Marking its Silver Jubilee with a concert this year is the Audio Image Wind Ensemble (AIWE), whom with four other original community centre bands, will celebrate 25 years of music-making.
“The wind band community will see all of us in full force at each of our concert to celebrate this special year,” said Clarence Tan, AIWE’s resident conductor.
Their upcoming “The Art of Wind Ensemble” concert series features Larry Daehn’s arrangement of Bach’s ‘Chaconne from Partita No. 2 in D minor’, Arthur Sullivan’s ‘Pineapple Poll Suite’, arranged by Charles Mackerras, and Japanese composer Toshio Mashima’s ‘Les Trois Notes du Japon’.
With AIWE’s long term goal in supporting Singaporean composers to write for wind band, they will be premiering ‘Four Canvases of Soo Pieng’ by Bernard Lee Kah Hong. The musical caricature is based on Singaporean artist Cheong Soo Pieng’s late painting works, which includes the Drying Salted Fish that is in the from of the fifty dollar note.
“The band will continue to create new outreach programmes to bring music to the community and we welcome suggestions to enrich our community from our audience,” Clarence said.
Specially chosen for this milestone concert is Stravinsky’s ‘The Rite of Spring’, transcribed by Merlin Patterson. The work is not only a testament of the band’s growth in the past 25 years, but also for more challenging programmes that will broaden and enrich both its members and audience alike.
“The past 25 years has not been a smooth journey and we could not have made it this far without the following persons: Lawrence Tan and Adrian Tan for their music direction in the band’s formative years; Kelvin Chua for supporting the band when the band needed him most; past Chairman, the late Dr. Soo Kian Hing for his guidance leading the band through many adversities we faced; current Chairman Ang Qianhui for being the most amazing and resilient person the band has ever groomed; the current committee for putting this project together; and most importantly, Terrence Wong, Samuel Lee and Mohammad Rasull for stepping up as directors when I was away.”
“Lastly, we will want to express our thanks and deep gratitude to Siglap South Community Centre and her staff for their generosity, without which, AI would never been successful.”
The Art of Wind Ensemble 2017: “Celebrating Our Silver Jubilee!”
6 August, Sunday)
Singapore Cultural Centre Auditorium, 5pm
Tickets: $12 (Free Seating)
Tickets available from http://aowe2017.peatix.com
A contributing editor at TBP.