Skip to main content

Advertisement

Advertisement

Singapore International Festival of Music is bringing chamber music to the community

SINGAPORE — Classical music meets electro, orchestra chamber groups playing in the heartlands, and an ensemble presenting a bold composition that combines elements of classical, ethnic and popular music — these are just a few of the highlights of the Singapore International Festival of Music (SIFOM) which returns for its second year from Oct 13 to 30.

SINGAPORE — Classical music meets electro, orchestra chamber groups playing in the heartlands, and an ensemble presenting a bold composition that combines elements of classical, ethnic and popular music — these are just a few of the highlights of the Singapore International Festival of Music (SIFOM) which returns for its second year from Oct 13 to 30.

Its aim? To promote classical music to people from different walks of life.

“I want people to see that classical music has many forms and can be interpreted in many different ways,” said Darrell Ang, the festival’s artistic director. “That it (classical music) can be enjoyed by many different people,” continued the internationally-renowned Singaporean conductor.

With this year’s new addition of having orchestras performing within the community, they hope to do just that. The festival is bringing excerpts of its main programmes to various community venues, including the Tanglewood Auditorium at Tanglewood Music School and Paya Lebar Methodist Girls’ School.

It will also collaborate with Sentire Singapore — an initiative to help the hearing and visually impaired access the performing arts — on a music-centric programme for special-needs children, where composers and musicians will share simple melodies and composition styles with them.

Ang pointed out that “once you bring classical music outside of the concert hall and bring it into community venues — library is one, shopping malls is another — then that is when the music is heard by people who normally don’t listen to classical tracks”. With this, “we hope to nurture a new generation of listeners to classical music today”, Ang added.

With the theme for this year Myths and Legends, the audience will experience programmes of evocative classical music inspired by folklores and fairy tales. “Around the world everywhere we are brought up with fairy tales, myths and legends,” Ang pointed out. “And I think that it is something close to everybody’s heart,” he added.

So expect performances which will bring to life characters from popular stories such as Sleeping Beauty, Beauty and the Beast, and Sinbad the Sailor.

Organised in collaboration with Arts House and OperaViva, the festival’s key event is Myths and Legends: Mother Goose and the Tales of 1001 Nights, performed by Ukrainian violinist Aleksey Semenenko and Russian pianist Kerim Vergazov at Victoria Concert Hall.

Norwegian orchestra 1B1 will also be performing a show together with Singaporean musicians such as Basil Ong Tze Wee at the National Gallery Courtyard Grand Pavilion. Ong, 14, has performed in concerts both locally and internationally since he was eight. They will also be performing at the Victoria Concert Hall on pieces inspired by Scandinavian folklore, such as Four Seasons by Vivaldi and Holberg Suite by Grieg.

Singapore’s contemporary music group TO Ensemble will also be performing a composition called “And there was N0th1ng” by award-winning Singapore composer-pianist Tze Toh at The Arts House Chamber. Tze’s music is an amalgamation of different styles such as Indian, Chinese, Vietnamese and seeks to blur the borders of classical, ethnic, jazz and popular music. The music is about a machine that tries to understand humanity, and even though it fails in the process, it eventually learns to appreciate the imperfections.

Other highlights include a German ensemble Elbipolis Barockorchester Hamburg, which will perform their baroque music that has been tampered with electronic sounds by electronic artists Tim Exile from London and Brezel Goring from Stereo Total. At Barbershop by Timbre, Elbipolis will open new divisions that crosses boundaries between a club atmosphere of electro music and a formal concert setting.

Through this festival, Ang wants “new audiences” and “for people to see that this is how classical music really is”. “It’s not stuffy, it’s not just for concertgoers and not just for elite people. It’s for everybody,” he said.

Singapore International Festival of Music will take place from Oct 13 to 30 at selected locations, with ticket prices starting from S$32 for the Concert Series and S$36 for the Chamber Series. More information at www.sifom-sg.com.

Read more of the latest in

Advertisement

Advertisement

Stay in the know. Anytime. Anywhere.

Subscribe to get daily news updates, insights and must reads delivered straight to your inbox.

By clicking subscribe, I agree for my personal data to be used to send me TODAY newsletters, promotional offers and for research and analysis.