Ding Yi Music Company held their 6th Chamber Music Festival from 12 December to 15 December. This year’s festival features festival artist Yang Xue and an excellent line-up of local and international chamber ensembles: Ding Yi Music Company （鼎艺团）, C-Camerata （台北中央C室内乐团）, “Bows and Strings’ Dance” Erhu (Huqin) Ensemble（“弓弦舞”二胡（胡琴）重奏组）, Windpipe Chinese Music Ensemble（竹韵小集）, Singapore Teochew Ensemble（揭阳会馆潮乐团）, Hunix Bowed-String Ensemble （执竹者弓弦乐团）and Acceleruando. Such an eclectic line-up of ensembles is definitely well-thought. To further engage with their audience, Ding Yi has also organised fringe activities at various timings pre-concert at the Esplanade Concourse that briefly features performances by several ensembles as a preamble for the day’s main concert.
To commence the festival, Ding Yi held a Chinese Chamber Festival Summit on 12 December which lasted 6 hours. This online summit comprised 4 different sessions — each session had invited different guest speakers who are professionals in their field of Chinese music. Despite the slight technical error at the start of the first session (which coincidentally foreshadowed the theme labelled for the first session — 万事开头难), these sessions are rather thought-provoking in how we as artists can continue to promote and expand this genre of chinese chamber music. Meanwhile, it is extremely evident that this passion in this genre and craft pervades through the entire session amongst all the speakers.
In the subsequent three days, all the programmes we were about to relish seemed to perpetually harken back on three large core ideas — east meets west; contemporary meets traditional; cultural inheritance.
On 13 December, pre-concert fringe activity featured a talented group of young ruan musicians Acceleruando. The activity featured a performance of 4 works for ruan from the lenses of both Eastern and Western composers. While this brief performance underscored the versatility of this instrument and the unique timbre of plucked strings through playing techniques, it advocated a greater appreciation for such a line-up of instruments. Such a ruan ensemble has existed since the past but may not have been rather popular due to various reasons. Other than a paucity of repertoire meant for this setting, traditional genres of music like 江南丝竹（ jiangnan sizhu）, 京剧（jing ju），南音 (nan yin) were much more welcomed during the cultural zeitgeist of the early-mid 20th century. Such a sentiment is similarly shared with Bows and Strings’ Dance” Erhu (Huqin) Ensemble as shared by Professor Yang Xue during her workshop on the 15th. These ensembles arranged works, and invited composers to write works for themselves over the years. While they aim to resurrect and revitalise these less-known genres (i.e. huqin ensemble, ruan ensemble, yangqin ensemble, etc.), they also hope to curate a repertory, both sustainable and evolving, for such an ensemble setting.
Nevertheless, as efforts continue to pour in towards popularising these “newer” genres, the decline in popularity and reception of traditional Chinese music genres is inevitable. Ensembles like Windpipe Chinese Music Ensemble, Singapore Teochew Ensemble and Hunix Bowed-String Ensemble strive to present and revive repertoire rooted from Chinese tradition – albeit often in a little more refreshing manner. During the fringe activity on 14 December, the performance of the final piece 旱天雷 (The Thunder in the Drought) was heard in a new light with the blend of Chinese and Western instruments.
Two workshops were held on 15 December – Training in Huqin Ensemble Performance by Festival Artist Professor Yang Xue and Expressionism in Contemporary Music by C-Camerata’s Artistic Director Chao-Ming Tung. Having previously performed in a yangqin quartet and piano duets, I found Professor Yang Xue’s workshop personally rather eye-opening as she provided a fresh perspective towards ensemble playing. She mentioned that intonation for a huqin playing is innately challenging, and such difficulty is exponentiated when multiple huqin instruments come together. There were so many other factors to consider other than flow, balance and the attention to basic musical parameters. Choice of portamento/slides and vibrato (just to name a few) are often crucial in determining whether the playing of a passage will make it or break it. Her presentation was packed with content of various perspectives of performance. Coupled with her professional judgement and the stellar demonstration by “Bows and Strings’ Dance” Erhu (Huqin) Ensemble and Hunix Bowed-String Ensemble, the session was extremely informative for a chamber musician like me. The serious mood which permeated this session was juxtaposed with a rather light-hearted mood in the immediate session by Tung. Tung’s patience and humour made his workshop session engaging and digestible. Although Tung tried to gather responses from the audience to introduce “what is contemporary music” and “expressionism in the Arts”, awkward silence lingered. Only after a few slides later, the audience appeared to be more casual and free as he used a traditional musical example – 月夜愁. Although I personally felt a generational gap, the workshop accidentally turned into a fun and engaging impromptu karaoke session of 月夜愁 amongst the elderly (who were the majority of the participants). Tung’s intention was to let the audience remember and familiarise what the original melody sounded like before putting a contemporary twist on it.
