PEOPLE-2

At the Penang Pesta
 


Feng Shao Xian

Home  Book Review  Comment  Concerns  Concordance  Heritage   News  People   Page 11 


    Yueqin


    Sanxian


    Banhu

On the rare occasion that the great Man Singh performed in KL she abruptly stopped her dance to admonish the rudely intruding KL cameramen. The words were memorable and delivered with a devastating smile:  "Excuse me gentlemen, you have not asked for my permission to take photographs. Until you have done that I wished you would not take any pictures"

However, the organisers of the Penang Arts Festival YTL generously allowed the photographers, professional and amateur, to roam at will, their flashing lights a nuisance during the concerts by Feng Shao Xian and the Okestra Huayue Negri Pulau Pinang

It is also a pity also that the organisers allowed speeches to be made both on both nights. The line should be firmly drawn between a festival performance and a pompous  inaugural ceremony: 

Mr Feng proved to be a master of Yueqin (lute) , Sanxian (Three stringed lute), Banhu (Two string fiddle) as well as Paigu (medium sized barrel drums) as well as a consummate actor. His performance of the Abacus song brought the house down

The evening of Northern Airs, music composed on the themes of folk song from the Man and other minorities of the Heilungchiang region of China was well presented by conductor Lim Soon Oo and the 3 year old orchestra which considering it is composed of students from several schools played extraordinarily well

In true Penang style the men's lavatory was closed; a cardboard sign said ROSAK. The ladies lavatory was without water. A queue quickly formed at the WC on the other side of Dewan Sri Pinang but the ladies lavatory was in darkness. 
 

  Paigu

 


Jinho Kim The young Korean pianist Jinho Kim chose No 5 in A flat major Op. 42 to start his polished playing of the 14 waltzes of Chopin. This was followed by the piano concerto No 1 by Tchaikovsky which enabled Kim to display his formidable powers.. The Penang Symphony Orchestra conducted by Woon Wen Kim valiantly kept up with the piano. Except for the 2nd movement where the rhythms gave them some difficulty the young players performed astonishingly well. The contrast between them and their predecessors in the same concerto in 1989 with Loke Tuck Kay, the second prize winner in the Rolex Festival, shows what immense strides forward music education has since taken. 

The waltzes were not only spoilt by the poor state of the piano but also by late comers who were allowed in and unashamedly pushed their way to their preferred seats. Cameras flashed, children grumbled and fidgeted or ran about. During the pause between the first and second movements of the concerto the pianist was visibly upset by a howling babe in arms in the second row. But foreigners must be forgiven for not being used to the rustic informality of Penangites at leisure. Jinho Kim might take some comfort from the attendance, a nearly full house

During the interval the crowd found the men's lavatory locked, still ROSAK 3 days after the Feng concert


Sam Pek Eng Tai The Bangsawan Sam Pek Eng Tai or the Butterfly Lovers was creditably produced and performed by a multi-racial group at the Dewan. This favourite of the Shaoxing opera about eternal love was performed in Penang  by Wayang Kassim as far back as 1909 according to the research of associate professor Tan Sooi Beng. The performance demonstrates that bangsawan can appeal to modern theatre goers; Sam Pek Eng Tai played to a nearly full house. With really good jokes and perhaps a song or two the second attempt will no doubt play to a packed Dewan. 

Back to Article