VCH Organ Series: In Every Corner Sing

81 April April2018 2018 Victoria Concert HallHall 4pm I Victoria Concert

Margaret Chen, organ Joel Navarro, conductor Singapore Bible College Community Choir, Canticorum Eudenice Palaruan, baritone* Mikey Robinson, boy soprano^ Katryna Tan, harp^ Lim Meng Keh, percussion^

Leonard Bernstein Chichester Psalms 19’00 ^ 1. Psalm 108, vs 2. Psalm 100, entire 2. Psalm 23, entire. Psalm 2, vs 1 – 4 3. Psalm 131, entire. Psalm 133, vs 1

Ralph Vaughan Williams Five Mystical Songs 20’00 * 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Easter I Got Me Flowers Love Bade Me Welcome The Call Antiphon

To learn more about the Klais organ, visit www.sso.org.sg/klais-organ

Margaret Chen organ Margaret Chen is an organist, an organ consultant and a lecturer in Music History and Liturgy. She received her training at Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, where she earned a bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree and a Doctor of Music degree, all with highest distinction. At Indiana, she held the John Edwards Fellowship, which is awarded to the most outstanding doctoral student every year.

Chen has played in many concert halls and churches in Asia, the US and Europe. In the past few years, she has performed in Suntory Hall, Tokyo; Wuhan Qintai Concert Hall, China; Cologne Cathedral, Germany; Overture Center, Madison, WI; and many others. She was organ consultant for the Victoria Concert Hall, The Esplanade Concert Hall, Singapore; Dewan Filharmonik Petronas, Kuala Lumpur; The Recital Hall of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, China; Qintai Concert Hall, Wuhan, China; and the Overture Center in Madison, WI, USA. As a concert organist, she has performed in organ concertos and symphonies under the baton of Sergiu Commissiona, Okko Kamu, Leon Gregorian, Marius Janowski, Muhai Tang, Jajha Ling, Lan Shui and many others. She has also done continuo work for Robert Shaw, Jan Harrington and Donald Chen.

After 13 years of living in Hong Kong, Chicago and Tokyo, Chen has returned to Singapore. She is elated to be back at the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, playing the organ, presenting pre-concert talks, writing programme notes and curating the organ series for the Victoria Concert Hall.

Joel Navarro conductor Dr. Joel Navarro, Lecturer and Professor of Music at the School of Church Music of Singapore Bible College (SBC), is a recipient of numerous academic and performance awards. He is an internationally recognised Filipino-American conductor, music educator, composer, singer, arranger, choral clinician, writer, producer, music minister and book editor.

One of the Philippines’ most esteemed choral conductors, he is a beloved mentor to tens of faithful church musicians and highly successful choral conductors who have led their own church, community, and university choirs to top prizes in international choral competition. A self-published composer, he has written for GIA Publications, Adoro Music Publishing and Musica Manila. He is often invited to give choral workshops and lectures in various choral communities and organisations in Southeast Asia and the United States. He obtained his doctorate in conducting at Michigan State University, studying with Charles Smith, Jonathan Reed and David Rayl. Prior to SBC, he taught at the University of the Philippines and at Calvin College (Michigan) where he was a tenured full professor and the recipient of the 2014 From Every Nation Award for Excellence in Teaching.

Singapore Bible College Community Choir, Canticorum Noting the impact of Singapore Bible College Chorale’s community concerts to the congregational needs of the church, the School of Church Music decided to expand the Chorale’s student membership core to include auditioned College alumni, faculty and staff, and choristers of the Singaporean evangelical church community. Canticorum (“songs” in Latin) has been this notable community choir for two years, whose mission is to integrate performance artistry, congregational worship and witness, corporate prayer, and community spirit. Through robust collaborations with renowned instrumentalists, theologians, scholars, visual artists and dancers, the choir has since crafted contextualised hymn festivals, psalm festivals, services for church seasons and traditional sacred music concerts. Much of their designed services has been replicated in other parts of Asia. The choir holds only two main presentations every concert season, performing music from early chant, motets, cantatas, the great choral-orchestral masterworks, anthems and spirituals, contemporary congregational song and global hymnody.