(Left: Workshop by Festival Artist Professor Yang Xue. Right: Workshop by C-Camerata’s Artistic Director Chao-Ming Tung)
Furthermore, repertoire to be performed over the three days were judiciously chosen as it inherently reflected the three core ideas aforementioned.
On 13 December, Singapore Teochew Ensemble, Ding Yi Music Company and Windpipe Chinese Music Ensemble launched the evening’s first concert with an interesting array of relatively traditional Chinese music from both traditional and contemporary composers. This included compositions by living composers that refer heavily to traditional musical idioms: Twinkling of Bonfire Night by Zhou Jiaying (which won the 3rd prize in Ding Yi Composium 2021) is inspired by the culture of Yi people; Lan Kwai Tang Fong by Luk Wai Chun is inspired by Cantonese music; The Charms of Tianshan Mountain by Wang Jian Min is inspired by Xinjiang music..
Programme on 13 December
Lamps in Thousands of Homes 《千家古》 Reminisce on the Past 《怀古》 Picking Red Water Chestnuts 《采红菱》 Twinkling of Bonfire Night 《浩浩花火》 Cantonese Medley 《粤舞升平 – 广东音乐名曲串烧》 Lan Kwai Tang Fong 《兰桂腾芳》United We Go 《连环扣》 Drunken Lady Yang at Pavilion of a Hundred Flowers 《百花亭闹酒》 The Dragon’s Roar on the Autumn Water 《秋水龙吟》 The Peacock in its Full Glory 《孔雀开屏》 Hungry Horse Shaking its Bells 《饿马摇铃》 New Rendition of Early Cantonese Music 《弦歌趣韵》 The Charm of the Tianshan Mountains 《天山风情》 | Traditional Music 传统古曲 Traditional Music 传统古曲 Yao Min 姚敏 作曲 Zhou Jiaying 周嘉颖 作曲 arr. by Wang Chenwei 王辰威 编曲 Luk Wai Chun 陆尉俊 作曲 Traditional Music 传统古曲 陈添寿 串谱 Traditional Music 传统古曲 Ho Tai-sor 何大傻 作曲 Traditional Music 传统古曲 arr. by Wong Hok-yeung 黄学扬 编曲 Wang Jian Min 王建民 作曲 |
A night filled with traditional Chinese music is a testament to cultural inheritance – how traditional music, with some perhaps presented in a novel way, could be preserved and passed down through generations. In Chinese culture, as people are constantly reminded to recall their roots (饮水思源), our current developments to Chinese chamber music once stemmed from this light-heartedness and simplicity.
“Bows and Strings’ Dance” Erhu (Huqin) Ensemble graced the stage on 14 December with a blend of huqin ensemble repertoire in the first half of the concert. Although the recital studio’s acoustics was a little wet, the high level of precision in performance highlighted Festival Artist Yang Xue’s prowess in many ways – as an erhu virtuoso, chamber musician, composer and dedicated mentor to her three students, who are part of the ensemble. The first half of the concert enabled the audience to revel in the various combinations of strings timbre – like erhu and yangqin in Red Velvet, erhu duet in Nocturnal Peace, zhonghu vs erhu in Play and Huqin Quartet in Whispers of Autumn and Bows and Strings. Furthermore, she added that some of the repertoire played for that night’s concert could be found in a few publications by her which featured works for huqin ensemble. Such efforts towards expanding this genre is highly noteworthy. "East meets west" became more apparent afterwards. As C-Camerata took the stage in the second half, artistic director Chao-Ming Tung shared that the ensemble initially started as a piano trio (piano, violin, cello). Yet, when they were asked if they were interested in collaborating with Chinese instrumentalists, the piano trio were extremely willing. This 10-member team (along with conductor Tai-Chi Chen) had been championing contemporary music since then. This further exemplified “contemporary meets traditional” for that night. They presented three contemporary works for chamber ensemble. All three works seemed to take advantage of the slightly wet acoustics of the recital studio as they effortlessly executed various extended techniques carefully with ease, often well-shaped. Various instrumental timbres blended rather well and juxtaposed well when similar musical materials were repeated and varied. Nevertheless, some of the sounds had to be more well-paced and well-balanced as often the act of playing was visible but sound was obscured. Furthermore, despite the highly precise techniques showcased, the pace for the last piece of the night SPROUT appeared to lose its momentum and direction at times. This rendered the explanation given by the programme notes not helpful. Nevertheless, C-Camerata still delivered a relatively successful performance overall.
