CHARMING ASIA – WEST WINDS

I had very much enjoyed the last West Winds performance I went to – Impressions of Japan, a superb performance. Therefore, I had no compunction whatsoever to attend their latest concert – Charming Asia. The theme of the concert needs no further introduction.

I found the first half of the concert somewhat wanting, in both programming and performance. West Winds did not exactly disappoint, but it was far from the performance I was expecting. The concert started with Charming Asia by Yau Yuen-Hing, Simon, which was somewhat akin to Japanese Graffiti meets Asia, and entertaining (in a rather corny way) only for the familiarity of the tunes. Arabesque by Samuel R. Hazo passed in a forgettable lump of sounds after a promising Scheherazade-like opening, but that was more attributable to the writing rather than any deficiencies in West Winds’ playing.
It got better after that with Philip Sparke’s Postcard from Singapore¸ featuring several local favourites such as Di-Taanjung Katong and Munnaeru Vaalibaa, which allowed me to indulge in a little nostalgia. I have always liked Philip Sparke and found his arrangement quite well done, if a little too academic and bland to be truly top notched. The first half ended with an old favourite, Alfred Reed’s Armenian Dances (Part 1). And like an old, familiar friend, whatever it lacked in awe-inspiring musical breakthroughs, it at least made up for it in nostalgic comfort.
The second half of the concert was conducted by the well-known Japanese composer Ito Yasuhide, and featured mostly his own works. Mr Ito is a more than competent composer and conductor, and the second half of the concert was a lot more interesting and entertaining simply by virtue of that. His self narration was both entertaining and enlightening, making up admirably for the lack of program notes. This is a gripe that EP often has. What is the point of having a program booklet without program notes, especially if there are feature composers, debut works, and special themes?

The band started of the second half of the concert with Ito Yasuhide’s The Earth. By his own explanation, the piece is both a reflection of his wish for world peace, and a dedication to the same. As an aside, the Japanese and their quest for world peace never cease to amuse me. 80% of Japanese students from elementary to graduate levels would tell you that their ambition is to join the UN and promote world peace. But if you ask them how they intend to go about implementing that, they have totally no idea. I applaud their nobility but have to shake my head at their naivety.

The next piece was Koh Chang Su’s Korean Dances, which was a challenging piece for both the band and the audience, and both got through reasonably well, for all there were a few precarious moments. The next two pieces were both arrangements by Ito Yasuhide, Taiwanese Posy and the newly commissioned Bengawan Solo, my favourite pieces by far for the whole concert. Taiwanese Posy featured a collection of twelve Taiwan aboriginal melodies in five movements. The piece was highly representative of all sides the Taiwanese aboriginal music, from what I could tell, and his signature arrangement of interweaving melodies and musical relays from instrumental section to section worked very well for this piece. For Bengawan Solo, I was relieved to find that he had stuck to a very simple arrangement style, featuring mainly jazz and march movements, which suited the whole spirit of the original music very well.

Compared to the last concert I attended, West Winds sounded a lot less polished and prepared this time round. Tuning issues, messed up entries etc kept cropping up. Instrumental soloists were less than stellar. The lower brasses, especially the trombone section, sounded weak and muddied, and were especially ineffective when it came to Ito Yasuhide’s arrangements where there were plenty of musical relays – the lower brasses kind of dropped the baton. In my opinion, The Earth would have benefited a lot from a better lower brass section, and it was somewhat torturous listening to the Tuba/Double Bass solo in Korean Dances (or was it Taiwanese Posy?). For want of a better analogy, it sounded like a dying hog groveling in the mud. Not a very pretty picture.

At the other end of the spectrum, we were very much impressed with the French Horn section. With the exception of a few intonation problems during the first half of the concert, they did marvelously. Great tuning, great tone, relatively clean execution, and fearless playing. There are few French horn sections in the local amateur wind band scene able to match. I personally thought the Saxaphone section did quite well also.

A word about the Master of Ceremony. I have no idea who wrote his script, but it would have benefitted from some vetting and editing with regards to the English used.

In general, I thought the handling of the pieces felt rather heavy handed. I could not feel the delicacy and exotic flavour that should come across in such a theme. Part of it might have been due to the way the pieces were written, but I felt that a smaller ensemble and a lighter touch could have done a better job. Nevertheless, I consider the performance another job reasonably well done by West Winds. If it did not hit the heights, there were no major lows either. It was an entertaining night when all’s said and done, and I look forward to another concert soon.