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PERFORMERS(') PRESENT

Performers(') Present 2023: Flowing Resonances

Day 1 Symposium Archive

Opening Address & Performance

Brett Stemple, Peter Tornquist

View the opening address and performance by Peter Tornquist, Dean of the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music (YST), and Brett Alan Stemple, Vice Dean and Symposium Convenor. Featuring a performance by Yang Shuxiang (violin), Lee Yu Ru (percussion), and Abigail Sin (piano)

Repertoire
Lou Harrison: Varied Trio for Violin, Percussion and Piano
1. Gending
2. Bowl Bells
3. Dance

Paper Presentations
1) Resonances & Traditions

The Impact of Post-COVID Digital Transformation on Global Bell & Carillon Culture

Grace Chan

Bells are an ancient analogue form of mass music and soundscape generation. The COVID-19 pandemic, accelerated a global digital transformation within bell and carillon culture. Notably, acceptance, prevalence and increased sophistication of live streaming and other digital platforms abolished the need for the audience to travel to a static physical site to hear these musical monuments. This presentation explores the implication of this newfound “mobility” within the digital landscape for performer, audience, and musical monument. In the digital and virtual realms, bells and bell tower no longer just serve their city, temple community or University but are able to resonate untethered from geo-positional cultural restrictions.

The Impact of Post-COVID Digital Transformation on Global Bell & Carillon Culture​

Grace Chan

Solitary ceremonial bells and carillons (a collection of at least 23 bronze bells played from a baton keyboard) are unique in being musical monuments. Their size, weight and fixation to a specific physical “place” make them uniquely static and immobile – the musician and audience need to travel to the musical instrument intentionally as a destination. This travel is usually for ceremonial purposes such as the spiritual (a temple bell), commemorative (a war memorial), or celebratory (a university graduation ceremony). Sometimes, travel to a carillon is for entertainment, leisure, or there may be a cultural imperative if the site is of historical importance. Bells can also be literally a “diplomatic instrument” (e.g. Poland’s Bells of Happiness, Singapore). A bell or tower of bells has different symbolism, cultural meaning and musical output depending on the location of these monumental musical instruments eg. South East Asian temple bells, Chinese Bian Zhong, a carillon tower in the Phillipines, or a peal of old bells from Martin in the Field London transported to Swan Tower, Perth, Australia.

Bells are an ancient analogue form of mass music and soundscape generation. The COVID-19 pandemic, accelerated a global digital transformation within bell and carillon culture. Notably, acceptance, prevalence and increased sophistication of live streaming and other digital platforms abolished the need for the audience to travel to a static physical site to hear these musical monuments. This presentation explores the implication of this newfound “mobility” within the digital landscape for performer, audience, and musical monument. In the digital and virtual realms, bells and bell tower no longer just serve their city, temple community or University but are able to resonate untethered from geo-positional cultural restrictions.

Full Abstract

Performer’s Process: Concert Programming for Women Composers

Ning Hui See

Drawing upon biographies, gender studies, music theory, Clara Schumann’s concertising strategies, and audience research, See’s autoethnography situates Schumann’s Piano Sonata within 4 concerts See programmed and performed. Through each concert, See analyses the processes of thematising, repertoire selection, interpretation, performance, and audience engagement. This presentation  mainly focuses on an all-women composers’ programme: Schumann, Beach, Hensel, Price, Koh, and Saariaho. Emergent findings demonstrate the multivalent relationship between the performer’s sense of identity, agency, musical and social ideologies, performance phenomenology, and attitudes toward audiences.

Performer’s Process: Concert Programming for Women Composers​

Ning Hui See

Western classical music is undergoing its biggest transformation in decades, driven by anniversaries of underrepresented composers, muted Beethoven 250 celebrations, and sociopolitical movements such as Black Lives Matter. Yet, in a 2022 global survey by Donne UK, only 7.7% of orchestral works performed were written by women, most of them white. To navigate the unpredictability of canon transformations, we need methodological innovations which transcend quota-based goals by emphasising meaning, strategy, and longevity. Despite increased scholarship on women in music and concert studies (Mathias, 2022; Tröndle, 2021), no study has examined how current performers approach women composers in concert, or the discourses generated by such performances. 

