VCH Excite! The Best Day with Loco Motive Trio

3 March 2019 Victoria Concert Hall

PROGRAMME Mark O’Connor & Edgar Meyer Emily’s Reel Old Country Fairytale Stéphane Grappelli (arr. Sébastien Walnier) Les Valseuses Mark O’Connor & Edgar Meyer Poem for Carlita Mark O’Connor Limerock Mark O’Connor & Edgar Meyer Caprice for Three David Balakrishnan Skylife Mark O’Connor & Edgar Meyer Appalachia Waltz Mark Summer Julie-O Edgar Meyer Duo for Violin and Double Bass Mark O’Connor & Edgar Meyer FC’s Jig John Newton (arr. Kam Ning) Amazing Grace (trans.) Mark O’Connor & Edgar Meyer Chief Sitting in the Rain – College Hornpipe

LOCO MOTIVE TRIO

The Loco Motive Trio was formed in 2015 by collaborative musicians and good friends, Ning Kam, SĂŠbastien Walnier and Lisa De Boos. Through their performing together in classical music settings, these three locos realised that their musical interests ventured far beyond traditional classical music. Even with their own individual busy careers as accomplished musicians, they had to face the inevitable and so, a trio of adventurous proportions was born.

Beginning at the folk level with bluegrass and all things to do with fiddling, Loco Motive Trio is a group that brings its listeners on musical adventures incorporating funk, rock and jazz and perhaps some rather yet unnameable musical expressions.

Since making their debut at the D'Ieteren Gallery in Brussels in 2016, Loco Motive has performed in the United Music of Brussels series as well as at the MidisMinimes and at Zomer Van Sint Pieter Festivals in Belgium.

Why perform this style of music?

“Improvisation. The very word makes some hearts leap with delight and others, paralysed with terror. Why? Because we are classical musicians, for goodness sake!

I first encountered the wonders of improvisation in the delicious recordings of legendary violinist, Stéphane Grappelli while I was a student at the Menuhin School back in the late 80s. The only reason I ever heard of him was because he collaborated with my hero, Yehudi Menuhin, not because I had any particular love for jazz at the time.

I still remember the sensation in my stomach on one particular occasion watching and listening to Grappelli play on TV, a sensation that I can only describe as being as if someone was somehow rearranging the molecules in my body with the way they 'spoke' with their instrument.

Now, fast forward nearly three decades and suddenly I find myself fortunate friends with two individuals named Sébastien Walnier and Lisa de Boos, both musicians who, while successful in their own classical music circles of solo, chamber music and orchestra, were, and rather quietly, avid fans of bluegrass and jazz.

Meanwhile, I had developed a love for bluegrass and jazz myself while listening to more recordings of Grappelli and also America's one and only fiddler, Mark O'Connor. O'Connor famously collaborated with Yo-Yo Ma and Edgar Meyer, two musicians who perhaps up till then, were more known for their Bach and Tchaikovsky than for anything remotely off the beaten path.

I have to admit that bluegrass is hard to resist. It is full of joy, purity, it is literally a 'what's-not-to-love'! The only hurdle I had to leap over: improvisation. You can imagine, I'm sure, that someone who has spent their entire life trying to follow every dot and dash on a page and who has had countless discussions on what period articulation means in Mozart and Bach, can feel at a total loss when called upon to use her skills to create ON THE SPOT, something that she's never cooked up before in a style that she never grew up with. Actually, 'total loss' is an understatement. Terror, that's the word. What will people think? What if I embarrass myself in public?

What if? Well, thanks be to God, and my friends in my trio, I was encouraged to make The Leap. And what a leap! I may have sunk a few times at the beginning but you know what?

NO RISK, NO FUN!!! LET'S GO!!”

Kam Ning Hailed by violin legend Yehudi Menuhin as a musician of "brilliance and intelligence", award-winning Singaporean violinist Kam Ning has built a distinguished international career as soloist, chamber musician, orchestra director and juror. An NAC Young Artist Award recipient, she was last seen here as concerto soloist at the 2018 SSO National Day Concert.

COMING UP AT THE VICTORIA CONCERT HALL

1 Apr | FREE! NO ORCHESTRA? NO PROBLEM

6 Apr MY MUSE • RANI SINGAM

20 May | FREE! IF WITH ALL YOUR HEARTS

5 Jun ANNE SOFIE & BROOKLYN RIDER