NUSSO reviewed

The person who reviewed NUS Symphony Orchestra will also be present at our concert this Saturday to review us. The review is reproduced below.

Fanning the flames of exuberance

By Chang Tou Liang

concert FLAME IN THE NIGHT NUS Symphony Orchestra, Lim Soon Lee, Conductor Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Auditorium/Last Saturday AS RECENTLY as five years ago, there was only one symphony orchestra at Kent Ridge: the National University of Singapore Symphony. With the formation of the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, the scenario has changed radically. The NUS Symphony is sometimes seen as the poor cousin of the Conservatory Orchestra, but it continues to provide important avenues of expression for musical students who don't study music. Concertmaster Tang Tee Tong is a third-year electrical engineering student, having chosen a different academic path from her first love, playing the violin. With this in mind, performances of a recreational nature should be taken into context even if these do not quite match up to standards set by young musical professionals. And there was much to savour and admire in the orchestra's performance of Beethoven's popular Fifth Symphony. Conductor Lim Soon Lee chose to adopt a more sleek and brisk approach to the warhorse, and the orchestra responded with vigour and a certain fervour displayed by amateur groups. The familiar opening movement - with the famous Fate motif - and grandiloquent finale sounded appropriately taut and driven. As expected, there was a tendency to over-exuberance but that can sometimes be a virtue. Subtlety and refinement was, however, wanting in the broad slow movement, and that is what separates merely good performances from excellent ones. The orchestra also played an able and sensitive accompanist to young Malaysian cellist Elizabeth Tan in Haydn's Cello Concerto In D Major. The graduate student at the conservatory exuded a warm and ingratiating tone on a 1690 G.B. Grancino cello, and close to impeccable intonation. Although the first two movements tended to drag a little, the light-hearted and flowing finale completed an enjoyable outing. Opening the concert were two excerpts from Stravinsky's Firebird, which exposed the young group's limitations - both in ensemble and solo playing. Perhaps they are not ready to take on virtuoso showpieces of this kind, but their rollicking encore, a tipsy excerpt from Han Zimmer's score of Pirates Of The Caribbean showed they were at least having fun.

If only he were there to review us today during our rehearsal. I can safely say one thing is definitely not in want - the passion. Without fail, before every concert with NUSWS there will be a rehearsal like today's, where I will feel so high, I cannot not blog about it because to do so will be an insult to its memory.