SYC Ensemble SingersJenniferwith Tham’s & other choral curiousities from Hoh, Schafer, Jennefelt & Sandström 25 August 2022 Thursday 8pmEsplanade Recital Studio
Eyes forward : Jen & the SYC Photo: Mike Lee
This concert is the origin story of Curious & Curiouser, how it came to be that we musick in movement and sound.
Eyes forward, ears back. Eyes—quicker than ears—sort fast from slow, loud from not so, many from one (or none), in the visual polyphony of life among crowds, queues and safe distancing.
Ears—our 360° eyes—show us things out of sight. Outside, bass guitar riffs pedalling in from the Outdoor Theatre. Inside, behind us, third seat to the right, a cluster of shuffles rustles. Echo, locating us. Sound, tracked.
The world of a Jennefelt Sequence is felt—in the rapturous ruptures of the minimalistic (Steve) Reich-like patterns. An obsessively curated collection of vocables in coloured layers, there is no meaning, and yet. A drama unfolds: what do you see? Pärt’s meditation on the overtone universe of each single perfect sound produces a Milky Way of bell-like tones. What is a perfect sound? Sandström casts Purcell’s prayer into an abyss of unknown sounds—guttural noises, from which a wail grows. Sounding exposes our viscera— we feel naked, nervous, imperfect. In perfectly human condition, we are both singer and song.
When the Singapore Youth Choir blossomed into the SYC Ensemble Singers in 2004, Chung Shih wrote Birth and Death: Five Songs for Thich Nhat Hanh for us. Through his gift which keeps giving, we continue to study subjectivity, sound and silence, becoming and un-becoming, a Whatchoir. is a choir? The sound spaces of Schafer’s Seventeen Haiku would have us believe we are wind machine, sound sculpture, kaleidoscopic word painting—fluid, moving, living music. Living music, we build worlds out of sound.
Curious & Curiouser, the piece, is a song of the body, of the choir. Through the mist of moving layers and patterns, swirls, lines and bunny hops, we hope to build enough of another world, to again experience for the first time, what it means to be a choir.
Hoh Chung Shih Song I: Kuo Pao Kun 1939–2002, in memoriam R Murray Schafer Seventeen Haiku (1997): 1, 2, 3 Thomas Jennefelt Claviante Brilioso (1997) Lim Ming Boon, solo Arvo Pärt Da pacem Domine (2004/2006) Sven-David Sandström / Henry Purcell Hear my Prayer, O Lord (1986) INTERMISSION Jennifer Tham Curious & Curiouser (2021) I water mist fog | Adventures in White for triple mixed octet II stretching pine across | folder dance for mixed chamber choir III Score! | for page-turning choir IV three reverberations on a line | for 5 walking solos and organum V umbrella songs | for umbrella octet and watercolour choir II Pine grosbeak: Justin Lutian IV Walking solos: Charlotte Cheong, Hong Zhengyang, Hillary Lee, Brian Lim, Joseph Tay V Umbrella octet: Lim Pei Yu, Hillary Lee, Angela Lee, Calvin Goh, Benlee Tan, Hong Zhengyang, Chong Wai Lun, Christel Yeo We value your feedback. Please click here to complete a short survey. 25 AugustThursday20228pmEsplanade Recital Studio
Hoh Chung Shih | Birth and Death: 5 Songs for Thich Nhat Hanh (2004) Song I: Kuo Pao Kun 1939–2002, in memoriam During many lifetimes, birth and death are present, giving rise to birth and death. The moment the notion of birth and death arises, birth and death are there. As soon as the notion of birth and death dies, real life is born.
R Murray Schafer | Seventeen Haiku (1997) 1. 夢乱歩 Yume ranpo At dawn green sunlight 朝あけみどり asa ake midori floating through the air, 風に舞い kaze ni mai reeling along in a dream.
Sven-David Sandström / Henry Purcell | Hear my Prayer, O Lord (1986) Hear my prayer, O Lord, and let my crying come unto thee.
Credit: Thich Nhat Hanh
Text: Masaharu Miyai Arvo Pärt | Da pacem Domine (2004/2006) Da pacem Domine Grant peace, O Lord, in diebus nostris in our time quia non est alius because there is no one else qui pugnet pro nobis who will fight for us nisi tu Deus noster. If not You, our God.
Text: Issa Kobayashi (1764-1827) 3 光り指す Hikari sasu Splashes of water, 岩にくだける iwa ni kudakeru flowers breaking over rock, 水粒花 suiryûka shining in sunlight.