SOPRANO 1 Esther Loh Imlisenla Imsong Isabel Voo Gyet Yee Jessy Oskar Kalino V. Kinimi Lay See Yeo Mila Pinidia Sari Namjoo Lee Serene Loi Cheng Keng Shaodan Sylvia Chen Song Hua Tan Li Szu

ALTO 1 Alicia W. Khunius Audrie Goh Catherine Cheng Chong Wei Ci Christine Yuan Ivy Embalzado K. H. Esther Wong Laura Yan Lesley Weiss Marian Quek Ng Beng Choo Pauline Ang Sandra Wang

TENOR 1 Eudenice Palaruan Jared Mongcal Kristy Man Lee Benjamin Long Jizhong, Enoch Sheila Ong

SOPRANO 2 Avoni Odyuo Cheryl Chan Cheryl Chen Yi Faith Leo Kee Yean Frances Chua Linda Fang Ong Pak Mui Susana Ling Tee Chuu Ying Violetta E. Siahaan Win Moe Aye Esther Wong Kae Chee

ALTO 2 Adeline Heng Chan May San Chew Geok Eng Dorothy Chew Evelyn Houng Giselle Po Hillary Goh Jennifer Joy Goh Jintao Feng Kevichüno Suokhrie Lee Tzu Min Lynda Yap Yew Wai See

BASS 1 James Chan Joshua C. Nathanael Sila Sethsophonkul Tan Jun Liang Tay Kay Han Tran Thanh Duc Tin

TENOR 2 Alex Sreedharan Chui Kuk Sun, Sunny Lee Yee Fhei Lim Song Kee, Benjamin Yan Yim Tong

BASS 2 Hadi Salim Liew Cheng San Mhathung Odyuo Moses Lee Salai Blessing Timai Oo Saw Sar Blut Hsoe Vimezo Iralu Vincent Chiu

Mikey Robinson boy soprano

Eudenice Palaruan baritone Eudenice Palaruan studied at the UP College of Music majoring in composition under Ramon Santos (National Artist for Music) and choral conducting under Joel Navarro.

After finishing his Bachelor’s Degree in the Philippines he took on a four-year study in choral conducting at the Berliner Kirchenmusikschule, Germany under Martin Behrmann.

He has performed with leading choirs such as the Philippine Madrigal Singers, the Ateneo de Manila College Glee Club, and as a soloist of the World Youth Choir batch 1992. He was also involved in early music performance practice with the Berlin Monteverdichor as a countertenor. For the past seven years he was the Resident Conductor of the International Bamboo Organ Festival where he performed early European choral music and Latin American Baroque choral music. As a composer and arranger Palaruan introduced choral works that exhibit the indigenous Filipino sound. With his active involvement in the choralization of Philippine and other Asian indigenous music he has premiered new Asian choral works and is often invited to give lectures on non-Western vocal aesthetics and choral arranging in the Asian context.

He is currently an Associate Professor at the School of Church Music in Singapore Bible College and the new Choral Director of the Singapore Symphony Chorus.

Mikey Robinson is a 13 year-old classically trained boy soprano.

Robinson began taking singing lessons when he was 4 years old and with serious study in classical vocal performance when he was 10. Since then, he has trained once or twice a week with a vocal teacher and stage performance coach from the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music and School of the Arts Singapore (SOTA).

Robinson has performed at various concert halls in Singapore, Japan and the USA including two solo performances in 2016 and 2017 at The Carnegie Hall, Stern Auditorium in New York. He has been actively performing for charity in Singapore including Equal-Ark Singapore, Breast Cancer Foundation Gala Dinner, Singapore Cancer Centre Annual Charity Concert, Orchard Road - Christmas Light Up 2017 and ChildAid 2017. He has also performed in Japan to benefit victims of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

In June 2017, Robinson released his debut classical solo album Boy Soprano, which topped iTunes Singapore’s classical charts.

