Bach Cantata: Ich habe genug Rehearsal

The time is now just past 1am in the morning. I’m still abuzz with the excitement from working on Bach’s Cantata BWV 82 ‘Ich habe genug”

It is just such a pleasure to be making music in a chamber music context. Rarely does a singer get to discuss matters of tempo, bowing, phrasing, sentiment etc in an intimate way as this rehearsal was.

I guess this is the joy of amateur music making. Everyone is there because they want to. A huge contrast from some other encounters I have had.

Just wanted to post these wonderful pictures created by my dear friend Edmund Ng who so graciously lent us his photographic eyes for a night of rehearsals!

For everyone who is curious about this event, here are the details:

‘ich habe genug’ Cantatas for the Feast of the Purification of Mary

Venue: Singapore Bible College Worship Hall

Date: 3rd February 2008

Time: 2000 – 2115h

Featuring:

The Empyrean Ensemble led by Seah Huan Yuh

Baritone Solo by yours truly (ie Ng Tian Hui)

Programme:

J.S. Bach – Cantata BWV 82 “Ich habe genug”

J.S. Bach – Cantata BWV 158 “Der Friede sei mit dir”

Tickets: $16 including ticket handling charge available from tickets.com

“Welt, gute nacht!”

Music Technology in the Secondary School Classroom

I still recall the moment when I stepped into the school, and the friendly HOD at my school came up and said “So, tell us what you can do for our school?”

That was surely one of the more fearsome comments ever made to a new teacher at his first posting!

Fresh with my cynicism and skepticism from National Service (NS) and the National Institute of Education (NIE), I furtively answered that that depended on what the school wanted.

well, i guess one of the products made for the new school was a whole new curriculum on music technology. This proved in the end to be really rather prescient. By the following year, it appeared that the Curriculum Planning and Development Division (CPDD) of the Ministry of Education Singapore (MOE) had been conducting pilot projects on the teaching of “IT Music” as they called it then in secondary schools, and the programme that i had put in place at Ang Mo Kio Secondary School (AMKSS) was just up the right alley!

Anyway, one thing led to another, and here’s a feature article on the teaching of In-Class Technology (ICT) in Music, on the programme I created.

http://www.moe.gov.sg/edumall/tl/it_integration/engaging_it_practices/3song.htm

And I will be doing a sharing on very basic content upgrading in Music ICT Skills in AMKSS on the 1st of February 2008 between 1430 and 1800h.

In case anyone is curious, they can contact MOE CPDD here about signing for the course which is free for all MOE teachers.

1964

2008 is already shaping up to be a busy one. I’ve just got back from a staff conference at Ang Mo Kio Secondary School.

Given the occasion, the staff meeting before the start of the academic year 2008, I’ve felt quite galvanised to do more for the new arts production I’m co-creative directing: 1964.

Therefore, I’ve just completed setting up an event blog to document the creation process for the entire festival. And hope that it would do everyone some justice in documenting their amazing ideas and energy!

For those who are curious to follow these things, the link is under my blogroll and is also here:

http://amkssnomad.wordpress.com

Edvard Grieg – Fire Salmer, Op.74

Another major highlight for this year was the opportunity to sing my first full solo with a choir in Singapore.

This performance was a part of the Philharmonic Chamber Choir’s concert “Underneathe the North Star” at the Esplanade Recital Studio on 13th and 14th of July 2007.

The concert featured a selection of repertory from the Scandinavian countries with the Fire Salmer Op.74 the opening of the programme.

I have to admit that it was highly challenging attempting to get all the Old Norwegian accurately pronounced, seeing that there was in fact some disagreement even among the Norwegian community as to the exact pronunciation of words.

Nevertheless, I feel honoured that the reviewer from the Straits Times in Singapore saw fit to give me a good review.

I hope that the attempt here is at least 80% close to the intentions of Grieg.

Fire Salmer, Op.74

1. Hvad est du dog skjon

2. Guds Son har gjort mig fri (In 3 parts: first, second, third)

3. Jesus Kristus er opfaren

4. I Himmelen

Tian

Focus and Dumbbell

The piece focus was written for Bass Clarinet and Piano.