Text: Masaharu Miyai 2. 涼風の Suzu kaze no A cool breeze, winding, 曲がりくねって magari kunette wandering along… 来たりけり kitari keri at last it has come!
The first movement—water mist fog—is a homage to R Murray Schafer, and the most conventional setting. We study concealment within a soundscape generated through repetition: close canon, repeating sounds. In standard three-row formation, the choir plays with how a good choir needs to “blend”, voices hiding in the sameness.
Photo: Jennifer Tham
The suite draws its text from haiku tagged on to wooden power poles along the industrial waterfront area of East Vancouver. They were found on my walks between the two campuses of the School for Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University (Vancouver) in Fall 2018, my first semester in the MFA Program.
Jennifer Tham | Curious & Curiouser (2020/2021)
a suite of choral movements for mixed chamber choir Curious & Curiouser is choral theatre, the poetry of motion making visible the patterns of order in music. It furthers my study of eye music, of how we hear what we see in visual listening places.
The tags are part of the public art project 100 Red Haiku Tags by John Steil, who thinks of them as guerilla art, acting as portals into an altered time and space—the place of the everyday dramas around them in the old downtown core. The words and images of the haiku become rabbitholes into the different place-scapes, invented spaces in which we play with the visuality of the Curiousperformance.about the theatre of being a “choir”, we look into the pictorialisms of the choral space— moving into or out of position, lifting and lowering folders, turning pages— re-imagining the choral art as a sound sculpture. Each movement creates a different visual and sound space.
When performing competitively, we hear players skate and skirmish across the rink in an icehockey match.
Photo: Gavin Lim
The fourth movement—three reverberations on a line—is about the line, embodied by five walking solos and choral organum. A sung drone—a straight line—is visually uninteresting, so Tomoyo Yamada—MFA classmate and choreographer-friend—designed some movement. She saw the lines as walking: to—from, back–forth, fast-medium–slow, five-together—apart, three–flying-hopping.
The second movement—stretching pine across—is about the transmission and circulation of sound, how sound escapes sameness to move in and fill the space. The choir folder becomes part of the dance, signaling the shedding of consonants, the beginning of sounding, the air beneath our wings. A lone grosbeak sings. The singers arrange themselves in a confetti position for the third movement—Score!—which is about the score, literally, and involves turning pages but no singing. An instruction score inspired by Christian Wolff, we watch the conductor, waiting, anticipating, preparing, turning, turning, turning.
study translucence and the transmission of vocal colour in space. An umbrella octet sing in turn—a trio of siskins, a lonely baritone, a rock duo, an indecisive bass, the umbrella girl—repeating, spinning a cocoon of song. The choir listens and once in a while, a singer re-sounds a colour, re-colours a sound, until the space is painted with words. I imagined the choir beginning as a typical choir and transforming through each movement into something else, in this instance, a watercolour choir—a kaleidoscopic word painting. I water mist fog | Adventures in White for triple mixed octet Water churns, tumbles, Mist cloaked waves. plunges onto rocks below. Goldeneyes raft out The roar of gravity. from behind the headland. White rabbit hopping, The fog lifted. slowly, almost unseen, through, Our small island sailed blue shadows on snow. closer to shore.
Photo: Gavin Lim
The last movement—umbrella songs—is a homage to Gaston Bachelard, the French philosopher who writes on the power of the poetic image to open up worlds. An adventure in re-sounding pigments—listening—we
II stretching pine across | folder dance for mixed chamber choir Stretching from the trees, Across the day. shadows crawl up the mountain. Sails wing on wing, Growing into night. we play the wind. Pine grosbeak singing just for us. We wish. III Score! | for page-turning choir Puck across the line; split second, silence. The roar of the crowd. IV three reverberations on a line | for 5 walking solos and organum
The lake of glass. Surface: that thin line.
Becoming pinecones. looking at it, too. Rocks rounded by waves— The corner, the poetry of nature. deciding which way to turn. Relentless ocean. The cold north wind. Circumscribed by the circle of my umbrella. My private world.
Three mergansers fly past, Separating osprey from enforcing the calm. cutthroat trout. Straight mast, reflected on the harbour, snakes over ripples. V umbrella songs | for umbrella octet and watercolour choir A flock of siskins Full moon over the ridge. settle along the branches. I know you’re at home
Curious & Curiouser was written for the SYC Ensemble Singers, who lab-tested the work in various formats and formations during rehearsals from May 2020 to July 2021.