Katryna Tan harp Katryna Tan is one of the leading Asian harpists in the region. A Master’s graduate from the University of Michigan, Tan is a recipient of the prestigious Young Artist Award 2005 by the National Arts Council of Singapore. She was also awarded the prestigious “Setiawan Tuanku Muhriz” (STM) title by the Ruler of Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia (2011).

An active solo performer and chamber musician, Tan has performed several recitals internationally in Asia, Europe and the US. She also advocates new works on the harp and is a keen supporter of Asian and contemporary works.

Tan is adjunct harp faculty in Singapore’s School of the Arts (SOTA), Artistic Director of Rave Harps Academy (Singapore) and Harp Director to Cempaka Schools in Malaysia and Penang Harp Academy (Malaysia). Since 2006, she has been Artistic Director of the Singapore Harp Festival for five seasons.

Internationally Tan has been invited to be a Visiting Professor in music institutions in Australia, China and Indonesia.

A creative artist, Tan produced two harp musicals – “PLUCK – The Harp Musical” – premiered in November 2012, and “Pluck and the Magical Banyan Tree”, performed in 2015 and internationally in Hong Kong (2017).

Katryna Tan’s collection of albums include Water Dance, Harp On, Moments, A Little Light Music and most recently I-Sis Trio: Passion and La Noche. Tan also published a book “Unleash the Musician in You” sharing her teaching thoughts with music students.

Lim Meng Keh percussion Lim Meng Keh studied Timpani/Percussion and graduated from Victorian College of Arts in Melbourne under the Singapore Public Service Commission Scholarship in 1984. He was awarded the Bill Hyde Percussion Prize and has been with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra (SSO) since.

As a soloist, he has performed with the SSO and the Singapore Armed Forces Central Band, and with the Singapore Lyric Opera Orchestra as Principal Timpanist. He has played and premiered works by Singapore composers in the New Music Forum and with the Singapore Dance Theatre, as well as in SSO Organ recitals.

As an educator, Lim has conducted school workshops, percussion presentations in the SSO Music Experience series, teaching students with special needs, and was invited to the percussion faculty for the South East Asian Youth Orchestra/Wind Ensemble Camp in Thailand.

He lectures at the National Institute of Education and is percussion tutor for the Singapore National Youth Orchestra. Lim directs the latter’s Percussion Ensemble, as well as the Dunman Secondary School Band which won a Distinction at the Singapore Youth Festival.

Leonard Bernstein Chichester Psalms

(1918 – 1990)

19’00

(Text from the Hebrew Bible)

We celebrate, this afternoon, the centennial of Leonard Bernstein’s birth on 25 August 1918.

The Chichester Psalms were commissioned for the 1965 Southern Cathedrals Festival by Dean Hussey, a great patron of the arts, who wrote in his letter to Bernstein that “many of us would be very delighted if there was a hint of West Side Story about the music”.

The work opens with a cacophonous exhortation to arise and praise the Lord. The dance that follows is jazzy, giddy and ecstatic. Bernstein follows the Psalmist’s advice to make a joyful noise and exuberantly enter into the Lord’s courts with boisterous thanksgiving.

In the second movement, the young shepherd king sings his most famous psalm accompanied by a harp. Juxtaposed against this is the text first suggested by Dean Hussey, “Why do the nations rage?” And so the men rage, hissing and spitting, imagining vain things. The women bring back the serene, opening melody but the movement ends with faint memories of the angry, turbulent, searing rage.

The final movement recalls passages from the first and then launches into a warm, rocking, comforting melody in 10/4 time. This is probably the closest Chichester Psalms comes to the love songs of West Side Story. The work closes with an acapella setting of Psalm 133, “how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity”.

