PROGRAMME. INTERVAL 20 mins CHOPIN

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2 The initial steps towards realising the longcherished dream of the late PETRONAS Chairman, Tun Azizan Zainul Abidin, to create a youth orchestra as a stage for young talents, alongside the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra (MPO), were taken on 13 January Some 500 aspiring musicians from across Malaysia auditioned and 110 with an average age of 18 years were selected to form the Malaysian Philharmonic Youth Orchestra (MPYO). After a period of intensive training under its founding conductor, Kevin Field, and mentors drawn from the ranks of the MPO, the MPYO gave its first public concert in Dewan Filharmonik PETRONAS on 25 August It has since established a pattern of music camps held three to four times a year, culminating in performances in Kuala Lumpur and beyond. It has toured Peninsula Malaysia (2007 and 2010), Sabah and Sarawak (2008), and performed in Singapore (2009 and 2017) and Brisbane, Australia, as part of an exchange programme with the Queensland Youth Orchestra (2012). Auditions are held every year to provide opportunities for talented young Malaysian musicians to join the MPYO and participate in orchestral training and performances, under the guidance of the MPO musicians as tutors. The music repertoire ranges from symphonic repertoire to specially-commissioned works by Malaysian composers. In an innovative project, Jazzaar, in 2010, the orchestra collaborated with six leading jazz musicians from the USA, led by Fritz Renold (who wrote his Suite Nusantara specially for the project) to enrich and widen their musical experience. In 2013, the orchestra performed in Kedah with renowned local singers Datin Paduka Julie Sudiro and Datuk Yusni Hamid in a keroncong concert was attended by the HRH Agong of Malaysia. In 2014, the ensemble collaborated with Yayasan Warisan Johor and Orkestra Tradisional Malaysia in Johor Baru. In 2015, the MPYO was given the honour to perform at the opening of the 128th International Olympic Committee (IOC) Session in Kuala Lumpur. In 2017, the MPYO was invited to perform at Majlis Santapan Malam Memuliakan Mesyuarat Majlis Raja-Raja ke-247 at Istana Negara, and Majlis Jamuan Teh Sempena Sambutan Ulang Tahun Hari Keputeraan Rasmi DYMM Sultan Ibrahim Ibni Almarhum Sultan Iskandar, Sultan Johor. For inquiries, please call Fadilah Kamal Francis at , fadilah.francis@mpo. com.my or check out Sun 10 June 2018 at 8.30 pm Malaysian Philharmonic Youth Orchestra Naohisa Furusawa, conductor PROGRAMME HAYDN MEDTNER SAINT-SAËNS INTERVAL 20 mins CHOPIN KALINNIKOV Symphony No. 104 in D major - 'London' 25 mins Piano Concerto No. 1 in C minor, Op.33: First Section 12 mins featuring Kwan Yee Lim, piano Piano Concerto No. 5 in F major, Op 'The Egyptian': 2 nd Movement 12 mins featuring Choong See May, piano Andante spianato et Grande Polonaise brillante in E flat major, Op mins featuring Tengku Mohd Hadif Sharifudin, piano Symphony No. 1 in G minor 35 mins All details are correct at time of printing. Dewan Filharmonik PETRONAS reserves the right to vary without notice the artists and/or repertoire as necessary. Copyright 2018 by Dewan Filharmonik PETRONAS (Co. No X). All rights reserved. No part of this programme may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the copyright owners.

