A vibrant music scene is developing in Singapore, and it is doing so right under the noses of those who claim almost precisely the opposite. I refer, of course, to the local media. On July 12, 2003, lovers of wind band music in Singapore were treated to a landmark charity concert at the country’s newly opened Esplanade Concert Hall.
The 1,600 capacity Concert Hall was packed, and the music standards on display by some of the country’s best youth concert bands was outstanding, yet the efforts of the organisers to alert the local media proved fruitless. The weekly arts section of the Straits Times didn’t even bother to inform its readers of the event! Instead, the newspaper carried a brief announcement of a Beethoven recital by the Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra scheduled for the following day in the much smaller Esplanade Recital Studio.
A charity event held to raise funds for the Community Chest, the concert showcased the three bands: the Nanyang Technological University’s Symphonic Band (NTUSB - which played host); the Nanyang Polytechnic Symphonic Band (NPSB) and the Victoria Junior College Symphonic Band (VJCSB). All three orchestras operate under the musical direction of Mr. Luk Hoi Yui, one of Singapore’s most well-known band directors.
The marvellous acoustics at the Esplanade Concert Hall proved to be a double edged sword. While enabling the players to hear each other better during performance, leading to an overall improvement in blend as well as sonority, the improved acoustics also made fumbled entries and occasional intonation problems more obvious to the audience. Even so, this latter problem may yet prove to be a blessing in disguise. By highlighting such imperfections, Singapore’s new concert hall is going to force the young bands who want to play there to pay more attention to such details, and we are likely to see yet further improvements in playing standards.
One of the challenges faced by any performers attempting the 1812 Overture is how to imitate the sounds of the cannon at the climax. The audience will certainly be listening for them and - for some observers at least - the performance of the work will always be judged by how impressively the sound is approximated. The combined band chose to use a recorded sound activated by a keyboard. Unfortunately, something went wrong with the sound system and only half the audience heard them. This was a real disappointment, particularly since the performers worked hard to produce a suitably dramatic musical backdrop.