Of the premier, Bernstein wrote, (with a nod to Chaucer), ‘In July, to Chichester, en famille, to hear My Psalms in the place for which they were written. Smitten...

In Chichester I heard angels sing.’

Part I Psalm 108, verse 2 Urah, hanevel, v’chinor!

A-irah shaḥar!

Awake, psaltery and harp!

I will rouse the dawn!

Psalm 100 Hariu l’Adonai kol haarets.

Iv’du et Adonai b’simḥa.

Bo-u l’fanav bir’nanah.

D’u ki Adonai Hu Elohim.

Hu asanu, v’lo anaḥnu.

Amo v’tson mar’ito.

Bo-u sh’arav b’todah, Hatseirotav bit’hilah, Hodu lo, bar’chu sh’mo.

Ki tov Adonai, l’olam ḥas’do, V’ad dor vador emunato.

Make a joyful noise unto the Lord all ye lands.

Serve the Lord with gladness.

Come before His presence with singing.

Know ye that the Lord, He is God. It is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves.

We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.

Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, And into His courts with praise.

Be thankful unto Him, and bless His name.

For the Lord is good, His mercy is everlasting, And His truth endureth to all generations.

Part II Psalm 23 Adonai ro-i, lo eḥsar.

Bin’ot deshe yarbitseini, Al mei m’nuḥot y’naḥaleini, Naf’shi y’shovev, Yan’ḥeini b’ma’aglei tsedek, L’ma’an sh’mo.

Gam ki eilech B’gei tsalmavet, Lo ira ra, Ki Atah imadi.

Shiv’t’cha umishan’techa Hemah y’naḥamuni.

Ta’aroch l’fanai shulchan Neged tsor’rai Dishanta vashemen roshi Cosi r’vayah.

Ach tov vaḥesed Yird’funi kol y’mei ḥayai V’shav’ti b’veit Adonai L’orech yamim.

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, He leadeth me beside the still waters, He restoreth my soul, He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness, For His name's sake.

Yea, though I walk Through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, For Thou art with me.

Thy rod and Thy staff They comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me In the presence of mine enemies, Thou anointest my head with oil, My cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy Shall follow me all the days of my life, And I will dwell in the house of the Lord Forever.

Psalm 2, verses 1-4 Lamah rag’shu goyim Ul’umim yeh’gu rik?

Yit’yats’vu malchei erets, V’roznim nos’du yaḥad Al Adonai v’al m’shiḥo.

N’natkah et mos’roteimo, V’nashlichah mimenu avoteimo.

Yoshev bashamayim Yis’ḥak, Adonai Yil’ag lamo!

Why do the nations rage, And the people imagine a vain thing?

The kings of the earth set themselves, And the rulers take counsel together Against the Lord and against His anointed.

Saying, let us break their bands asunder, And cast away their cords from us.

He that sitteth in the heavens Shall laugh, and the Lord Shall have them in derision!

Part III Psalm 131 Adonai, Adonai, Lo gavah libi, V’lo ramu einai, V’lo hilachti Big’dolot uv’niflaot Mimeni.

Im lo shiviti V’domam’ti, Naf’shi k’gamul alei imo, Kagamul alai naf’shi.

Yaḥel Yis’rael el Adonai Me’atah v’ad olam.

Lord, Lord, My heart is not haughty, Nor mine eyes lofty, Neither do I exercise myself In great matters or in things Too wonderful for me.

Surely I have calmed And quieted myself, As a child that is weaned of his mother, My soul is even as a weaned child.

Let Israel hope in the Lord From henceforth and forever.

Psalm 133, verse 1 Hineh mah tov, Umah naim, Shevet aḥim Gam yaḥad.

Behold how good, And how pleasant it is, For brethren to dwell Together in unity.

