SINGAPORE CHINESE ORCHESTRA - TREASURES OF JAPAN

After weeks of work-gym-home routine, I finally managed a little foray into some culture, and in the process felt a little more in touch with civilisation and less like a muscle-bound (NOT!) jock.

Attended a performance by the Singapore Chinese Orchestra (SCO) on Friday evening - Treasures of Japan. The SCO performed four Japanese-inspired/composed pieces, namely:-

Spring of Japan (扶桑之春) by composer Lo Leung Fai
Dance of the Firmament (天空之舞) by composer Isao Matsushita
Monk Jianzhen Sailing Eastward (东渡.鉴真大和尚) by composer Zhao Ji Ping
Hi-Ten-Yu (飞天游) by composer Isao Matsushita

It was a generally passably executed performance by the SCO, with weird boo-boos here and there (instrumental sections not in rhythm etc).

Spring of Japan, a dizu (Chinese flute) concerto, was your typical minor key Japanese tune, nicely turned out, but kind of bland and unexciting after the first 30 seconds. There was no real mood change or climax in the piece, just the dizu solo swinging happily along. After a while, I kind of tuned out and daydreamed about other things, and when my mind and senses returned to the music, I realised the music was more or less at the same place where I left it, and I didn't miss much, if anything at all. I also did think that the the sound of the dizu was a little too bright for the piece, and would have preferred something a little more wild, like the shakuhachi. But then this is only my preference. EP and JW, who attended the concert together with me, liked it the way it was.

Dance of the Firmament featured shakuhachi (a recorder-like instrument with a very airy....or eerie tone) soloists (father and son team Yamamoto Hozan and Yamamoto Shinzan) in a concerto-like setting. It was not exactly my type of music, being one of those pieces without a discernable melody and being rather tonal and atmospheric in nature, albeit with a Japanese setting. The shakuhachi was interesting to listen to for a while, for afterall, it was something new in my radar. Most of the solo sounded exactly like sound effects from one of those B-grade Hong Kong vampire movies, you know, when the vampire catchers are in the forest in the dark of the night looking for those bunny hopping vampires. But one can only take so much of vampire movie sound effects before one.....dozes off.

Monk Jianzhen Sailing Eastward was also a shakuhachi solo piece (Yamamoto Shinzan), but easier on the ears compared with Dance. I liked the use of percussion in this piece, which gave a marked contrast to the generally "rhythmless" runaway style of playing of the shakuhachi and provided a much needed point of focus (I thought). There was this interesting part in the piece that sounded like the chanting of the monks, but was actually an effect produced by some of the plucked strings. It was so realistic that I was actually trying to figure out who the chanters were, before JW corrected my misconception. The middle portion was this Chinese sounding melody, probably depicting Monk Jianzhen (being a Chinese monk or something), but which again reminded us all of some cheesy Chinese movie music - either very stereotypical writing, or some obscure witty tongue-in-cheek reference, not sure.

The piece de resistance of the concert was the last piece, Hi-Ten-Yu, which featured Wadaiko soloist Eitetsu Hayashi. Apparently, he is one of the pioneer soloist of this new style of Wadaiko playing. I have no idea of the difference between this new style and the traditional style in terms of musicality though. All the program booklet yielded was that the new style "stresses technical excellence and physical stamina", and I am too lazy at the moment to do any additional research. Maybe later.

There is just something about drums in general that elicit very fundamental responses from the general population. It is no coincidence that almost all major civilisations have some form of percussion in their musical culture. Drumbeats have always been the heralds of war, the means of raising the blood in armies. Passionate dances. Rites and rituals. Drums have a place in them all.

It thus comes as no surprise that the audience reacted so enthusiastically to the Wadaiko performance. While I have no doubt that Eitetsu Hayashi is a master at his art, I am quite sure that any reasonably skilled Taiko drummer would have gotten similar reactions as well. That said, the perfomance was definitely a riveting show of virtuosity by Eitetsu Hayashi. It was a feast both for the ears as well as the eyes, for in addition to the myriad sound effects that he managed on the drums, resulting in a complete tapestry all on its own, the physical movements of the drumming were so graceful and beautifully orchestrated that it was a dance in itself. The orchestra accompaniment was kind of incidental as a result, because everyone was so caught up in the Wadaiko performance that no one really cared what the orchestra was playing, or even if it was playing or not.

Oh, and I can personally vouch for the "physical stamina" requirements in Wadaiko drumming. We are definitely talking about explosive, whole body movements here for high reps (sorry, the jock in me is surfacing). Talk about endurance events. Oh, and med ball slams step aside, Wadaiko is the way to go. I gather this is also why Eitetsu Hayashi looks 20 years younger than his actual age of 57, and has some reasonably sized arms to boot, and looks buff and sexy in his arm baring traditional dress. =)

Anyway, the response from the audience was so enthusiastic that he came back on stage for two encores, the first one with the shakuhachi soloists and the orchestra, and the second one a duet with his disciple (who had been sitting quietly at the back of the orchestra throughout the whole performance). And we were pretty amused by his disciple, a young Japanese man, probably in his early to mid twenties (?), very traditional in his actions and mien. He would walk only behind Eitetsu Hayashi, take bows only when Hayashi instructs him to, basically your very traditional respectful Japanese student. It was refreshing to see this, considering our present Singaporean society, where students treat their teachers more like peers.

It was a reasonably enjoyable performance on the whole, but it was also quite clear that it was the Wadaiko performance that made it so. No negative reflection on the performance of SCO or the shakuhachi soloists; the program was just not the type that would be immediately appreciated by the general public.

I have two more performances in June to attend (part of the Singapore Arts Festival). More cultural stuff then. Back to jock mode for now. Ciao.