It was written as the second of my collaborations with the artist Yang Tien.

Here, the individual stills of the painting were actually hand drawn by Yang and then passed over to me to gestate and think about.

I felt particularly inspired by the focus on the craft and vision of his art and named the piece accordingly, providing a sonic equivalent to what i felt was the underlying energy of his paintings.

Just as the focussed attention of the viewer on his artwork unwittingly and naturally resulted in the refreshed perception of viewers of the individual stills, i sought to write music that brought the listener’s attention to sonic phenomena.

By playing with repeated notes, the effect of pedalling and the harmonics caused by the intersecting overtones of both the bass clarinet’s music and that of the piano i aimed for the gradual development of clouds of overtones that appear even as the listener continues to “focus” on the insistent repetitious nature of the piano line.

Enjoy here!

Focus is performed here by pianist Albert Lin and Bass-Clarinetist Tang Xiao Ping. 

Music with Digital Animation

Over the years, I have had the good fortune to work with the talented Digital Animation Artist Yang Tien.

With him I have had that most rare of artistic liberties, the opportunity to react to his art work and write in any style for any forces that i feel appropriate.

The first of the compositions was a simple work for solo piano, recorded on my old out of tune piano at Jalan Mengkudu. The resulting sound pleased me greatly with its slight pitching imperfections giving the music a certain lilt that I found dreamy! This here is a link to the animated painting “Arches” with the music recorded with a simple portable microphone that Yang had brought along for the purpose of getting sounds to inspire him. Enjoy!

Curious Attacks at the Movies

Looking back on 2007, there’s just been so many things happening in my life. Musically especially, i think that I’ve been pretty chuffed to have presented 3 different christmas programmes, 3 repertoires on Mozart, Love and lastly the movies in the short span of the group’s existence.

Leslie’s departure from Curious Attacks was of course a “massive blow” for us. We all missed the dim sum, movies and laughter at our rehearsals.

Oh well, before we look forward to more singing ahead with our new tenor Fabian, here’s a last number featuring us singing a jazzy lovey dovey number: Gershwin’s Embraceable You!

This is still sung by our old group formation with Shingmin on Soprano, Eekia on Alto, Fabian on Tenor and me on Bass.

If you enjoyed this track there are more numbers from the repertoire we presented which can be found at the following link:

http://curiousattacks.googlepages.com/music

Curious attacks on Mozart

Since i’m feeling in a nostalgic mode at the end of the year, just thought to load some old music, and also just to see how to use the music upload function here… …

Hmm, how strange! it actually doesn’t have a music upload function! I guess this means that if i want to upload anything, i’ll have to create some kind of video to upload it.

Anyway, Curious attacks started with a Mozart concert at the Esplanade Foyer sometime at the beginning of 2006. Just thought to leave a little commemorative note here and a link for the music here. The piece is the Allegro from Eine Kleine Nachtmusik by Mozart. We tried to put in as much of the instrumental phrasing that we knew in terms of phrasing Mozart, and made some slight modifications to Ward Swingle’s original arrangement to better reflect the original energy of the piece.

Shingmin’s on Soprano, Eekia on Alto, Leslie on Tenor and myself as always on bass.
Enjoy!

OH! and if you liked the singing above, you can check out the rest of the curiousattacks listening booth at the following weblink:

http://curiousattacks.googlepages.com/music

Curious attacks

Was reminded about the videos featuring the group Curious Attacks singing yesterday by one of our singers. Anyway, i decided to link the youtube video here just so i have all my online performances recorded in someway or other:

For additional materials of my performances with the group, check out the listening booth at our webpage:

http://curiousattacks.googlepages.com/music

Ng Tian Hui (arr.) – Joget Kasih Tak Sudah

The final song, Joget Kasih Tak Sudah, was popularised by Malaysian Pop Princess Siti Nurhaliza. It explores the popular theme of unrequited love, blending the traditional rhythms of the joget, itself a hybrid form with Latin and Arabic influences, and the Western choral sound.