Clara Schumann’s Piano Sonata (1841-42) presents a confluence of conflicting trajectories. Published 150 years after its composition, it belongs to a large-scale genre that has been regarded as ‘masculine’, ‘intellectual’, and ‘transcendental’ (Citron, 2000), though such associations are now changing. A professional woman socialised into a male-dominated culture, she attracts studies reflecting two centuries of entangled gender, national, and class ideologies, and the evolution of musicology as a discipline (Davies et al., 2021). 

Drawing upon biographies, gender studies, music theory, Schumann’s concertising strategies, and audience research, See's autoethnography situates Schumann's Sonata within 4 concerts See programmed and performed. Through each concert, See analyses the processes of thematising, repertoire selection, interpretation, performance, and audience engagement. This presentation  mainly focuses on an all-women composers’ programme: Schumann, Beach, Hensel, Price, Koh, and Saariaho. Emergent findings demonstrate the multivalent relationship between the performer’s sense of identity, agency, musical and social ideologies, performance phenomenology, and attitudes toward audiences.

Full Abstract

Resonating Stories: An Intermodal Chamber Rehearsal Approach to Robert Schumann’s Märchenerzählungen

Miao Kaiwen, Frances Lee, Benedict Ng

How might the usage of different art forms mediate collaboration in a chamber music setting and enhance the articulation of personal resonance as performers? As a clarinet-viola-piano trio, Miao, Lee and Ng take Robert Schumann’s Märchenerzählungen as a case study and explore how other modes of artistic expression can be effectively integrated into the rehearsal process as a tool for communication and self-reflection, and simultaneously allow them to reinterpret the title’s connection to storytelling by situating this piece in their current time and place. Their presentation addresses their findings through this collaborative process and culminate in a performance of the complete work.

Resonating Stories: An Intermodal Chamber Rehearsal Approach to Robert Schumann’s Märchenerzählungen ​

Miao Kaiwen, Frances Lee, Benedict Ng

How might the usage of different art forms mediate collaboration in a chamber music setting and enhance the articulation of personal resonance as performers? As a clarinet-viola-piano trio, Miao, Lee and Ng take Robert Schumann’s Märchenerzählungen as a case study and explore how other modes of artistic expression can be effectively integrated into the rehearsal process as a tool for communication and self-reflection, and simultaneously allow them to reinterpret the title’s connection to storytelling by situating this piece in their current time and place. They document their discussions during rehearsals and reflections on creating the written and visual-art works (both individually and as a group), and analyse the data to identify common themes. This research could contribute to further explorations, as performer-educators, of new approaches in ensemble playing, in which musicians are co-creators who are intimately involved in meaning-making, rather than just intermediaries of the written score. Their presentation addresses their findings through this collaborative process and culminate in a performance of the complete work.

Full Abstract

2) Time & Tides

Tides of Change: Currents Through Time Uncovered in Returning to a Personally Significant Work 30 Years After Presenting Its First Performance

Bernard Lanskey

As time passes, it becomes increasingly difficult to process any work without hearing resonances of the music and lives of others. Although the presentation is ostensibly about one work, there will be resonances of other reflections of the sea in a presentation as much about the crossings of currents and waters of time passing: of people, politics, ecosystems, genres, languages, contexts, cultures; of close resonances, of intercultural archetypes, heard like gongs linking distant shores of Time and Space.

 

Tides of Change: Currents Through Time Uncovered in Returning to a Personally Significant Work 30 Years After Presenting Its First Performance

Bernard Lanskey

Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes;
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
Ding-dong.
Hark! now I hear them — Ding-dong, bell.