Ralph Vaughan Williams Five Mystical Songs

(1872 – 1958)

20’00

(Poems by George Herbert)

The Five Mystical Songs sets four poems (“Easter” divided into two parts) by the Anglican priest, poet and statesman, George Herbert (1593-1633) from his 1633 collection The Temple: Sacred Poems to music by Ralph Vaughan Williams.

In the first song, the Singer bids our hearts to rise, just as the Lord is risen. The musical imagery is fabulously rich; the Singer asks, ‘What key is best to celebrate this most high day?’

In the second, the Singer, with flowers in his arms, is thrust into the garden, in the company of the women bearing oils and spices to anoint a body that is no longer there. The choir affirms at the end ‘There is but one and that one ever’.

The third song is the most intimate. Love is personified by the risen Christ. Love invites, cajoles and persuades the reluctant and self-deprecating guest to the feast. As the guest reluctantly accepts the invitation, Love personally serves up the feast. Then, at the very end, like light piercing through a cloud of mystery and all things visible and invisible, the Choir hums the ancient chant, ‘O sacred feast’. And Love becomes the feast.

“The Call” is probably the most succinct of the poems. Every single word is monosyllabic. Our response to Christ’s call is clear, direct and unequivocal.

The work ends with an affirmative and joyous, ‘Let all the world in every corner sing, my God and King’.

On the Sunday before his death, as George Herbert lay dying of tuberculosis, he suddenly got up from his bed, took one of his musical instruments and said, ‘My God, my God, My musick shall find thee, And every string Shall have his attribute to sing.’

No. 1 Easter Rise heart; thy Lord is risen. Sing his praise Without delays, Who takes thee by the hand, that thou likewise With him may’st rise; That, as his death calcined thee to dust, His life may make thee gold, and much more, Just.

Awake, my lute, and struggle for thy part With all thy art.

The cross taught all wood to resound his name Who bore the same.

His stretched sinews taught all strings, what key Is best to celebrate this most high day.

Consort both heart and lute, and twist a song Pleasant and long: Or since all music is but three parts vied, And multiplied; O let thy blessed Spirit bear a part, And make up our defects with his sweet art.

No. 2 I Got Me F lowers I got me flowers to strew thy way; I got me boughs off many a tree: But thou wast up by break of day, And brought’st thy sweets along with thee.

The Sun arising in the East, Though he give light, and the East perfume; If they should offer to contest With thy arising, they presume.

Can there be any day but this, Though many suns to shine endeavour?

We count three hundred, but we miss: There is but one, and that one ever.

No. 3 Love Bade Me Welcome Love bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back, Guilty of dust and sin.

But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack From my first entrance in, Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning, If I lack’d any thing.

“A guest”, I answer’d, “worthy to be here:” Love said, “You shall be he.”

“I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear, I cannot look on thee.”

Love took my hand, and smiling did reply, “Who made the eyes but I?”

“Truth, Lord, but I have marr’d them: let my shame Go where it doth deserve.”

“And know you not,” says Love, “who bore the blame?”

“My dear, then I will serve.”

“You must sit down,” says Love, “and taste my meat:” So I did sit and eat.

No. 4 The Call Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life: Such a Way, as gives us breath: Such a Truth, as ends all strife: Such a Life, as killeth death.

Come, My Light, my Feast, my Strength: Such a Light, as shows a feast: Such a Feast, as mends in length: Such a Strength, as makes his guest.

Come, my Joy, my Love, my Heart: Such a Joy, as none can move: Such a Love, as none can part: Such a Heart, as joys in love.

No. 5 Antiphon Let all the world in every corner sing, My God and King!

The heavens are not too high, His praise may thither fly: The earth is not too low, His praises there may grow.

Let all the world in every corner sing, My God and King!

The Church with Psalms must shout, No door can keep them out: But above all, the heart Must bear the longest part.

Let all the world in every corner sing, My God and King!

Programme notes by Margaret Chen and Isaac Lee

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