Programme on 14 December
Nocturnal Peace 《良宵》 Red Velvet 《红丝绒》 Play 《嬉戏》 Tico Tico no Fuba 《玉米粉上的雀鸟》 Whispers of Autumn 《秋上引》 Bows and Strings 《弓弦舞》Tók Behind the Sounds III 《闇 III》 SPROUT | arr. by Yang Xue 杨雪 编曲 Chen Yunyun 陈芸芸 作曲 Yang Xue 杨雪 作曲 arr. by Rui Xue 芮雪 编曲 Ho Chee Kong 何志光 作曲 Li Bo Chan 李博禅 作曲 Yi-Cheng Chiang 江易 作曲 Chao-Ming Tung 董昭民 作曲 Oren Boneh |
The grand finale concert on the 15th welcomed a nearly filled studio for the evening. Also, the concert surpassed all expectations and ensured no disappointment. The Rhythm of Lv Opera VI - New Year Pictures commenced the concert with a bang through the robust percussion section. As musical materials and gestures developed and varied well throughout the entire work, Maestro Yeh Tsung infused the music with energy and life, akin to the sentiment felt during the Spring Festival. Along with the intricate orchestrations and often-dramatic gestures, the ensemble delivered the piece successfully. Furthermore, although the piece deployed rather contemporary writing styles, it remained rather approachable to many. This piece definitely lived up to the well-deserved 1st prize it received at Composium 2021. Subsequently, the next few pieces before the intermission reminisced relatively traditional tunes, as if giving time for the dopamine to gradually subside. As the concert gradually approached its finale, the final two pieces just gave it its all. Soul of the Seven Sages by Sulwyn Lok was rather rhapsodic in nature. It began in a rather playful and lighthearted manner with Maestro Yeh dancing along to the music. The piece often develops antiphonally along with the evolving musical materials. Different instrumental combinatorics highlighted the diverse mix of instrumental timbres. As the composer mentions that “this chamber work, scored with the Chinese plucked strings at its core and augmented by the dizi, sheng, percussion, and low strings, does not portray each individual sage”, it also shows how none of the instruments appear out-of-place. It is well-orchestrated. This playfulness incidentally morphs along the way which concludes with an astounding bravura. Lok also explains the end of the piece as follows, “This chaos is left open to our own interpretation - is this a wild abandonment of society, or a passionate call for action?” Such a rhetorical question in turn also enables us to introspect as artists – if we should obscure societal expectations and just pursue where our brains and hearts lead us. While I was still immersed in the orchestration of the previous piece, the final piece of the night, consisting of 4 movements, began. Towards the end of the piece, the piece just felt so sublime – almost similar to the feeling I received after listening to Beethoven's 9th Symphony. Not only was the orchestration at its finest, the piece was really cohesive and coherent. The piece arrived at its peak towards the end of the piece when musicians chanted with gusto in unity, as if showing the power of mankind.
Programme on 15 December
The Rhythm of Lv Opera VI - New Year Pictures 《吕韵·陆 –年画》 Autumn Moon over the Calm Lake 《平湖秋月》 Tones of Banqiang 《声腔 –板式》 In Celebration of Good Times 《娱乐升平》 Soul of the Seven Sages 《竹林七贤外传》 I. Seeking Answers 寻求答案 II. Seeking a Voice 寻求声音 III. Seeking Sanctuary 寻求庇护 IV. Seeking Purpose 寻求目的 The Evolution 《黄帝 – 人文始祖》 I. Heaven and Earth 天地祭 II. The Battle of Zhuolu 涿鹿之战 III. Chinese Civilisation 华夏文明 IV. Finale 终曲 | Liu Yuhui 刘豫徽 作曲 arr. by Chao-Ming Tung 董昭民 编曲 Hu Xiao 胡晓 作曲 竹林小集 整理 Sulwyn Lok 骆思卫 作曲 Law Wai Lun 罗伟伦 作曲 |
In conclusion, the 6th edition of the Chinese Chamber Music Festival is a huge success in terms of artistry, collaboration and engagement. I applaud and highly commend the Ding Yi Music Company, the Festival Directors and the team behind all the preparatory works for their extensive efforts for such a massive event, amalgamating people and musicians across the country and across the globe. As we look back on the three core ideas aforementioned, I believe there are definitely so many things to take away from this concert and to do as artists. Globalisation has always been a core driver for cultures to travel to various parts of the world. Nevertheless, it is inevitable that we face risks like cultural dilution, cultural homogenisation and cultural extinction. Yet, culture is something so fluid that if efforts are constantly poured in, even if its original form is not exactly preserved, we can still always preserve its identity, or even provide room for its development. That is why I believe Chinese Chamber Music, or even Chinese Music in general will never fade. Chinese music has so much room for development even when it is clearly affected by westernisation. Nonetheless, westernisation has admittedly done some good for Chinese music – like the establishment of Concert halls in China in the 1950s and changing of the way of notation, etc. All in all, such an event is definitely noteworthy and will be eagerly anticipated for the future.
Tan Zheng Rui
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