Please note that the SSCC repertoire may include some liturgical works.

For more details, please visit www.sso.org.sg/ssccauditions

@SSChildrensChoir

For children ages 8 (born 2011) to 14 Fee: $25 per participant Registration closing date: 15 September 2019

A vibrant addition under the umbrella of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, the Singapore Symphony Youth Choir regularly shares the stage with the SSO.

We are on the lookout for singers in every section, Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Bass. If you’re aged between 17 and 28, we’d love to hear from you. Additionally, we welcome young men between 15 and 16, whose voices have transitioned, to continue their passion for choral singing with us.

Rehearsals are held every Monday, 7.30 – 10.15pm, with auditions typically held on an ad-hoc basis just after a rehearsal.

CHORAL@SSO.ORG.SG

PATRON SPONSOR

SUPPORTED BY

PRINCIPAL CHAMPION

Mr Christopher Ho & Mrs Rosy Ho

@SSChildrensChoir

SSO.ORG.SG/SSCC

@SSYouthChoir

SSO.ORG.SG/SSYC

A PRODUCTION OF