3 NAOHISA FURUSAWA conductor Naohisa Furusawa has been a member of the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra (MPO) double bass section since Born in Tokyo in 1973, he started to play the violin when he was four years old and later joined his junior high school orchestra as a double bass player at age 12; his first conducting experiences were with this orchestra. Later, he studied double bass with Prof. Nobuo Shiga, and piano and conducting with Prof. Kazue Kamiya at Tokyo s Toho Gakuen School of Music. Furusawa has performed as a double bass player with the NHK Symphony, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony and several other orchestras, under the direction of many conductors including Seiji Ozawa, Kazuyoshi Akiyama, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Horst Stein, Lorin Maazel, Herbert Blomstedt, Pierre Boulez and Valery Gergiev. In 1998, Furusawa was awarded a scholarship from the Cultural Affairs Agency of Japan to study double bass at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg. He has conducted Beethoven s 9 th Symphony five times with Tokyo s MAX Philharmonic Orchestra. He also conducted Mahler s Second Symphony with the MAX Philharmonic to commemorate the 70 th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. He has conducted many young musician ensembles including MPO s Encounter Training Ensemble and the Miri Tutti Project in East Malaysia as part of the MPO s Education and Outreach Programme. PROGRAMME NOTES The music on tonight s programme might almost be subsumed under the rubric The Three Ages of Man. Chopin was just twenty when he wrote the Grand Polonaise brillante and Kalinnikov was not much older when he wrote his First Symphony. Medtner was comfortably into middle age by the time he brought out his First Piano Concerto but its form is highly unusual almost experimental one might say something a young upstart might have done. Saint-Saëns was a mature man of sixty when he premiered his Fifth Piano Concerto; this too a most unusual work in that it incorporates extra-musical and geographical elements. As for Haydn, his last symphony, No. 104, was the invention of an old man, the happy result of a lifetime of wisdom and experience. wikimedia.org FRANZ JOSEPH HAYDN ( ) Symphony No. 104 in D major - London (1795) I. Adagio Allegro II. Andante III. Menuet IV. Finale: Spiritoso No composer did more than Haydn to bring the symphony from its modest, lightweight beginnings to its present stature. The symphony we hear tonight is his last. Haydn could not have done better for a valedictory statement in the genre. It seems to sum up, in one vast canvas, Haydn s symphonic style, wrote H. C. Robbins Landon, one of the world s leading Haydn scholars. The first performance was probably given at the King s Theatre in London on 13 April 1795 (some sources claim 4 May). The first movement contains but a single subject, which serves as both first and second theme but in different keys. The third and fourth measures alone (the four repeated short notes followed by two longer ones) serve for the entire development section. Haydn s boundless imagination sustains the continuous harmonic interest and unflagging rhythmic momentum. The second movement combines elements of rondo and variation form. The sturdy Menuet is notable for its lopsided metrical pattern (accents on the third beat of the bar) and for the timpani crescendo leading to the final statement of the main subject. A charming Trio separates the two identical statements of the Menuet. The finale takes as its main theme what Béla Bartók identified as a peasant song from Croatia.

4 NICOLAI MEDTNER ( ) Piano Concerto No. 1 in C minor, Op.33 ( ) First Section Stylistically Medtner had much in common with Rachmaninoff, a died-in-the-wool Romantic. He brooked no patience with the modernist directions of contemporaries such as Strauss, Debussy, or Reger, not to mention Stravinsky or Schoenberg, and believed staunchly in the traditional forms and harmonic practice as used by the great composers of the past. Medtner s medtner.org.uk entire catalogue, like Chopin s, consists of music either for piano alone or with piano. The first of his three piano concertos was begun in 1914 and completed three years later. The premiere took place in Moscow on 12 May 1918 (exactly a century ago) with the composer at the piano and