35 years ago, a comparatively innocent pianist commissioned a young Australian composer to write a solo piano work with a view to premiering it at the Australian High Commission in London. Recently the same composer, now as a Harvard Professor of Australian Studies, presented in Boston a retrospective of his works, involving the pianist, where the London piece was the earliest represented work. The experience of re-connecting with the same work after a 30 year break, now in the comparative twilight of professional activity, offered significant opportunity for reflection: of the flow of time, of the resonances of multiple experiences, the gongs along Life’s river. Entitled Sea Change, the work draws its title from the above quote by Shakespeare, itself inviting similar Life recollection and reflection. Equally, it draws on the experience of a particular sea, and its sounds and swirls – that of Wollongong on Australia’s Pacific coast in March 1986- and the more universal, touched on by Shakespeare, and present in us all.

The metaphor of the sea is perhaps even stronger than that of the river, given its potential transformations of currents atmospheres, tides and light. More than a generation having passed, the sense becomes present of cycles transcending cycles: sudden storms, periods of calm, repeating in infinite variation. The artistic research question becomes how to gift hints of a kaleidoscope of thoughts in a multimedia live framing and performance of the work: how to capture something of the passing of thirty years during the fifteen minutes the work requires of ‘real’ time, where the performative moment itself becomes yet another gong.

As time passes, it becomes increasingly difficult to process any work without hearing resonances of the music and lives of others. At the time of finalising this abstract, the London Symphony Orchestra and Sir Simon Rattle had just brought Debussy’s La Mer (The Sea) to Queensland, Australia. For Debussy, too, the lure of the sea, of fresh musical influences, and of intersections of the natural and the personal are similarly present. Although the presentation will be ostensibly about one work, therefore, there will be resonances of other reflections of the sea in a presentation as much about the crossings of currents and waters of time passing: of people, politics, ecosystems, genres, languages, contexts, cultures; of close resonances, of intercultural archetypes, heard like gongs linking distant shores of Time and Space.

Full Abstract

‘Blooming’: Nurturing the Power of International Solidarity in Supporting Post-Colonial Countries Through Collaborative Artistic Projects

Olga Stezhko

Citizens around the world often fight for their rights and self-determination with little awareness of similar struggles outside of their region. Just as complex nuances of the fight for freedom in Southeast Asian countries have often been oversimplified by the West, circumstances in Belarus are also misunderstood. Overwhelmingly, we are represented as a colony supportive of Russia, even though Belarusians are a nation with a rich history and culture stretching back over a thousand years.

Building out from a currently developing project ‘Blooming’, this presentation focuses on how collaborative artistic research can help to bridge such gaps in mutual awareness and foster international solidarity. 

‘Blooming’: Nurturing the Power of International Solidarity in Supporting Post-Colonial Countries Through Collaborative Artistic Projects

Olga Stezhko

Citizens around the world often fight for their rights and self-determination with little awareness of similar struggles outside of their region. Just as complex nuances of the fight for freedom in Southeast Asian countries have often been oversimplified by the West, circumstances in my own country – Belarus – are also misunderstood. Overwhelmingly, we are represented as a colony supportive of Russia, even though Belarusians are a nation with a rich history and culture stretching back over a thousand years.

Building out from a currently developing project ‘Blooming’, my presentation will focus on how collaborative artistic research can help to bridge such gaps in mutual awareness and foster international solidarity.

‘Blooming’ is a new work for piano, chamber orchestra and narrator by Norwegian composer Kari Beate Tandberg, which I will premiere at the Stavanger International Festival for Literature and Freedom of Expression one month before the Performers(') Present Symposium. The piece was first conceived as a musical reaction to the book ‘The Unwomanly Face of War’ by Belarusian Nobel Prize laureate Svetlana Alexievich. Through the course of its development, it gradually evolved into a powerful statement of collective resilience and solidarity against the abuse of power. I will discuss all aspects of our collaborative artistic research with the composer - from the initial exchange of ideas to the choice of musical themes to the creation of the final multimedia performance.

Since the ruthless crackdown of the peaceful protests that followed the fraudulent presidential election in Belarus in 2020, I became increasingly involved in artistic projects which challenge international preconceptions about my country and its cultural heritage. In turn, such projects motivated me to educate myself about similar post-colonial struggles in regions such as Southeast Asia. My presentation will therefore also explore the resonances between the 2020 uprisal in Belarus and the 2021 crisis in Myanmar, focusing on the parallels between the use of music, performance and multi-media art as a means of peaceful protests in both countries and beyond.

