Symphony of Voices, A Legato Legacy, 2025

Set in the wonderfully historic Victoria Concert Hall, framed by soft, warm light from above, VJChoir presented its Symphony of Voices. The diverse timbres created by their voices throughout qualified the performance as a symphony, despite the extended repertoire lacking the traditional orchestral sections. The choristers’ hard work in their practice for this performance showed in their mellifluous fluency.

Final VJChoir rehearsal in Victoria Concert Hall. Photo taken by Kabir Vasudevan (24S39) from VJC Photography Society.

Their repertoire highlights the legacy of music in human history, by bringing the audience from the Baroque period of Western Classical music to modern musicals and Asian music. In addition, several pieces called back to the choir’s past year-end musicals, and the alumni choir, Victoria Chorale, made an appearance. The various aspects of the theme of legacy transitioned into one another so smoothly in a way that can only be described as legato molto, very smooth. 

The concert began with a rising scale in Hallelujah, Amen. From this opening Handel piece, the choir’s strong dynamical control was immediately apparent, with the Baroque fugue-like lines clearly delineated by volume. From then, the Romantic madrigal of Lay a Garland, a past piece of VJChoir, began, and the faces and timbres of the choristers shifted, setting the mournful tone, the dynamics stratifying the melody from the countermelody. Apparent from these two pieces is the skill of the choir in varying part dynamics to create a wholesome texture.

Another forward shift in musical period, and the choir is singing Bogoroditse Devo, a 20th-century programmatic piece set to a Marian liturgy. Multiple voices joined up to sing a solemn monophony fitting for liturgical pieces. The well-executed sudden dynamic shifts of The Angel, the choir’s 2025 SYF piece, framed the dramatic change in harmony and tonality of the supernatural programmatic piece. Meanwhile, the subtle suspensions and consistent repetitions throughout were uncompromised, showing their practised ability.

The choir singing Hallelujah, Amen and Bogoroditse Devo. Photo by Yeow Kai Sing (24S39) from VJC Photography Society.

The choir introduces its choreographic skills in Father Thunder, a programmatic piece personifying thunder. Apart from choreographic hand movements, the choristers masterfully move around the stage in certain climactic, climatic sections. They stepped out of rhythm, creating a polyrhythm reminiscent of storms. Percussive clapping and stomping also added new timbres and created a layered texture. The aggression of a thunderstorm is captured very well in the vocal tone of the singing, tempo, and emotive choreography, showing the choir’s competency in complex performance techniques, despite it taking some away from their expression.

The alumni choir of Victoria School and Victoria Junior College, Victoria Chorale, joins the VJChoir in singing The Sun Never Says, the more mature voices adding a fullness to the harmony of the piece. It Was A Lover and His Lass is performed by Victoria Chorale alone, with the experienced alumni’s independent musicality more developed: the scherzo, joking feel of the piece is brought out with playful staccato figures and motifs in a way that cannot be described. They continue with And Both Shall Row, furthering their show of musical expression as the folk songs of Shenandoah and The Water Is Wide are juxtaposed. The contrast between the two pieces is initially brought forth through subtly different expression and different registers – largely split by gender – before the contrast is eliminated in the climax, with the interposition of the two songs in between each other.

After the intermission, both choirs return to sing ‘田园故乡’, Tianyuan Guxiang, best translated as ‘Pastoral Hometown’, a song riding a folk wave of nostalgia. New choral attire reminds of the theme of legacy, the girls especially being dressed in frilly Western gowns. The dresses and the song itself inadvertently add a new aspect to legacy, touching upon the concept of false nostalgia. Indeed, nostalgia itself romanticises the past, and this is addressed within the piece through an acceleration from a slow tempo in the introduction, equivalent to the feeling when one is reminiscing, to a faster tempo representing the lived experience that one had gone through, alongside shifting melodic dynamics and dissonant suspensions.

A rapid brightening of the atmosphere occurs when VJChoir, alone – without their alumni or their conductor – starts singing Sik Sik Si Batu Manikam confidently. The scherzo-like playfulness of this pantun, filled with semantically-meaningless phrases, is captured in their perky shifts in volume and their animated and anachronistic gestures that fit the nonsensical nature of the lyrics. Some choreography was recognisably from the Malay dance genre of Joget. While arguably, the polyrhythms generated during their stepping about the stage were unappealing, the choir handled this piece well.

From that piece onwards, the choir gained assurance, and they sang La Patasola with immense success. The aggression of the piece was apparent from the dense textures, low registers, rushed rhythms, and detached phrases they sang. The sudden movements in their choreography and non-musical tones added to the programmatic feel of the piece, invoking the image of the monstrous Columbian patasola.

The choir gains centrestage from their conductor near the end of the night as they sing two piano-accompanied pieces. First was Olive Tree, a piece sung by the girls. The piano was precise and calm, though at times overpowered the voices of the girls. Despite that, their voices were strong, and complemented the broken chords of the piano, matching in contour and dynamics to create a tranquil texture. The latter was Any Dream Will Do, sung by the boys, the piano being confident and loud, with the boys matching the changes in timbre and texture caused by pedalling through their voices.

In the climax of the night, the combined choir sings three piano-accompanied legacy pieces from the year-end musicals VJChoir used to perform. A lower-energy piece, Over the Rainbow, began the triad. The registers of the various choristers coincided to produce new monophonic textures. The falsetto of several choristers was highly strong, providing an interesting contrasting timbre. The loud section of the piece was highly inflected and shaped dynamically.

As a matter of procedure, the VJChoir Choral Anthem was sung, and the alumni in the audience were invited to join in this enduring legacy of the choir. A thick texture came from all sides of the concert hall, directed by the conductor in the middle, letting every member of the audience feel the sense of connection within the choir. The subsequent applause of the audience was out of pride and awe.

The legacy of VJChoir in their Symphony of Voices this year is striking. This year marks their 40th anniversary, and their tickets had sold out within a mere two weeks. They have come a long way from their founding. Legacy, their theme this year, was manifested in the musical legacy of our traditions, the legacy of adults who gained a lot from the choir and its conductor, and in the legacy of the past of the choir itself, smoothly weaved together in a legato manner.