Serge Koussevitzky on the podium. The concerto is a full-length work lasting over half an hour, but most unusually it is cast as a single large movement consisting of several connected sections. The overall structure resembles sonata-allegro form (exposition development recapitulation coda) but each section individually develops musical material. The first section, which we hear tonight, sets forth the concerto s grandiose main theme in the violins, from which several further themes are derived and developed in turn. The soloist plays almost continuously in fountains and cascades of virtuosic displays. CAMILLE SAINT-SAËNS ( ) Piano Concerto No. 5 in F major, Op.103 The Egyptian (1896) II. Andante Allegretto tranquillo quasi andantino Andante Among Saint-Saëns many interests was a fondness for travel. His exploits took him as far afield as Singapore and San Francisco. Nearer to his native France, a destination for which he held a special affinity was North Africa. He went at least twice to Egypt, each visit inspiring a work for piano and orchestra. In 1891 he produced Africa, and in 1896 his Fifth Piano Concerto, subtitled wikimedia.org Egyptian. The composer himself was soloist at the world premiere, which formed part of a jubilee on 2 June 1896 to mark the fiftieth anniversary of Saint-Saëns debut as a pianist. Of the second movement, which we hear tonight, the composer commented that it takes us on a journey to the East and even to the Far East. The G major passage [the tranquil central episode in which a simple melody in the left hand is accompanied with the right in octave leaps] is a Nubian love song which I heard sung by the boatmen on the Nile. Saint-Saëns also purportedly incorporated an imitation of croaking Nile frogs near the end of this movement. However, realism and pictorialism in music were not Saint-Saëns strong suits. Virtually everything he wrote is remarkable first and foremost for its polish, glitter, neat formal proportions, emotional restraint and clarity of texture. FRÉDÉRIC CHOPIN ( ) Andante spianato et Grande Polonaise brillante in E flat major, Op.22 ( ) Chopin composed the Grande Polonaise brillante in 1830, the year he left Warsaw and settled in Paris. Four years later, he composed another independent piece, the Andante spianato and decided to perform them as a combined unit at one of his few public appearances in Paris on 26 April Spianato is Italian for even, equalized, spun out and indeed the music is just that. It makes one think of a lake on a calm bright summer day, wrote Chopin s biographer Friedrich Niecks. The Andante spianato is for piano wikimedia.org alone. A brief orchestral transition leads into the Polonaise, whose main theme returns each time in different ornamental garb; by way of contrast, there is also a secondary theme in C minor. Orchestral accompaniment is minimal while the soloist indulges in brilliant bravura displays. pqpbach.sul21 VASSILY KALINNIKOV ( ) Symphony No. 1 in G minor (1897) I. Allegro moderato II. Andante commodamente III. Scherzo: Allegro non troppo Moderato assai IV. Finale: Allegro moderato Vassily Kalinnikov lived not quite 35 years (a year less than Mozart) and left just a handful of works, mostly orchestral, of which his First Symphony remains his best-known composition. Both Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff were impressed with his work and tried to help him along in his career. His severe case of tuberculosis demanded that he move to Yalta in the South Crimea. When he died, his widow did not even have the money for

5 a tombstone. Besides the work on this programme, Kalinnikov wrote a Second Symphony, a handful of other works for orchestra, an incomplete opera In 1812, some songs, piano pieces and choral music. Rare indeed are the compositions dedicated to music critics. Kalinnikov s First Symphony is one such case, the dedication going to Semyon Kruglikov, who also served as one of Kalinnikov s teachers. The first performance, given in Kiev on 20 February 1897 at a Russian Music Society concert conducted by Alexander Vinogradsky, though seldom heard outside of Russia, this symphony offers all that we have come to love in the symphonies of other Russians of romantic persuasion like Tchaikovsky, Borodin, Glazunov, Glière and Rachmaninoff. It is filled with colorful orchestration, sweeping melodies, high spirits and national flavour.