My experience in ‘Blooming’ and reflections on how it fits within the context of equivalent works by Southeast Asian composers will offer a springboard for broader musical discussion. I will explore how different musical sources including folk songs, propaganda tunes and original compositions can be combined, juxtaposed and subverted to deliver both a message of hope to the repressed and a threat to the repressor.

Finally, I will share my thoughts on how such works can inspire performers and audiences, like gongs along a river, to engage into difficult conversations about freedom and post-colonial identity.

Full Abstract

Performances

Morse Percussion - YSTeve Reich​

Morse Percussion collaborates with the YST Percussion Studio in a joint concert featuring the intricate rhythms and sonorous harmonies of minimalist composer Steve Reich. 

Led by Morse Percussion founders Derek Koh and Joachim Lim, they will be presenting eclectic pieces of music ranging from Drumming to Electric Counterpoint.

Repertoire
Steve Reich’s Music for Pieces of Wood, Drumming Part I, Nagoya Marimbas, & Electric Counterpoint

About Morse Percussion

About Morse Percussion

Morse Percussion is a professional contemporary classical percussion group formed in 2020 by Derek Koh and Joachim Lim. Rallying like-minded percussionists with an adventurous and eclectic taste for percussive music, Morse Percussion aims to inspire and cultivate interest through exquisite modern practices and compelling productions with the goal to be Singapore's first professional percussion group characterized by musical diversity and excellence. An ardent supporter of commissioning Singaporean works, Morse Percussion have worked with many local composers; In 2020, Phang Kok Jun and Morse created five multi-disciplinary videos including percussion and dance; In 2021, award-winning composer Cheng Jin Koh commissioned a piece that was influenced by the art paintings of Georgette Chen. That same year, Morse Percussion also performed to a sold-out audience at the Esplanade Concert Hall for the Singapore Festival of Arts; In 2022, Morse commissioned 5 local composers – Dr Tony Makarome, Jon Lin Chua, Jonathan Shin, August Lum and Avik Chari – culminating in a concert of percussion works of contrasting styles and genres. In addition to commissions, they have also appeared as Visiting Artists at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, performed for the Soundislands Re:Sound festival at the ArtScience Museum as well as various other venues within Esplanade. Most recently, Morse Percussion opened the Singapore Chinese Music Festival 2023 in a lecture-recital concert, where the group performed and explained intricately the various percussive music that incorporates Western and Chinese percussion. Founders Derek and Joachim also specially curated and performed a unique show for Hermès Horloger, the watchmaking division of Hermès



About Morse Percussion

Calista Liaw – The Art of War: Final Chapter

Introducing the Final Chapter to ‘The Art of War by Calista Liaw’—a highly-acclaimed multidisciplinary production that has enthralled full-house audiences at the Esplanade in its first two editions. This extraordinary series continues its exploration of curated philosophies from Sun Tzu’s renowned classic, 孙子兵法, offering a utopian fusion of contemporary Chinese chamber music, movement art, and haute couture—a visual spectacle unlike anything seen before in Singapore.

In its third edition, the program revisits the World Premiere of four commissioned Chinese chamber works titled ‘计Laying Plans’, ‘战Waging War’, ‘省Introspection’, and ‘翌March On’. Each movement is a tribute to selected quotes from Sun Tzu’s genius, and a metaphoric narrative of Calista’s relationship with Art and Life, performed by an outstanding team of established artists of diverse disciplines. An emblem of her deep-rooted passion for Chinese arts and culture, ‘The Art of War’ series serves as her inaugural masterpiece to tell her story. 

