It’s been nearly a year since their successful recital ‘Could this be death?’ last year (read review here), and this time, soprano Cheryl Lee Peixin and pianist Wong Yun Qi have something up their sleeves again, promising to be just as amazing as their recital before. Better still, it’s absolutely…
Nicholas Loh is one of the most unassuming and talented pianists today, and he attributes that to looking more ‘like the guy who comes to fix aircons or replace empty gas canisters instead’. He has been the featured young virtuoso in the Singapore International Piano Festival in 2009, and has…
An edited version of this review was published in The Straits Times on 1 July 2014 with the heading ‘Quirky Surprises at Every Corner’. 21st Singapore International Piano Festival Piotr Anderszewski SOTA Concert Hall 29 June 2014 When it comes to interpreting Bach’s keyboard music, there are the purists who insist…
21st Singapore International Piano Festival Behzod Abduraimov SOTA Concert Hall 27 June 2014 Ravel’s Gaspard de la Nuit stands undisputed as one of the most technically demanding pieces in the standard repertoire for pianists, and it has always been a hot favourite for young, competition-winning pianists to include in their…
21st Singapore International Piano Festival Kun-Woo Paik SOTA Concert Hall 26 June 2014 If Schubert wrote a song cycle for the piano, tonight’s programme would have been exactly it. Korean pianist Kun-Woo Paik’s recital comprised entirely of selected pieces from Schubert’s later piano works – the 6 Moments Musicaux D780,…
Some classically-trained musicians have dared to venture away from the world of classical music. Sometimes the results aren’t always the best (cue cheesy Bond quartet music), but at other times, some collaborations produce the most remarkable and sometimes even fun results. I have always liked Jacques Loussier for jazzing up…
An edited version of this article appeared in the Straits Times on 21 April 2014 with the heading ‘Powerful Performance Back to Bach’. Back to BachKenneth Hamilton, pianoEsplanade Recital Studio/Sunday Natalie Ng Because he played a programme full of lesser-known composer Alkan’s works at his recital last year, Scottish virtuoso…
Scottish piano virtuoso Kenneth Hamilton returns to Singapore to perform an all Bach recital! Plink, Plonk, Plunk catches up with the professor in an email interview ahead of his recital here. Hello again Prof. Hamilton, congratulations on last year’s sold-out performance and a very warm welcome back to Singapore! This…
An edited version of this review was published in The Straits Times on 23 January 2014 with the title ‘Bassoon and Piano in Passion Play‘. PIANO AND BASSOON RECITAL Aw Yong Tian, bassoon; Chenna Lu, piano Esplanade Recital Studio Tuesday Although there have been a growing number of woodwind musicians…
It all started out with an email from the PianoManiac sometime last October, suggesting that “all of us write a review of the Mozart Concerto played by Fou Ts’ong, and see if we agree or differ,” after finding out that all four of us were attending the performance. We were to…