SYC Ensemble Singers: Bloom

Bloom—is Result—to meet a Flower And casually glance Would scarcely cause one to suspect The minor Circumstance Assisting in the Bright Affair So intricately done Then offered as a Butterfly To the Meridian— To pack the Bud—oppose the Worm— Obtain its right of Dew— Adjust the Heat—elude the Wind— Escape the prowling Bee Great Nature not to disappoint Awaiting Her that Day— To be a Flower, is profound Responsibility— – Emily Dickinson

SYC Ensemble Singers

Jennifer Tham, director 30 April 2022 Saturday 8pm Esplanade Recital Studio

James Macmillan

A Child’s Prayer

Hildegard von Bingen Hodie aperuit

Sven-David Sandström Four Songs of Love I Let him kiss me II Until the Daybreak III Awake, o North Wind IV His left hand Arnold Rosner Nine Tagore Madrigals 5 Last Night in the Garden 6 Her Night’s Silence

Americ Goh Sonnet 54 * Eric Banks

Artifacts +

Nicholas Kelly

Loam

Ivo Antognini

Life has…+

Zechariah Goh 鱼之乐 (The Happiness of Fish) +

George Harrison Here Comes The Sun + Saunder Choi, arr. *

premiere, commissioned work

+

commissioned work

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Jennifer Tham Artistic Director & Conductor Jennifer Tham has directed the Singapore Youth Choir (now the SYC Ensemble Singers) since 1986. In her hands, the SYC has earned a reputation for being the composer’s choir, malleable to the demands of contemporary choral music. She was conferred the Cultural Medallion (Music) — the nation’s highest arts accolade — for her role in shaping Singapore’s cultural landscape.

Jennifer taught choral conducting and pedagogy at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, and teaches short courses and workshops on repertoire, conducting, and rehearsal techniques, equipping young conductors around the world with a toolbox of musicianship games for growing a choir.

Under the auspices of the Young Musicians’ Society, Jennifer was Artistic Director of the Asia South Pacific Symposium on Choral Music (2001) and its offshoots, the First Aid for Choirs clinics (2002 - 2017) and Kodaly Seminar Asia series (2009 2016). For the International Federation for Choral Music, she has chaired and spoken on panels on repertoire and programming at conferences and symposia in Argentina, Denmark, Estonia and Sweden, and co-coordinates the Asia Pacific Working Committee and the Asia Pacific Youth Choir. She represents Singapore on the World Choir Council and has been on the jury at the World Choir Games and independent festivals in Asia, Europe and America since 2003. www.jennifertham.com

SYC Ensemble Singers The SYC Ensemble Singers began life in 1964 as the Singapore Youth Choir (SYC), a national choir for young singers. To celebrate its 40th anniversary in 2004 and to mark a point of musical evolution, the choir was renamed the SYC Ensemble Singers.

Considered a trailblazer and standard-bearer throughout its history, the SYC was the first Singaporean choir to win an international competition, the Llangollen International Music Eisteddfod. It was also the first choir to receive the President’s Charity and the Excellence for Singapore awards. To celebrate Singapore’s 50th year of independence, the choir performed in Washington D.C. at the invitation of the Embassy of Singapore.

Led by Jennifer Tham since 1986, the SYC Ensemble Singers promote and perform the work of living composers, often exploring spatialised sound, theatre and movement.

To date, the SYC has commissioned over 60 works, most recently from Emily Koh (Singapore), Saunder Choi (Philippines), and William Hawley (USA). Their flexible musicianship and commitment to diverse and complex voices have earned them an international reputation as performers and interpreters of contemporary music.

Connect with the SYC Ensemble Singers and find out more about Living Music:

The SYC Ensemble Singers are…

Charlotte Cheong, Karen Cheong, Chong Wai Lun, Szecindyo Chewandi, Nicolette Foo, Calvin Goh, Gloria Goh, Hong Zhengyang, Angela Lee, Hillary Lee, Aaron Liew, Lim Pei Yu, Inari Listenmaa, Justin Lutian, Look Ru Shin, Benlee Tan, Tan Pei Ling, Joseph Tay, Shaun Teo, Teo Boon Fang, Faith Yang, Albert Yeo.