The seventeenth haiku has been used as a Processional—line-up. It refers to how choirs prepare to move on- and off-stage in orderly manner, activating the performance space as both mode and site of transport. Ferry line-ups. Ordering the randomness of different desires.
The work is dedicated to Owen Underhill, supervisor extraordinaire, who let my curiosity get the better of me. Jennifer Tham 10 August 2022,
SingaporePhoto: Jennifer Tham Images (c) Jennifer Tham, excerpted from choral score and companion artist book, Curious & Curiousear.
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Jennifer Tham Artistic Director & Conductor Jennifer lives in the world of possibilities—the countless ways in which a theatre of voices can offer a word, a thought, a sound—and is especially curious about the sight of sound. She has a multi-modal listening practice as a conductor and composer, and works with the SYC at the intersection of literary, musical and visual cultures. For her role in shaping Singapore’s soundscape, she was conferred the Cultural Medallion (Music, 2012), the nation’s highest arts accolade. In 2021, Jennifer obtained her Master of Fine Arts in Interdisciplinary Arts from the School for Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University (Vancouver). In fulfilment of her degree requirements, she composed Curious & Curiouser, a suite of five choral movements. Her work is shaped by a love of words, phenomenology, mapping, spatial practices, conceptual art, contemporary music and choral theatre. more
Nicolette Foo Assistant Conductor Nicolette has been singing with the SYC Ensemble Singers since 2014 and has served on several portfolios including Rehearsal Conductor and Librarian.
Nicolette was first exposed to contemporary choral music when she sang with the Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus (CHIJ) Secondary School Choir, under the direction of Jennifer Tham, later serving as their student conductor. She now conducts several choirs, including the choir of CHIJ Secondary School where her journey as choral conductor began. In 2021, Nicolette received a scholarship to the 6th International Conductors Seminar in Wernigerode from Interkultur.
Chong Wai Lun
Associate Conductor Wai Lun joined the SYC Ensemble Singers in 2005 and found his passion for choral music. He helped prepare the choir for performances with Vytautas Miškinis, Ko Matsushita and Corrado Margutti, in addition to assisting with the SYC’s regular season of concerts and tours. He completed further studies in Hungary and Wales, graduating with a Master’s in Kodaly Music Pedagogy and a Master’s in Choral Conducting, from the Kodály Institute of the Liszt Academy of Music, and the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, respectively. In 2018, Wai Lun founded Symphonia Choralis, a community choir specialising in symphonic choral works, and is Chorus Master for the Metropolitan Festival Orchestra (MFO) and Orchestra of the Music Makers (OMM). At the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, his alma mater, Wai Lun is on faculty as an adjunct lecturer, teaching aural musicianship, and rehearsing the Chamber Singers. He continues to sing with Vocaluptuous, a local a cappella group.
Connect with the SYC Ensemble Singers and find out more about Living Music: The SYC Ensemble Singers are… Charlotte Cheong, Karen Cheong, Szecindyo Chewandi, Chin Zhi Hui, Chong Wai Lun, Nicolette Foo, Calvin Goh, Hong Zhengyang, Angela Lee, Hillary Lee, Brian Lim, Lim Ming Boon, Lim Pei Yu, Lin Yun Xin, Look Ru Shin, Justin Lutian, Charlene Mooi, Benlee Tan, Tan Pei Ling, Joseph Tay, Tay Seow Boon, Shaun Teo, Teo Boon Fang, Faith Yang, Christel Yeo. Sing with us: enquiries@syc.org.sg
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.
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.
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.
Executive Committee Artistic Director: Jennifer Tham Company Manager: Albert Yeo General Manager: Lim Pei Yu Choir Manager: Hong Zhengyang Publicity Manager: Szecindyo Chewandi Associate Conductor: Chong Wai Lun Assistant Conductor: Nicolette Foo Section Leaders: Charlotte Cheong, Calvin Goh, Angela Lee, Benlee Tan Membership: Teo Boon Fang Librarian: Nicolette Foo, Joseph Tay Wardrobe: Look Ru Shin Special Projects: Aldo Joson with the support of in partnership with Curious & Curiouser Production: Calvin Goh, Hong Zhengyang, Aaron Liew, Lim Pei Yu, Vivienne Tan Programme & Publicity: Szecindyo Chewandi (Lead), Justin Lutian, Charlotte Cheong Ticketing: Teo Boon Fang Front-of-house: Carl Medriano, Christabel Tan Audio Recording: Teo Li Tuan Lighting Design: Dorothy Png Photography: Law Kian Yan Copyright (c) 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.
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