Repertoire
1. 计 Laying Plans by CHUA Zi Tao
2. 战 Waging War by Estene CHEONG
3. 省 Introspection by LIN Ssu Ting
4. 翌March On by TOH Yan Ee 

About the Performers

About the Performers

  • Performers: Calista Liaw (Erhu), Zhu Ze Yu (Cello), Zhang Yin (Pipa), Zhang Shuo (Guan), Lee Yuru (Percussion), Wong De Li (Conductor)
  • Dancers: Xiao Jing, Chloe Foo, Sophie Xie
About the Performers

Red Dot Baroque x Open Score Project – The Circle of Life

A transcultural exploration by Red Dot Baroque & Open Score Project

Repertoire
Prelude: Kompang procession
1. Stefano Landi: Passacaglia della Vita
2. Urat Mongolian Folk Tune: Swan Goose
3. Azrin Abdullah: Yearning (Samai Nahawand)
4. Salomone Rossi: Sonata in dialogo
5. Barbara Strozzi: Che si può fare 
6.Two Hindustani Airs from the Plowden Manuscript, MS 380 (1787-8)
7. Jugalbandi on Uccellini’s Bergamasca
8. Teochew string-poem music: Lotus Out of Water
9. John Playford: Divisions on “Paul’s Steeple”
10. Girolamo Frescobaldi: Se l’aura spira

About the Performers

About the Performers

Musicians

  • Felicia Teo (soprano)
  • Red Dot Baroque
    • Alan Choo (baroque violin), Leslie Tan (baroque cello), Mervyn Lee (harpsichord & baroque guitar), Cheryl Lim (traverso & recorder)
  • Open Score Project
    • Gildon Choo (pipa), Azrin Abdullah (oud), Niranjan Pandian (venu & bansuri), Anarva Wang Jing (morin khuur), Govin Tan (tabla & frame drum)
About the Performers

Flowing Processional: The Seventh Angel & Project Re-Sonating

The Seventh Angel, for brass ensemble was specially arranged for the YST Big Brass Ensemble to be performed at Flowing Resonances 2023, by composer and YST composition faculty Chen Zhangyi. The original The Seven Angels for organ was released on Centaur records, and originally premiered in 2019 as part of YST’s Voyage Festival performed by organist Phoon Yu.

Project Re-Sonating was conceived by Vice-Dean and Composer, Prof Ho Chee Kong, in collaboration with Lin Xiangning and YST students, Jeremy Ng, George Leong, Adam Sharawi and Lai Jo-wei. The concept is using the metal rails of the building as instruments together with live-sound electronic manipulation to create resonances within the building space. The music materials are based on the morse code for YST20 and incorporates a poem by the composer in celebration of all the music performed and created by YST over the last 2 decades. The poem is titled Flowing.

About the Performers

The Seventh Angel

About YST Big Brass
YST Big Brass is a student-run ensemble of brass players from all four current batches of the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music (YST). The ensemble was founded to promote brass music and provide a platform for brass students to showcase their talents. The ensemble consists of brass players from different nationalities, including Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, China, the United States, and Brazil.

Performers
- Chen Hung-Shun, Loi Chiang Kang, Aw Ping Hui (Trumpets)
- Thananchock Udomphat, Chai Mei Qin, Kalia Diane Craig, Gao Xiaoxuan (French Horns)
- Huang Shao-Wei, Ong Aun Guan, Ng Jun Jie (Trombones)
- Liu Jun-Jia (Tuba)

Acknowledgements
We would like to extend my gratitude to A/P Brett Stemple, for making this collaboration possible, and Dr. Lien Boon Hua for conducting the ensemble

Project Re-Sonating

Flowing

I speak not for myself,
For I am just a vessel for musical life. 
I speak not for you either, 
For you make the music and keep me alive. 

I speak not for the audiences, 
The flow of many who have graced our music halls. 
I speak not for our traditions, 
The memories we create be they big or small. 

I speak not for the future, 
Of wonders and stories of many more coming.
But I speak for now, 
Of flow and resonance you are experiencing. 

Across time, we speak.

Collaborators
Ho Chee Kong, Adam Sharawi Bin Amin Hussaini, Jeremy Ng Chuan Kai, Lai Jo-Wei, George Leong, Lin Xiangning

About the Performers

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