Front Row

We’re in for a treat. A semi-finalist at the 2010 Thelonious Monk Competition, Ashton Moore is in town and is stopping by to talk to us at BFM. This Detroit-native has just launched his debut album, ‘Downtown’ in which he “pays homage to jazz tradition with innovative versions of standards” and also anticipates the future. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy infor...

MyPAA recently launched a website for the performing arts community. ARTERI underscores the organization’s objectives to address gaps in the current ecosystem, and lead towards increasing funding and developmental opportunities, nurturing skills and talent growth to contribute to the social, creative and economic sustainability of the sector. How will a website do all of these? See omnystudi...

The BOH Cameronian Arts Awards 2016 was held just a couple of weekends ago. The winners have been announced and the corks popped in the celebrations. What insights do we get into the performing arts industry through this award? How does such recognition engender better and improved performances and related activities? We hear from the organizer and the participants. See omnystudio.com/listener for...

Dr Quinton  Morris is not only a musician but a motivational speaker, music educator and film actor.  He is touring the world not only talking to young people about music and running masterclasses, but is in the process of making a documentary about this travel to spread the gospel of music in education. His film ‘Breakthrough’ deals with an 18th-century black classical music...

Performances by the Singapore Dance Theatre, under the rubric, ‘Ballet Illuminations’, is now part of a regular annual offering on klpac’s and penangpac’s stages. In the interview the artistic director will tell what dances will be performed but underscore the contributions of the late dancer-and-choreographer, Singaporean Choo San Goh, to the world’s stage. See omnys...

Calling himself “The First Piper”, Ross O’Connell Jennings is on a mission to play his musical instrument in every country in the world. He tells us not only the Why, but also stories that he has collected on his journey, including the responses of animals to the sound of the bagpipe.  Malaysia is his 46th country on his tour. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy informat...

A couple of rainy days ago, the artist Latiff Mohidin made time to share with us his thoughts on why he creates--both in his paintings and his sculptures. He gives insights into his concerns and provides some ways into understanding his art, how he creates  although he prefers that his art be not mediated either by the artist himself or critics. He is holding his first solo sculpture-exhibiti...

The Kuala Lumpur City Opera (KLCO) is organising the city’s first opera festival this May. During this two day festival, they’re hoping to foster an appreciation of Western opera amongst the Malaysian public. We find out from Danny Chen and Ho Soon Yoon of KLCO as well as Chi Hoe Mak, chorus master and artistic committee member. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On their first international tour, the cast of Shrek The Musical have come to our shores to delight audiences with their colourful story of friendship, love and self-acceptance. Hear the backstage stories and the tales of making cartoon-characters into living breathing ones on stage who sing, dance and act. Joining us were Shrek and Princess Fiona, or rather the actors who bring them to...

After a preview of the dress rehearsal, we asked if the play was racist and whether Shylock was a villain or a victim – and expected no gentle answers from our reviewers. To hear an interview with the director and cast members, Tika Mu’tamir and Hanan Azlan, check out this podcast . See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

‘Carmina Burana’ is a choral work composed by Carl Orff, in the early part of the 20th century, based on 24 medieval poems from the collection of the same name. This gorgeous music has been used in films, television commercials, in dances and simply as a choral presentation. Why has Tenby Schools taken this rather ornate and complex piece to showcase?  In the interview, the conduc...

We’re kicking off a musical week with interviews on musicals that will be coming to our local stages. PAN Productions is on the road again--more correctly, going ‘Into the Woods’--with a musical by Sondheim, a composer who is quite popular with this specific local production house. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The two singers, Talitha Tan and Gabriel Lynch, each  will be performing their original compositions mostly, and then some covers. And to add variety, they will sing duets. However, they will only be accompanied by an acoustic guitar. No band. One person with one guitar. They’ll tell us why they are doing this, and in the course of the conversation we’ll find out who these young s...

So rarely does Chinese Opera get staged in a commercial theatre space. But there’s one coming up, and we have the director and one of his collaborators share on its appeal and on the staging of the performance titled ‘Tai Hei’, which will be in English. Will this be like yoking a cow with a horse? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hear the stars of the past gather to talk about ‘how it was’ as they prepare for their collective concert, titled ‘Malam Bintang Nostalgia’. In this concert they--our two singer-guests together with Datin Paduka Julie Sudiro and Datuk Andre Goh--will fund-raise for the SEED Foundation. They share their thoughts on the changes in the local music industry.  See omnystudi...

The founder of Pusaka returns to introduce not only a performing group--the Mak Yong Cahaya Matahari from Kuala Besut,  Kelantan--its lineage and and the weight of its inherited legacy,  but also to tell about the tales the company will be performing. In the course of the conversation, he informs about a project underwritten by Asia Foundation that seeks to empower and sustain a Mak Yong...

After taking ‘Baling’ to South Korea, India, Japan and the United Arab Emirates, the director gives a report on how to take a national event overseas, and then points to what needs to change for it to take the show to Europe and again to Kyoto. But before the European and Japanese excursions, Baling will be played to a local audience. How differently does the director and creative prod...

We introduce an articulate young classically trained concert pianist who not only expresses herself well with words but also at the piano as she teases music from the instrument. In explaining why she titled her recital ‘Fantasie & Transcriptions’, she provides access to the music, helping us understand what the composers--Mozart, Busoni, Ravel and Rachmaninoff--were attempting to...

The dancer-choreographers share on an intercultural project which saw Malaysians collaborate with European performers in an eight-day residency. They explore ideas about culture and identities and express them through the vocabulary of dance. Marc Colpaert, cultural philosopher as well as Katja Grässli, Jinn and Chai Vivan - all dancers and choreographers talk about the intercultural exc...

The artistic director tells about the evolution of the Shakespeare Demystified series of the Bard’s plays since its first in 2011, when the informal group, now incorporated, staged Julius Caesar. The actors explain why Shakespeare is such a draw for them and the challenges performing his plays to contemporary audiences. The group is currently staging its abridged form of Shakespeare&rsq...

Often we take our orientation from the West. Including our notions of history and the development of intellectual ideas. However, in this exhibition which maps our country’s modern art history, we are challenged and compelled to confront this default mode of thinking, and in that stroke, the exhibition problematizes our understanding of ‘modern’ and what constitutes modern art wh...

On a quick visit to the country to perform over the weekend, the young 22-year-old concert pianist takes time to tell about the role of music in his life and what it means to be so wrapped in composers, compositions, musical notes and a sonic world. As he will be playing Szymanowski, the pianist posits some ideas in the music that we could wrap our hearts and heads around. See omnystudio.com/liste...

The artistic director visits BFM89.9 not only to share on the upcoming contemporary dance performance but to offer insights into the dances in the program which he choreographed in 2010 and after. These dances have been inspired by events in the country; and through these dances, questions about appropriate responses to these events. Seru means "to call, to appeal, to exclaim." Perhaps the call is...

Continuing with its celebration of the 400th anniversary of the Bard’s death, klpac offers R&J, which stands for Romeo and Juliet. But with a twist.  The Australian director, who kickstarted the creation of a local theatre company performing Shakespeare-only, at least to-date, tells how this version of Romeo & Juliet recreates the kind of excitement and tension that must have be...

The Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre, continuing its celebration of Shakespeare’s 400th anniversary (of his death), offers in the coming week seven scenes from different plays by the Bard. But with twists which might cause the original playwright to have terrible turns in his grave. Seven crazy directors have chopped, cut, diced, julienned, sliced, slivered and taken apart these scenes; r...