

SAT 18 JANUARY 2025, 3PM & 8PM
ESPLANADE THEATRE





SAT 18 JANUARY 2025, 3PM & 8PM
ESPLANADE THEATRE
Sat 18 Jan 2025, 3pm & 8pm
Esplanade Theatre
Orchestra of the Music Makers
Voices of Singapore City Chorus
Joshua Tan, conductor
Vanessa Kee, Belle Preston Lim, Gaston
Leslie Tay, Le Fou / Beast
Eric Larrea, Lumière
Akiko Otao, Mrs Potts
Singers by The Voice Company
MENKEN – Beauty and the Beast: Live to Film
Beauty and the Beast
Music by Alan Menken
Lyrics by Howard Ashman
© 1991 Wonderland Music Company, Inc. and Walt Disney Music Company
Today’s performance lasts approximately 2 hours, including a 20-minute intermission.
Photographs and videos will be taken at the event, in which you may appear. These may be published in Willow Arts’, OMM’s, or VOS’s publicity channels and materials. By attending the event, you consent to the use of these photographs and videos for the foregoing purposes.
The Orchestra of the Music Makers (OMM) is a Singapore-based symphony orchestra established in 2008, comprising over 140 highly-trained volunteer musicians. Although many have chosen careers outside of music, our musicians are dedicated to the high standards of musicmaking and community work which OMM stands for. Under the mentorship of Chan Tze Law, a leading Singaporean conductor and Vice-Dean of the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, OMM has become an integral part of Singapore’s classical music scene and has gained international repute for presenting works of epic proportions, including the criticallyacclaimed Singapore Premieres of Bernstein’s Mass, Wagner’s Das Rheingold and Die Walküre.
OMM was among the most active arts groups in Singapore during the COVID-19 pandemic, receiving the COVID-19 Resilience Certificate for organising a wide array of digital productions, live
performances, and outreach events between August 2020 to December 2021. Recordings of these digital productions have also been featured at the Expo 2020 Dubai, as well as on the Singapore Airlines Inflight Entertainment System. Highlights of OMM’s 2024-25 season include performances with Lü Shao-Chia, Paul Huang, Stella Chen and Tito Muñoz.
Orchestra of the Music Makers Ltd is supported by the National Arts Council under the Major Company Scheme for the period from 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2025.
“We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams.”
— Arthur O’Shaughnessy, “Ode”
Website: www.orchestra.sg
Facebook: @orchmusicmakers
Instagram: @omm.sg
TikTok: @omm.sg
Lee Guan Wei Daniel, Chairman
Assoc. Prof Chan Tze Law
Christopher Cheong
Susan Loh
Jesher Loi
Sanjiv Malhotra
Edward Neo
Toh Xue Qian
Prof Bernard Tan, Advisor
ARTISTIC DEVELOPMENT
Christopher Cheong, Head
Nathanael Goh
Michael Huang
Lee Jinjun
Fredrick Suwandi
Joshua Tan
Oliver Tan
Isaac Tah
HUMAN RESOURCE
Ang Zien Xu
Nathanael Goh
Lee Jinjun
Lee Yuru
Jayson Loo
Estee Ng
Fredrick Suwandi
Kelsey Tan
Josiah Teo
Kimberlyn Wu
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
Isaac Tah, Head
Ang Zien Xu
Natasha Lee
Shi Jia Ao
SPONSORSHIP
Edward Neo, Head
Christopher Cheong
Kenny Ooi
Rayner Tan
BRANDING & MARKETING
Michael Huang, Head
Chan Chen
Chua Jay Roon
Chloe Goh
Elizabeth Ip
Josiah Teo
LIBRARY & LOGISTICS
Wu Tianhao, Head
Lee Jinjun
Rei Lim
Edward Neo
Preston Ng
Muhammad Bin Roslee
Isaac Tah
Joshua Tan
Tan Yao Cong
TECHNOLOGY
Chay Choong, Head
Lam Yun En
Tasya Rukmana
FINANCE
Neo Wei Qing, Head
Calvin Dai
Edward Neo
Shi Jia Ao
AUDIENCE EXPERIENCE
Rayner Tan, Head
Lam Hoyan
Estee Ng
A graduate of The Juilliard School and the Eastman School of Music (High Distinction), Joshua Kangming Tan was the 2nd Prize winner of the Dimitri Mitropoulos International Competition, and an awardee of numerous scholarships and awards. For an unprecedented two years running, his performances of Bernstein’s Mass and the opera Don Pasquale were selected as the best classical concert of the year 2018 and 2019 by the Straits Times. Also adept at working with film/multimedia and music, Joshua is a Disney-approved conductor and gave the Asian premiere of Fantasia.
