Shanghai Symphony Orchestra makes delicious Singapore debut

The SSO played works inspired by Chinese delicacies such as Buddha Jumps Over The Wall. Read more at straitstimes.com.

Esplanade Concert HallMarch 23, 7.30pm

Formed as the Shanghai Public Band in 1879, the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra (SSO) is Asia’s oldest orchestra. For context, the Berlin Philharmonic was founded in 1882, while the London Symphony began in 1904. It took the SSO 147 years before it made its Singapore debut under music director Long Yu, and what a debut it was.

The concert opened with Hong Kong composer Elliot Leung’s four-movement suite from Chinese Kitchen: A Feast Of Flavours (2024). Inspired by Chinese cuisine, the short pieces evoked feelings that emerged from savouring the delights. The highly cinematic score suggested that Western taste buds were involved, as Deep Fried River Prawns sizzled like a Bernsteinesque scherzo, dominated by exuberant percussion.

A Copland-like clarinet solo accompanied by strings and harp relived the warm and mellow sensation of slurping Buddha Jumps Over The Wall. Vegetables In Soup, with solo flute backed by saccharine strings, sounded much better than its bland title suggested. The brief Deep Fried Sesame Balls was fast and comedic, over by the time it takes to chomp down one of the dough pastries.

Energised by the appetisers, the orchestra provided excellent partnership to San Francisco-born pianist Serena Wang in Russian composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto In B Flat Minor (Op. 23).

Presently a student at Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music – the alma mater of illustrious colleagues like pianists Lang Lang and Yuja Wang – Serena Wang delivered solid pianism without histrionics or extraneous gestures.