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YST QUARTET-IN-RESIDENCE:
T'ANG QUARTET
March 3, 2023 • 7:30pm
Conservatory Concert Hall
Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music
Tickets at $10 on yst/eventbrite.com

GIVE AND TAKE

(BACK AND FORTH)
PROGRAMME
Chen Zhangyi
Twin Cinema for String Nonet
Featuring:
Guennadi Mouzyka, double bass
Edgar Javier Lucena Rodriguez, violin
Hoi Khai-Weing, violin
Lee Wei-Fan, viola
Sim Yein, cello

Chen Zhangyi
Give and Take (Back and Forth)
for T'ang Quartet

Maurice Ravel
String Quartet in F

Ng Yu-Ying Ang Chek Meng Jamshid Saydikarimov Dandan Wang

1st violin 2nd violin Cello (guest) Viola (guest)

www.tangquartet.co www.ystmusic.nus.edu.sg
www.ystmusic.nus.edu.sg
Conservatory Concert Hall at
Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music

Singapore's preeminent string quartet The T'ang Quartet is Guest Cellist // Jamshid Saydikarimov
taking to the stage at the concert hall at the Yong Siew Toh The Singapore Symphony Orchestra cellist was born in
(YST) Conservatory of Music on March 3. The show, which is Tashkent, Uzbekistan.He started learning cello at the age
also part of YST's 20th Anniversary 2022/2023 Season, is a of seven with Madina Galiulina. In 2014, Jamshid won
special one for the ensemble – also YST's Quartet-In- First Prize in the Knushevitsky International Cello
Residence. Competition (Russia, Saratov). He graduated with
distinction from Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music,
The finale of the Tang Quartet's 30th anniversary programme, National University of Singapore, where he studied under
this concert programme comprises three sterling works from Ng Pei-Sian. Jamshid has performed in Uzbekistan,
two outstanding composers – French composer, pianist and Russia, Ukraine, Austria, Switzerland, Korea, Singapore,
conductor Maurice Revel, and Singaporean composer Chen Vietnam, France, Indonesia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
Zhangyi, who is also YST's assistant professor, where he He performs on a 2020 Paolo Vettori cello, Firenze.
currently teaches analysis and composition. He is also a
conductor, violinist and violist. Guest Violist // Dandan Wang
Dandan Wang started violin studies at the age of six.
The World Premiere When she was 16, she switched to viola studies with Prof
The programme will feature the commissioned piece, Give Xi-Di Shen. In 2010, Dandan started her undergraduate
and Take (Back and Forth), composed by Chen. Ng Yu-Ying, studies in the Shanghai Conservatory of Music with
T'ang Quartet's founding member, says: "We have known scholarship, where she was a student of Prof Nian Liu.
Zhangyi for a long time, and have always admired him for his She performed in the Chamber Music Festival hosted by
talent as a musician and composer. This will be a significant Shanghai Conservatory of Music and the San Francisco
and meaningful collaboration for all of us." Conservatory of Music in 2010. In 2015, she was invited
by Oscar and Grammy-awarded Chinese Composer Tan
About T'ang Quartet Dun to perform his chamber music pieces in Shanghai and
Constant innovation and steady reinvention is the name of the Beijing.
game for the T'ang Quartet. For 30 years, the group's musical
dexterity has surprised and delighted audiences locally and In 2015, Dandan began her study in San Francisco
globally. Based in Singapore, T'ang Quartet is one of the best Conservatory of Music as a graduate student, and in
known and most accomplished string quartets in Asia. 2016, she was admitted to the Pacific Music Festival,
one of the most famous festivals in the world. She served
The ensemble has collaborated and performed with as the Principal Viola, performing with maestro Valery
contemporaries such as John Chen, Fringin Collins, Noriko Gergiev, violinist Leonidas Kavakos, and with musicians
Ogawa, and Tedd Joselson. They have performed in major from the Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic,
venues around the world – Wigmore Hall (London), Berliner Chicago Symphony, Metropolitan Opera, National
Philharmonie (Berlin) and Seiji Ozawa Hall (Boston) – and in Symphony and San Francisco Symphony.
major festivals – Tanglewood Festival, Melbourne Festival,
Edinburgh Festival and City of London Festival. After graduating from San Francisco Conservatory,
Dandan was a guest violist of the San Francisco
In 2022 and 2023, the quartet celebrated three decades in Symphony and at the same time, a fellow musician of San
music with four concerts. T'ang Quartet is a registered Jose Opera. Dandan has served as a violist tutti in the
charity under the Charities Act in Singapore. Singapore Symphony Orchestra since February 2018 and
as a coach in the Singapore National Youth Orchestra.
PROGRAMME

