Music for the ears and eyes

PART OF ESPLANADE – Theatres on the Bay’s Huayi: Chinese Festival of Arts, which ended last Sunday, “CouCou on Mars” by Hong Kong’s GayBird and “Nu Shu” by China’s Tan Dun proved that a contemporary music performance can sometimes be a feast for all the senses.
Self-described as “a visual music venture in revisiting an alternative future”, “CouCou on Mars” featured “sound exploration instruments” that both delighted and inspired the audience in the theatre studio with the sights and sounds they produced. There were a few exceptions though, particularly in the scenes that included video images when the sight and sound became overwrought that it was difficult to know what to watch or listen to.
The instruments were not dissimilar to installation art, with some pieces even connecting and interacting with the lighting equipment. Some were not totally new either, but developed from existing instruments – like the crystal satellite, which was inspired by the cristal baschet from the last century. The audience also had an opportunity to create their own sight and sound with the lights from our smartphones being detected by another visionary instrument by this digital music master.
A symphony for 13 micro films, harp and orchestra, which has previously been performed by the Philadelphia, Royal Concertgebouw and NHK Symphony orchestras, Tan’s “Nu Shu” is subtitled “The Secret Songs of Women”. The Grammy Award winner documented not only a mysterious language spoken and sung exclusively by women in Jiangyong county of his native Hunan province, but also their lives, beliefs and, most importantly, their duties as mothers, wives and daughters.
“Who cry the most and yet are the happiest people?” he asked the audience in his short introduction.
Each accompanying film was shot in one long take, and showed the women as they actually are on three screens with sequential images. Tan’s music added vitality yet always showed much respect to the women.
“Nu Shu” both entertained and educated the almost full-house audience at the Esplanade’s concert hall. The first part of the concert brought us into the Chinese new year spirit with Li Huanzhi’s “Spring Festival Overture”. This was followed by Zhao Jiping’s “The Grand Mansion Gate”, featuring erhu star Zhao Lei; and “Hua Mulan”, with guzheng expert Yuan Li. Both were so rapturously received that encores of Grigoras Dinicu’s “The Lark” and Tan’s “Zheng Concerto Movement IV” immediately followed.
This one-evening-only concert – with its demanding music programme – also revealed the virtuosic qualities of the multinational Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra (MSO), formerly known as Singapore Festival Orchestra (SFO), the only independent professional orchestra in the island state.
The writer thanks the Esplanade’s See Ling Ling and Gina Koh for all assistance.
 TEA TREAT
FROM BEIJING
- The Beijing People’s Art Theatre is at the Esplanade from today to Sunday with the acclaimed modern classic play “Tea House”. Tickets start at SGD 48 (Bt 1,200), at www.Sistic.com.sg.
-For more details, visit www.Esplanade.com/TeaHouse