Beauty and the Beast: Live to Film is Joshua’s 8th appearance with OMM. Previous highlights include the Singapore Premieres of Bernstein’s Mass (2018) and Wagner’s Das Rheingold (2023).
Voices of Singapore (VOS) is Singapore's largest singing organisation, dedicated to transforming lives through the power of music and choral singing. With over 20 diverse singing groups and more than 1,200 members, VOS engages in various projects and festivals, making a significant impact in the local arts scene.
As an arts charity, VOS combines artistic excellence with community outreach. The VOS State Choirs strive for the highest levels of choral performance, while community outreach choirs serve special needs individuals, the elderly, and at-risk children. Choral music at VOS fosters empowerment, connection, and a sense of belonging within a vibrant community.
Through its initiatives to inspire a Singing Singapore, VOS enhances arts appreciation and positively contributes to Singapore's cultural landscape.
Chorusmaster
Trumpeter-turned-chorister Chong Wai Lun found his calling in serving the music and his fellow musicians as a conductor.
After studying at the Kodály Institute of the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music (Hungary), he pursued his Master's Degree in choral conducting at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama in Cardiff, Wales (United Kingdom). Upon his return to Singapore, Wai Lun was appointed the Music Director at the International Festival Chorus of Singapore (IFC) from 2015 to 2019. He currently dedicates his time to nurturing the choirs at Ahmad Ibrahim Secondary School and Temasek Secondary School.
At the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music (YST), Wai Lun also studied orchestral conducting under the guidance of Jason Lai. Today, he is an adjunct faculty member at his alma mater, directing the YST Chamber Singers.
Wai Lun is also founder and choirmaster of the Symphonia Choralis, a professional freelance choir that collaborates extensively with the Metropolitan Festival Orchestra.
Disney Music has long been the ubiquitous soundtrack of childhood. However, the term “Disney Music” is rather nebulous. It tells us only about the music’s provenance, but nothing about the music itself — how it seems to have universal appeal, how it instantly conjures up images of our favourite films, or how we can unerringly sing back the tunes and lyrics. Part of this magic stems from the brilliant integration of music and narrative.
On its own, music has the power to evoke a range of intense emotions, but this power is greatly enhanced when united with words. From folk ballads to grand operatic traditions, songs have always expertly combined story-telling and music.
Beginning with Disney’s first animated feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937, music has always been an integral part of the Disney universe. In 1989, songwriterlyricist duo Alan Menken and Howard Ashman brought their experience with stage musicals to Disney. Incorporating Broadway conventions and structures into the score, they created the smash-hit The Little Mermaid, which became one of the highest grossing films that year. With this film, Menken and Ashman kickstarted a wave of highly successful Disney animated musicals often termed the “Disney Renaissance”. In their very next film, they continued to unfurl the music into a huge symphonic canvas. Regarded by many as their magnum opus, this was 1991’s Beauty and the Beast
Alan Menken grew up in a musical household, listening to his father play hit songs from Rodgers and Hammerstein, the Gershwins, and others. Watching Disney’s Fantasia as a child, with its intersection of orchestral music and animated visuals, was a particularly formative experience for him. He recalled, “I started to think about how a chord, how a melody, how the excitement of music influences me. I was just transported by music and very emotionally drawn to it.” He found practising the piano boring, but was drawn towards composition. His parents encouraged him to audition for the BMI Musical Theatre Workshop, and Menken found himself right at home in the world of musical theatre.
According to Menken himself, his early career was as frenetic as one might expect of a young freelance musician in New York City. He “worked as a ballet and modern dance accompanist, a musical director for club acts, a jingle writer, arranger, a songwriter for Sesame Street, and a vocal coach”. His breakthrough came when he worked with playwright Howard Ashman in a musical, God Bless You Mr. Rosewater, in 1979 and followed that up with Little Shop of Horrors in 1982 – which broke box office records. This brought Menken and Ashman to the attention of Walt Disney Studios, and they were engaged to write the music and lyrics for The Little Mermaid soon after.
While their target audiences were rather different, Menken said he always thought of The Little Mermaid as the follow-up to Little Shop of Horrors, and that they “wrote Little Mermaid for exactly as adult an audience as Little Shop”. The stunning success of Mermaid resulted in the duo being engaged for Beauty and the Beast.