Sing with us: enquiries@syc.org.sg

James MacMillan | A Child’s Prayer Text: Traditional

Welcome Jesu, Deep in my soul forever stay, Joy and love my heart are filling On this glad Communion day.

Hildegard von Bingen | Hodie aperuit Hodie aperuit nobis clausa porta quod serpens in muliere suffocavit, unde lucet in aurora flos de Virgine Maria.

Today was opened unto us a shut-up gate.

For the serpent drew it tight, in woman choked— yet from it gleams within the dawn the Virgin Mary’s flower.

Source: http://www.hildegard-society.org/2014/09/hodie-nunc-aperuit-antiphon.html

Sven-David Sandström | Four Songs of Love Let him kiss me with kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine.

Behold, thou art fair, my love, behold, thou art fair; thou hast dove’s eyes.

Song of Songs 1:2 and 15

Until the Daybreak and the shadows flee away, turn, my beloved, and be thou like a roe or a young hart upon the mountains of Bethor.

Song of Songs 2:17

Awake, O north wind, and come thou south, blow upon my garden that the spices thereof may flow out.

Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits.

Song of Songs 4:16

His left hand shall be under my head and his right hand shall embrace me.

Song of Songs 8:3

Arnold Rosner | Nine Tagore Madrigals op.37 Text: Rabindranath Tagore

5 Last night in the garden I offered you my youth’s foaming wine. You lifted the cup to your lips, you shut your eyes and smiled while I raised your veil, unbound your tresses, drawing down upon my breast your face sweet with its silence, last night when the moon’s dream overflowed the world of slumber.

To-day in the dew-cooled calm of the dawn you are walking to God’s temple, bathed and robed white, with a basketful of flowers in your hand. I stand aside in the shade under the tree, with my head bent, in the calm of the dawn by the lonely road to the temple. from Lover’s Gift

6 I know that at the dim end of some day the sun will bid me its farewell.

Shepherds will play their pipes beneath the banyan trees, and cattle graze on the slope by the river, while my days will pass into the dark.

This is my prayer, that I may know before I leave why the earth called me to her arms.

Why her night’s silence spoke to me of stars, and her daylight kissed my thoughts into flower.

Before I go may I linger over my last refrain, completing its music, may the lamp be lit to see your face and the wreath woven to crown you. from Fruit Gathering

Americ Goh | Sonnet 54 Text: William Shakespeare

O how much more doth beauty beauteous seem, by that sweet ornament which truth doth give!

The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem for that sweet odour which doth in it live.

The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye as the perfumed tincture of the roses, hang on such thorns and play as wantonly when summer’s breath their masked buds discloses: But, for their virtue only is their show, they live unwoo’d and unrespected fade, die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so; of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made: And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth, when that shall fade, my verse distills your truth.

Eric Banks | Artifacts Text: Samuel Lee

I. This is the present: the aching, backbreaking present.

We ask ourselves where we are, not knowing that the answer lies buried within us, still breathing.

VIII. I cannot tell you how to grow your own roses, only that you should begin when the air is warm and dewy.

II. Is the body so soft that it cannot feel the wind howling through its own architecture?

IX. There are only two things on my mind: how mild the day has been and how slowly the sun is edging its way between the gaps in the skyline.

III. Sing this to the grass.

Repeat.

X. It hasn’t rained for a month.

IV. We pronounce the names of things and anticipate the slightest possibility that we might be able to slide our fingers down their contours, understand their shapes, and manage our desire.

V. I have only ever been adjacent to love, absorbing its tendencies, like gauze upon a wound.

VI. I sit by the reeds.

This is all that I have.