Composer Chen Zhangyi

The music of Chen Zhangyi has been described as “music Give and Take (Back and Forth)
from a voice of the future” by BBC Radio 3 and “a breath for String Quartet
of fresh air on our musical landscape” by The Straits
Times. Nature is an important source of inspiration in his
instrumental and orchestral works, such as Vanda, Rain I. Towers and Fountains
Tree and Of An Ethereal Symphony. II. Double Duet (Romanze)
III. Drunken Poets
In his dramatic works such as the chamber opera cycle A IV. Gears and Cycles - Interlocked
Singapore Trilogy, he often explores the musical V. Village Vibes
representation of Singaporean culture. Chen teaches VI. Night Grooves
Analysis and Composition at Yong Siew Toh Conservatory
of Music.
The piece is commissioned by the T’ang Quartet in
celebration of their 30th anniversary as an ensemble.
Twin Cinema Chen says: "As with any relationship (or marriage),
for String Nonet playing together in a string quartet requires the tight-
knit rapport to play in perfect harmony and synchrony,
moving and breathing as one musical body. Naturally,
Commissioned by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra the delicate balance of four personalities involves some
(SSO), Twin Cinema was written for the Stradivari Quartet sort of 'give and take'."
and musicians of the SSO. The concept of the work is
based on the Singaporean poetic form of Twin Cinema, He adds: "I am very honoured to be able to create a new
where two separate columns of poetry may be read work for the T’ang Quartet on this momentous occasion,
separately, or across, as a single poem. where their milestone of three decades coincides with
the two decades of YST Conservatory’s. Being an
Chen has taken inspiration from Dr Sara Florian’s poem ‘The alumnus and a faculty member at YST, it is indeed a
Lost Seasons’. A poem that weaves together the Twin good time to reflect upon the past and look forward to
Cinema form with the pantun, while depicting two the future, and to borrow the institution’s current theme
concurrent coming-of-age stories: a Venetian countryside of 'Looking Back, Moving Forward'."
boy contrasted with a Singaporean kampung boy. Florian
conjures the passage of time, effects of the changing Conceptualised to showcase T'ang Quartet's versatility,
climate, and the counterpoint between the rustic and the these six short movements draw inspiration from an
urban, navigating between the East and the West. eclectic mix of references. It ranges from awe-inspiring
Singaporean landmarks, a confluence of ancient and
Musically, Chen has taken a slightly cinematic and eclectic modern cultures, to timeless sentiments. Also present
approach, exploring and maintaining two strands of are the juxtapositions between the fast and the slow,
narratives between the two quartets. The pair of quartets the past and the future, and of kampung and city life.
are placed in a ‘stereo’ antiphony, and their musical strands
coexist in sometimes complementary, and at times surreal
juxtapositions of moods and characters in this imaginary
duet of ‘cinematic’ scores. Throughout, the contrabass acts
as the central pillar that support the narratives on both
Notes by composer Chen Zhangyi
sides.
PROGRAMME

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)

String Quartet in F

I. Allegro moderato – très doux

II. Assez vif – très rythmé
III. Très lent
IV. Vif et agité

Ravel’s String Quartet in F is modelled after a piece written Ravel himself would later admit to flaws in his quartet’s
a decade earlier by Debussy: first movement in sonata form, form, but one should probably be sceptical of this as one
barbed interjections between plucked and bowed strings in might think of Brahms’ self-deprecating assessment of his
the Scherzo, a moving and lyrical elegy following this own work. After all, all three men placed Mozart closest to
before ending with a rhythmically quirky finale. The God, with Ravel’s piece closer to Mozartian harmony of
movements are connected by repetitive head motifs in the expression than the quartets of either Debussy or Fauré –
style of Cesar Franck – ironically something which the two particularly in the first and third movements, where the
younger composers had been known to consciously avoid. audience is drawn in by a reserved, confident and
mysterious attraction.
Quartet writing had become the epitome of abstract
composition since the time of Mozart, and both Debussy Source: Hi-Fi News
and Ravel appeared to desire their works to be seen within
that convention, not just through the use of traditional
forms but also in their titling. Ravel’s statement of an
overarching tonality – Quartet in F – is as misleading as
Debussy’s assigning of an opus number (10) to his work
without such an index in his previous nine.

Debussy is believed to have listened to Ravel’s Quartet

before it premiered in 1904 and given his approval of the
work. However, the similarities between the two works
triggered the supporters of either composer, leading to an
unfortunate rift between the two.

“It's probably best…”, said Ravel reflected, “for us to be

on frigid terms for illogical reasons.”

While time never healed the rift between the two French
composers, it has muted the similarities to reveal contrasts
underneath. Ravel’s scoring for the strings is obviously
more transparent even though it had an orchestral range of
colour. The Basque character which Ravel got from his
mother, always so evident as a badge of identity in his
music, reveals itself in the Scherzo’s guitar-like strumming.