Howard Ashman was very influential in the creative direction for Beauty and the Beast, and was likened by some to be “something of a shadow director”. He came up with the idea of having the Beast’s servants turned into anthropomorphic household objects, injecting levity into what started out as a two-person story that seemed too serious for an animated film. Belle’s father and Gaston were also invented to flesh out the story.
While the duo’s creative output seemed to be on a clear upward trajectory, their personal life was unfortunately much more turbulent. While Menken and Ashman were working on Beauty and the Beast, Ashman was struggling physically and emotionally with his AIDS diagnosis, which he had kept secret for years. Ashman eventually confided in Menken, who later poignantly stated that the score for Beauty and the Beast “is forever tinged with the idea of undying love and the movie was deepened by the personal drama that was being played out behind the scenes”.
The beauty and fervour of Menken and Ashman’s music propelled Beauty and the Beast to win multiple awards, including two Oscars for Best Original Score and Best Original Song, and was listed in the American Film Institute’s list of 25 greatest movie musicals.
Their legacy endures today. Kristen Anderson-Lopez, co-composer of Frozen shared, “there’s absolutely not a single composer writing today who doesn’t think about Little Mermaid or Beauty and the Beast every time they sit down to write a song… We’re just playing on a playground that Menken and Ashman built.”
Alan Menken’s score for Beauty and the Beast features an eclectic combination of classical, operatic, and musical theatre influences.
Keen listeners might pick up on some immediate similarities — the shimmering Prologue is informed by Saint-Saëns’ Aquarium; Belle (the classic ‘I Want’ song) takes inspiration from Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony; the tune of Be Our Guest recalls a theme from Mahler’s Third Symphony; and Gaston showcases the wittiest operetta tropes with its word-play and rhymes.
But on a deeper level, Menken draws on opera and Broadway’s usage of themes to tell a story. There are clear musical themes that are introduced and reprised at key moments in the story. The two major themes performed by the orchestra are for the ‘Curse’ and for the ‘Beast’, both introduced in the Prologue. Themes for Belle, Gaston, and the household objects are introduced in their respective feature songs, and the title song, Beauty and the Beast is also utilised as a love theme. These themes recur and transform as the story and characters develop.
Menken explained these deliberate decisions, “it’s a classic fairy-tale story, so there were certain elements that came with [the project]. We had to start with a sense of Operetta, and an [homage to] French musicals for the very Maurice Chevalier-influenced character of Lumière.
And it was a real return to the very classically-based Disney animated film… it really reached full flowering in Beauty and the Beast.”
Menken’s compositional prowess is especially apparent in the last act of the film, after the Beast lets Belle return home. By reprising and mixing themes and styles, he enhances the moods and narrative tensions. In the climactic battle at the castle, the comedic scenes are accompanied by the whimsical Be Our Guest. But as we cut to the serious battle between Gaston and the Beast, the music darkens accordingly, with the different characters’ themes clashing.
The musical and dramatic tension continues to build as the soaring and passionate Transformation begins. The orchestra recalls a line from Belle’s own song — “Here’s where she meets Prince Charming…” — before the Prologue returns, now triumphant and mixed with Beauty and the Beast, symbolising the breaking of the curse. This deliberate weaving of story and score can be found throughout the film.
The songs of Beauty and the Beast have rightfully become classics, and are frequently sung at diverse settings from the concert hall to karaoke parties. The enduring popularity of the score and film is a testament to Menken and Ashman’s mastery of storytelling through music.