VII. I see the waves licking upward with salt and fish, and the bobbing boats, like a crowd of heads in the dusty city.

XI. Through the honey-edged night, expectation is thick like sweet cream on butter biscuit.

XII. The moon is tucked into the heart cleverly, like origami.

XIII. Above, a shooting star completes the cliché.

XIV. Let me sleep beneath the Big Dipper, eat another biscuit in this pouring rain, feel my toes again.

Then swing me past the fern fronds and the smoky byways into this green lung, the tangled jungle of our youth.

XV. I will tell you this: I have put my faith in a new way of knowing.

Nicholas Ryan Kelly | Loam Text: Carl Sandburg

In the loam we sleep, in the cool moist loam, to the lull of years that pass and the break of stars, From the loam, then, the soft warm loam, we rise: to shape of rose leaf, of face and shoulder.

We stand, then, to a whiff of life, lifted to the silver of the sun over and out of the loam a day.

Ivo Antognini | Life has…

Text: Sara Teasdale

Life has loveliness to sell, all beautiful and splendid things, blue waves whitened on a cliff, soaring fire that sways and sings, and children’s faces looking up holding wonder in a cup.

Life has loveliness to sell, music like a curve of gold, scent of pine trees in the rain, eyes that love you, arms that hold,a and for your spirit’s still delight, holy thoughts that star the night.

Spend all you have for loveliness, buy it and never count the cost; for one white singing hour of peace count many a year of strife well lost, and for a breath of ecstasy give all you have been, or could be.

Zechariah Goh | 鱼之乐 (The Happiness of Fish) 庄子与惠子游於濠染之上。

Zhuangzi and Huizi were strolling along the dam of the Hao Waterfall when

庄子日:【鲦鱼出游从容，是鱼之乐也】

Zhuangzi said, “See how the minnows come out and dart around where they please! That’s what fish really enjoy!”

惠子日:【子非鱼，安知鱼之乐？】

Huizi said, “You’re not a fish - how do you know what fish enjoy?”

庄子日:【子非我，安知我不知鱼之乐？】

Zhuangzi said, “You’re not me, so how do you know I don’t know what fish enjoy?”

惠子日:【我非子，固不知子矣；子固非鱼 也，子之不知鱼之乐，全矣。】

Huizi said, “I’m not you, so I certainly don’t know what you know. On the other hand, you’re certainly not a fish so that still proves you don’t know what fish enjoy!”

庄子日:【请循其本。子日 「汝安知鱼乐」 云者，既已知吾知知而问我，我知之濠上 也。】

Zhuangzi said, “Let’s go back to your original question, please. You asked me how I know what fish enjoy so you already knew I knew it when you asked the question. I know it by standing here beside the Hao.”

Source: Watson Burton, pg.188-9, The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu, Columbia University Press, New York, 1968

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Artistic Director Company Manager General Manager Choir Manager Publicity Manager

Jennifer Tham Albert Yeo Lim Pei Yu Hong Zhengyang Szecindyo Chewandi

Conducting Assistants Section Leaders

Chong Wai Lun, Nicolette Foo, Angela Lee, Benlee Tan Charlotte Cheong, Calvin Goh

Membership Librarian Wardrobe

Teo Boon Fang Nicolette Foo, Joseph Tay Look Ru-Shin

Special Projects

Aldo Joson

BLOOM

Ticketing Emcee

Charlotte Cheong, Calvin Goh Szecindyo Chewandi (Lead), Justin Lutian, Charlotte Cheong Teo Boon Fang Justin Lutian, Faith Yang

Graphic design & layout

Emily Moh, The Void Deck

Production Programme & Publicity

WITH SPECIAL THANKS

Americ Goh Janice Low, Singapore Management University

with the support of

in partnership with

Copyright © 2022 The Singapore Youth Choir Limited All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission.

25 August 2022 I Thursday I 8pm Esplanade Recital Studio

SYC ENSEMBLE SINGERS

OPEN HOUSE 16.MAY.2022

Live a little new music with us!

We want all your voices – head, chest, morning, speaking.

Limited spaces available - Register here