6 MALAYSIAN PHILHARMONIC YOUTH ORCHESTRA CORPORATE SUITE PREMIUM MEMBERS DEWAN FILHARMONIK PETRONAS CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER Nor Raina Yeong Abdullah BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT Wan Yuzaini Wan Yahya At Ziafrizani Chek Pa Nurartikah Ilyas Kartini Ratna Sari Ahmat Adam Aishah Sarah Ismail Affendee FIRST VIOLIN Low Zi Yang Elle Chang Su-Ting Soon Wern-Shynn Tan PinQi Sophia Lee Fong Ying Kiew Zheng Wei Azhad Zakaria Debbie Johanna Ho Yan Yan Stephanie Wong Hui Ern Lee Jin Yen SECOND VIOLIN Izzywan Musib Joey Young Timothy Song Eben Ting Ik Peng* Ng Chia Wen Wong Tzu Shiuan Joynner Junior Hermon Cheong Keat Zhen Celeste Tan Jarrett Chin Qi Ren Alisha Chan Yi Hung VIOLA Danish Mubin Poh Yoon Hou** Ng Zhan Shen Benjamin Phoon Zu Ying Evelyn Chow CELLO Joshua Sim Te Sheng How Wei Tao Stanley Goh Wen Chih Jennifer Lim Yi-Mei Charissa Tan Tian Ai Isabel lau Kai Zi DOUBLE BASS Lee Kar Yan Khee Yu Hang Gillian Too FLUTE Bonnie Kong Tien Li Japheth Law Sze Cheng Wooi Wei Kane OBOE Tang Jung Siong Mohd Izzat Bukhori Awang Tunku Amanina Tunku Ibrahim CLARINET Emily Tiow Yu Xian Eugene Chee Jia Jiunn Ling Ji Xu Tan Yi Xin Tang Kit Ying BASSOON Stephen Mak Wai Soon Chong Chun Weng FRENCH HORN Chai Kee Hong** Chloe Chai Mei Qin Eric Tiow Xian Liang Mohd Adznan Mokhtar Noor Fauzan Mohd Khiry TRUMPET Lau Hui Ping Nurliyana Abdul Ghafar TROMBONE Ainul Basyirah Aznan Teh Yoong Wei Abdul Hanif Abdul Hamid Low Kim Ven TUBA Tan Shun Zhong TIMPANI/PERCUSSION Ng Lip Sheng Chong Xin Yi Adriel Wong Xian Lih HARP Madelaine Chong Zhia Chee MARKETING Yazmin Lim Abdullah Hisham Abdul Jalil Munshi Ariff Abu Hassan Farah Diyana Ismail Noor Sarul Intan Salim Muhammad Shahrir Aizat Ahmad Kusolehin Adha Kamaruddin CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT Yayuk Yulianawati Rila Jalwati Mohd Noor MUSIC TALENT DEVELOPMENT & MANAGEMENT Soraya Mansor PLANNING, FINANCE & IT Mohd Hakimi Mohd Rosli Norhisham Abd Rahman Siti Nur Ilyani Ahmad Fadzillah Nurfharah Farhana Hashimi PROCUREMENT & CONTRACT Logiswary Raman Norhaszilawati Zainudin HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT & ADMINISTRATION Sharhida Saad Muknoazlida Mukhadzim Nor Afidah Nordin Nik Nurul Nadia Nik Abdullah TECHNICAL OPERATIONS Firoz Khan Mohd Zamir Mohd Isa Shahrul Rizal Mohd Ali Dayan Erwan Maharal Zolkarnain Sarman MALAYSIAN PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER Nor Raina Yeong Abdullah GENERAL MANAGER Khor Chin Yang Soraya Mansor GENERAL MANAGER'S OFFICE Timmy Ong ARTISTIC ADMINISTRATION/ ORCHESTRA MANAGEMENT/ MALAYSIAN PHILHARMONIC YOUTH ORCHESTRA Ahmad Muriz Che Rose Sharon Francis Lihan Fadilah Kamal Francis Shireen Jasin Mokhtar Katherine Tan Jia Yiing MUSIC LIBRARY Ong Li-Huey Wong Seong Seong Muhamad Zaid Azzim Mohd Diah EDUCATION & OUTREACH Shireen Jasin Mokhtar Shafrin Sabri Note: Musicians are listed alphabetically and rotate within their sections. *MPYO Alumni **Guest musician DEWAN FILHARMONIK PETRONAS X MALAYSIAN PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA H

7 Box Office: Ground Floor, Tower 2, PETRONAS Twin Towers Kuala Lumpur City Centre Kuala Lumpur Telephone: Online Tickets & Info: mpo.com.my malaysianphilharmonicorchestra DEWAN FILHARMONIK PETRONAS X MALAYSIAN PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA H