For Shaun Ng, discovering
the viola da gamba proved a life-changing experience. "I personally
believe that there is a missing link in our musical heritage,"
says the 22-year-old Malaysian musician and composer, "as there
is no bass instrument—other than the viola da gamba—that expresses
this kind of tonality. The larger cousin of the erh-hu [the two-string
Chinese violin], to my knowledge, does not exist anymore. The modern
reproductions of it are closely related to the cello and the double
bass. This is why perhaps many people here possess a special affinity
for the cello. But the viola da gamba has many more possibilities than
a cello.
"Imagine what one can
do with seven strings instead of four!"
Ng, a student at the Amsterdam
Conservatory of Music, has been exploring those possibilities in some
interesting ways while winning rave reviews. As the founder of the Singapore-based
ensemble Musica Obscura, which specializes in medieval, Renaissance,
and Baroque music, Ng is introducing the viola da gamba (also known
as the bass viol) and early European music to a larger Asian audience.
As a solo artist, he has performed and recorded works by Bach and Telemann,
among others. But he also performs contemporary material in a duo with
harpsichordist Shane Thio.
As a composer, Ng is helping
to bring this ancient European instrument into the modern world. He
recently told music writer Rachel Jacques that his mission is "to
penetrate the souls of the listeners and to excite their emotions (to
use the words of Leopold Mozart), and make accessible and familiar the
raw energy and humanistic allusions that thrive in the nature of this
music.
"We want to serve as
an alternative to the more staid and established classical music conventions
and institutions already prevalent in Singapore," he added. "One
needs to understand what music is really about. People in Singapore
need to be subjected to raw and honest emotion without the glitz and
glamour of concert halls."
As a teen, Ng traveled to
Europe on a scholarship and has since studied early music with Richard
Boothby and Lucy Robinson of the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama,
Mieneke van der Velden of the Amsterdam Conservatory, and Philippe Pierlot
of the Royal Conservatory of the Hague.
"I discovered the viola
da gamba in 1997 when I met José Vázquez, the professor
of early music at the Musikhochschule Vienna, while studying modern
violin there," Ng says. "The initial attraction was naturally
its sound. The viola da gamba possesses a kind of sound that evokes
certain emotions—a kind of melancholy that complements such Asian
instruments as the Indian sarang and the Chinese erh-hu. That is no
surprise since these instruments share many similar technical attributes."
As an associate artist at
the Substation, Singapore's first independent arts center, Ng is exploring
the boundaries of that instrument. Last August, Ng premiered his own
multimedia avant-garde performance piece, Suites of Stranger Taste,
Book 1, a reference to a series of works by progressive French viola
da gambist Marin Marais (1656–1728). The work employed the viola
da gamba in compositions based on Indian ragas and teamed Ng with filmmaker
Tania Sng, Bharatanatyam choreographer and dancer Arul Ramiah, and award-winning
poet Cyril Wong of Singapore.
"The response was great,"
Ng says of his growing Malaysian following, an audience that obviously
appreciates the bold cross-cultural approach he brings to his works.
"As with Suites of Stranger Taste, Book 1, as often as possible
I like to reach out to poets, composers, musicians, and dancers in my
work. And I'm finding there are many others here who like to experience
this form of experimental art."
Shaun Ng's next concert,
on January 18, at the Sacramentskerk in the Netherlands, features the
music of C.P.E. Bach, J.S. Bach, Georg Phillip Telemann, and others,
with Clotilde Verwaerde, harpsichord.
Photo: Ng, center, with Arul Ramiah and Cyril Wong
