Venue: The Star Theatre
Conductor: Joshua Tan
Programme:
Oriental Wind, for orchestra
My Neighbour Totoro, Orchestra Stories
Departures, for violoncello and orchestra
Saka No Ue No Kumo, for orchestra
One Summer's Day (from Spirited Away), for piano and orchestra
Kiki's Delivery Service, for piano, percussion and strings
Summer (from Kikujiro), for piano and orchestra
Water Traveller, for orchestra
At the mention of the name "Joe Hisaishi", it is quite inevitable to think of Studio Ghibli, which he has worked with closely for many of their animation movies. While I have only watched two of their movies - Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle - the major draw for me was Departures, a Japanese drama movie.
Fortunately, I had bought the tickets once they were available for booking, as my friend got them some time later and only managed to get seats right at the back of the theatre. It was almost a sold-out event at The Star Theatre (at Star Vista); I think there were almost 4,000 people at the concert hall, and many of them were waving lightsticks enthusiastically during the concert.
My Neighbour Totoro was performed in an improvised manner - while they obviously couldn't show the animation on the screen, they did the next best thing - they got a narrator, who even introduced the all the instruments in the orchestra before bringing everyone through the story, with the orchestra playing in the background. Both blended in rather well, and was quite a pleasant experience.
For Departures, I thought the cellist went a bit overboard on the vibrato, and wasn't able to bring out the pensiveness of the piece. But I loved One Summer's Day, and it brought back memories of the movie which I watched more than a decade ago.
I left the concert determined to watch all of Studio Ghibli's movies, even those that I have seen before.
No comments:
Post a Comment