The evening at the Esplanade Concert Hall on May 1st, 2011 brought a compilation of the music of Astor Piazzolla and Antonio Vivaldi, with compositions of four local Singaporean composers thrown into the mix. Composer Foo Say Ming led the string ensemble re: mix which has been performing for five years now, taking classical music to experimental levels and beyond conventional margins. This performance was no exception, basing the concert on the popular 1960s single "Turn! Turn! Turn! To Everything There Is A Season" by Pete Seeger,which itself gets its most famous verse from the Bible's Book of Ecclesiastes.
Leonid Desyatnikov's Seasons Arrangement
After Piazzolla's death in 1992, Russian composer Leonid Desyatnikov was commissioned by Gidon Kremer to bring together Piazzolla's The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires as a work for a string quartet. Within his production, Desyatnikov incorporated pieces of Vivaldi's Four Seasons while maintaining a new tango approach, according to the concert programme. Piazzolla's and Vivaldi's work are usually presented together and re: mix decided to present this concerto in the same way, with new compositions included within the symphony.
Singaporean Composers
The first movement of the concert included Denise Lee's A Time of War: Barely Restrained composition in between Piazzolla's Autumn and Vivaldi's Summer. Reflecting a time of war, Lee describes her piece of aggressive glissandos and vibratos in the concert programme: "The tension caused from narrowing the spatial and harmonic bounds creates nervous and highly compressed energy that threatens to rupture through the surface, which it does, but perhaps in ways we don't always expect."
Another composer, Chen Zhangyi, wrote a composition entitled A Time to Love: Ariadne's Lament after Vivaldi's Autumn and Piazzolla's Summer. This is a sorrowful piece, based on a story from Greek mythology where Ariadne awakes to find that her lover, Theseus, abandoned her after slaying the Minotaur. This was originally written for a choir, requested by Singaporean conductor Ng Tian Hui and was performed by the Chamber Singers of Colleges Bryn Mawr and Haverford in Philadelphia. "Having recently played baroque violin in a production of Dido and Aeneas, the idea of the baroque lament resonated within myself," Mr. Chen said in the concert programme.
Derek Lim led the next group of compositions with A Time to Weep: Weep followed by Vivaldi's Winter and Piazzolla's Winter. Created from recollections of grief from people around him, Lim composed this piece from conversations and interactions he has had with his students and represents every form of grief from reserved and hesitant to intense.
The last movement of the concert began with Dr. Kelly Tang's piece A Time to be Born: Spring! It was followed by both Piazzolla and Vivaldi's versions of Spring. A very cheerful way to end the concert, Kelly's piece is Oriental in its theme and was "inspired by the exuberance of Chinese New Year music, in its quest to capture the freshness and excitement of spring time," Kelly explained in the programme.
5th Anniversary Concert This November
The ensemble will celebrate its fifth year of performing on November 27th, 2011 at 3:00pm and 7:30pm in the Esplanade Recital Studio. Overall, the Mayday concert was a joy to hear and even included dramatic narration for the emotions represented by the music. The upcoming concert by re:mix in November is a must see and hear for those who love string ensembles, chamber orchestras and fabulous music.
Julie Maggiacomo Carrera - Julie's writing career began back in college in the 1990s. However, she considers herself a new writer since she has put this profession ...
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