(Translation)

Singaporean violinist Alan Choo has founded Red Dot Baroque, an ensemble that performs music of the Baroque era on period instruments. 

Red Dot Baroque will present their debut concert on the 28th of August, featuring a program consisting of Bach, Corelli, Telemann, and other notable composers of the Baroque era.

The group consists of 12 members; baroque violinists Alan Choo, Gabriel Lee, Brenda Koh and Placida Ho, and baroque violist Chen Zhangyi, who is also a young Singaporean composer. Leslie Tan from the T’ang Quartet plays with the group on the baroque cello, and Edmund Song serves as the double bassist. Red Dot Baroque also features Cheryl Lim and Rachel Ho as their baroque flutists, and Gerald Lim and Mervyn Lee as harpsichordists. Soprano Lilith Verhelst will be singing with the ensemble as well. 

Alan Choo is currently pursuing a Doctorate at Case Western University in Ohio, studying historical performance under Julie Andrijeski. 

Choo has always hoped to introduce and share early music in Singapore. While he spends most of his time in the United States, he seizes the opportunity when he is back in Singapore on breaks to gather like-minded musicians to present early music concerts. He realized that Singaporean audiences are quite open and interested in period performances and instruments, and this spurred him to gather musicians to form Red Dot Baroque in hopes of cultivating a taste for early music in the Singapore scene.

Choo feels that the average audience attitude towards Baroque music is frequently limited to works by Bach, Handel and Vivaldi. Yet, the 1600-1750s Baroque era consists of many other notable composers and works of various styles that present other definitions of beauty in music that Choo feels are regrettably neglected. 

Choo thinks that Baroque music does not necessarily have to be presented on period instruments, but finds that one cannot fully understand the music without having played on period instruments before. The physics and structure of these instruments are different, and coupled with aesthetic views and values of the Baroque period, period instruments can more naturally convey the original intentions of music from this period of time. Modern instruments require the musician to make many adjustments to achieve a similar effect, and can therefore sometimes sound unnatural. 

“To me, period instruments can better translate my ideas and emotions.” Choo thinks that one of the strongest traits of Baroque music is the inclusion of speech inflections in the music. Using the Italian word ‘amore’ as an example, he demonstrated to me that playing Baroque music is like enunciating words, with heavy and light stresses on different words, as if speaking to the audience.