| ENTRIES; EXITS; ARCHIVES; PROFILE | made by grace | ||
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Saturday, October 22, 2005  21 October 2005, Friday, 2:00 PM Esplanade Recital Studio The Yong Siew Toh Conservatory presents a masterclass by the T'ang Quartet, the Conservatory's Quartet-in-Residence. The Conservatory's piano and string quartets will perform an exciting selection of chamber works by Haydn, Mozart, Dvorak and more. "Ans-wer the telephone!" The audience laughed at the T'ang Quartet's lyrical interpretation of a section of music. As the mood of that particular section was supposed to be "angry" and "urgent", the Quartet urged the student performers to inject more urgency, likening it to rushing to answer the telephone. The Recital Studio was only half-filled, and my classmates who had joined me were a bit more than half-satisfied. We had undermined the fact that this was a masterclass, so it was the students, not the T'ang Quartet, who were the performers. Nevertheless, as the Quartet put forth right before the masterclass began, the Conservatory students had grown to be of a much higher musical performance standard, despite being only first-year (three months in fact!) students. Professionalism was apparent in the way the students carried themselves all through the performance and in their musical techniques. Still, the event being a masterclass, even the best performers were critiqued by the T'ang Quartet, in areas ranging from dynamics, articulation, balance and even seating. The Quartet's criticism was harsh but necessary in order to raise the potential of the students even higher. One of the points that was constantly reiterated through the whole masterclass was that the performers had to connect and keep in touch with the piece they were playing, in order to convey the moods/emotions of the piece to the audience through their understanding of it. Personally, I felt this was applicable to me - that especially in classical pieces, I should not get too caught up with the notes but also take some time to ponder over what the music is trying to imply or describe. The masterclass overshot its estimated duration to at least two hours, but the time spent there was certainly a worthwhile experience in music appreciation for me.
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