Having a free-flow german meal and bier sunday brunch at the Paulaner Brewery was definitly not the only interesting thing I've done yesterday. I also went the Esplanade Concert Hall to attend a performance of the Nagoya Philharmonic Orchestra (well, you may have guess given the title of the post, that's true :)).

The Esplanade is a rather new art center in Singapore:

Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay is one of the world's busiest arts centres, officially opened on 12 October 2002. This architectural icon with its distinctive twin shells, is sited within Singapore's civic district, just by Marina Bay at the mouth of the Singapore River.

These two shells have a particular form and that's why people here call the centre "the Durians". You can make your mind on the picture below - the similarity isn't that obvious, but they like to give the name of this horrible fruit to their concert hall and theater, do we mind ? :p
 

 

We, these interesting facts are one thing, but the aim of the day was to see it from the inside. As well as to hear some good classical music of course :). The concert hall has 1600 seats and is pretty big. As we took the cheapest seats, we were quite far and high above the stage but the sound was probably the same and we already had a good view:

 

 

Since it was forbidden to take some pictures during the concert, I only have the following one to show. Anyway, pictures of classical concert are not the most interesting thing on earth :). Seeing it is quite nice however, with for example all the violin moving at the same time creating a amazing effect ...

 

 

The program was officially Mozart because of its 250th anniversary. Actually they played only 45 min of Mozart and the second part dedicated to "an anthology of world-famous classical selections". Everything was good, some morceaux being very rythmic, other being more peaceful. A flut soloist played for the Mozart Concerto, it was very pleasant to hear!

The Mozart part was:

  • Overture to Die Entführung aus dem Serail
  • Flute Concerto No. 2 in D major, K314 (3 movements)
The other was composed of:
  • K. Tang: symphonic suite on a set of Local Tune (it's a contemporary singaporian composer)
  • R. Wagner: Prelude to Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
  • A. Dvorak: 3 Slavonic Dances
  • G. Fauré: Pavane
  • P.I. Tchaikovsky: Selections from the Swan Lake Suite
The evening was very pleasant, the venue is impressive and comfortable and the program and the orchestra were good ...