Last Monday, I managed to catch the Singapore performance by this orchestra at the Esplanade.
This is the oldest orchestra in Asia and I believe this is their first visit here.
They played to a packed audience, not surprisingly. I was pleasantly surprised and impressed by the quality of their playing. They were very good.
The members were also interestingly almost all Chinese, and mostly young.
From the time they played their first piece, which is written for them by Elliott Leung, it was clear that they were in a completely different league from the SSO.
I liked that piece and it was followed by Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No.1, with Serena Wang as the soloist. She is young and technically competent and the orchestra played well but somehow it didn’t hit me the way the first piece did.
The second half was Rachmaninoff’s 2nd Symphony and it is a piece lasting a hour. I am not a Rachmaninoff fan and although I was sure the orchestra would have handled it very well, I couldn’t bear the thought of sitting through an hour of Rachmaninoff.
daily musings 
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