Programme notes by Christopher Cheong
MUSIC DIRECTOR
Chan Tze Law
ASSOCIATE CONDUCTOR
Seow Yibin
VIOLINS
Wilford Goh, Concertmaster
Kimberlyn Wu, Principal Second Violin
Yvonne Lee, Associate Principal
Ang Dun Jie
Lucas Bee
Chanz Boo
Nicole Chan
Chan Ning
Chloe Chee
Jacob Cheng
Kayler Chu
Chui Yingqi
Chloe Goh
Nathanael Goh
Goh Ying Xiang
Esther Lam
Jaslyn Lee
Lieu May Yen
Ariel Lim
Loi Si Xian
Estee Ng
Alicia Jeanelly Pasa Nugroho
Poh Jer Lin
Natalie Tan
Rayner Tan
Josiah Teo
Gary Teoh
Xu Hongyun
Natalie Yee
VIOLA
May Loh, Principal
Shannon Chan
Joan Fun
Gao Wei
Skyler Goh
Lam Hoyan
Lee Su Lynn
Jayson Loo
Nathalie Nguyen
Jonan Tan
Oliver Tan
Samuel Tan
Toh Xue Qian
James Ng, Principal
Trinh Ha Linh, Associate Principal
Joy Chen
Lavinia Chu
Sharon Ham
Koh Liong Tiek
Charis Low
Edward Neo
Jasmine Sim
Isaac Tah
Stacy Tah
BASS
Julian Li, Principal
Hyoseok Lee
Lee Mian Jun
Alvin Liew
Alwyn Loy
Pan Jiaying
Kevin Seah
FLUTE
Cheryl Lim, Principal
Alvin Chan
Kelsey Tan
OBOE
Seow Yibin, Principal
Tay Kai Tze
ENGLISH HORN
Tay Kai Tze
CLARINET
Benjamin Wong, Principal
Miao Kaiwen
Daniel Yiau
BASS CLARINET
Daniel Yiau
E-FLAT CLARINET
Miao Kaiwen
BASSOON
Shi Jia Ao
Kee Ruihan
CONTRABASSOON
Kee Ruihan
HORN
Xavier Tan, Principal
Bryan Chong
Harsharon Kaur
Chloe Lau
Nigel Leong
Ong Hwee Ling
TRUMPET
Lau Wen Rong, Principal
Lee Jinjun
David Marley
TROMBONE
Don Kow, Principal
Hendrik Kwek
BASS TROMBONE
Aldwyn Tan
TUBA
Shawn Yap
HARP
Charity Kiew, Principal
KEYBOARDS
Jane Foo
Clarence Lee
GUITAR
Daniel Chai
BASS GUITAR
Lee Mian Jun
TIMPANI
Yuru Lee, Principal
PERCUSSION
Thaddeus Chung, Principal
Lim Rei, Associate Principal
Gordon Tan
Keyon Toh
DRUM KIT
Brenson Yam
CHORUS MASTER
Chong Wai Lun
REHEARSAL PIANIST
Sharon Ham
SOPRANO
Cornelia Wong
Dione Gabrielle Au
Estelle Ng
Evelyn Mondala
Gwendolyn Wong
Ho CinQin
Jessica Leong
Katelyn Fink
Kumiko Ishii
Lim Seh Li
Low Ai Ling
Lyane Heng
Nicole Lee Kah Hui
Sureeporn Ho
Tan Shiao Yeh
Thilaiga Ramakrishnan
Yu Wanling
VOS Board of Directors
Catherine Tan, Chairperson
Christopher Cheong
Kit Ho
Tan Shook Wah
ALTO
Agnes Tjandra
Andrea Tan
Carene Choy
Corliss Tay
Dian Marissa
Dorcas Low
Germaine Leong
Jasmine Lam
Jessy Ng
Jewelle Woo
Linda Heng
Pamela Phua
Shruthi Jessica
Tara Teo
Tay Hwee Ling
Yee Mun Ooi
Yeoh Jeok Eng
TENOR
Clifford Au Yong
Derrick Kam
Edward Koh
Enoch Chong
Gerald Paul Tan
Jeremy Joel Tan
Nick Walker
Pauli Haakenson
Quek Chiow Lin Charlie
Shane Seah
Wesley Wu
BASS
Andrew McDonnell
Chong Wai Lun
Elliot Koh
Joel Lee
Johannes Tan
Louis Cheok
Matthew Ng
Nicholas Goh
See Thong Hwee
Yen Phang
Yohan Tupili
VOS Team
Darius Lim, CEO and Artistic Director
Mervyn Ye, General Manager
Gabriel Ching, Manager (Projects and Venues)
Dione Gabrielle Au, Manager (Choral Programmes)
Serene See, Design Manager
Roe Curie, Marketing Manager
Lim Jing Xiuan, Senior Artistic Coordinator
Justin Goh, Artistic Coordinator
Daniel Goh, Artistic Coordinator
Tay Hwee Ling, Assistant Manager (Communities)
Ho Ching Yee, Assistant Manager (Choral Programmes)
Stephanie Boon, Assistant Manager (Choral Programmes)
Jane Kwa, Senior Executive (Development & Partnerships)
Eve Tan, Executive (Projects and Venues)
Sharham Sridhar, Executive (Projects and Venues)
Fatin Humaira Binte Mohd Ashik, Executive (Marketing and Communities)
Rachel Wang, Executive (Choral Programmes)
Joyce Tay, Finance Executive
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