yunfei

5.3.07

		sin-ga-por
		the moment my legs departed from the escalator, i knew something was inherently wrong. wrong in the way that everyone else was dressed for a high society gala party whilst i wore shorts and a tshirt that screamed 'i love party girls'. to be honest, i nearly fell asleep during the gala premiere of SINGAPORE. A Geopolitical Utopia. but that's probably due to the afternoon gym session and a stayover at chong's the day before. it wasn't bad. it can't be, seeing that the president and minister mentor were both invited to have a listen. but it felt more like a choral piece as opposed to a symphonic composition. the opening was a ryhthmic clapping of hands and chants of 'sin-ga-por'. expectedly, it eventually built up to a climax for the strings to enter. soon after, really cheesy chants such as 'peace. promise. democracy. justice. equality' took the stage. dissapointingly though, there was no great variation in musical styles throughout the piece as the orchestra seemed to be playing in accompaniment to the choir with chords. the sole, redeeming portion was the short duet between the guest violinist tatiana gridenko and the lead cellist, where inspiration was obviously drawn from chinese orchestra works. this was then followed by repetitive segments of melody, also inspired by chinese works, incorporating the vibraphone and the brass. however, i cringed at the way the conductor handled the ending. having the glockenspiel end every verse with an accent is distasteful, no matter how symbolic it might be. all in all, i felt the piece was akin one of the experimental pieces i heard last year at the chinese orchestral composition competition - a difficult, abstract piece. Labels: music

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