On Friday January 18, 2019 the Singapore Symphony Orchestra celebrated the 40th anniversary of its first concert with a gala event at the stunning Esplanade Concert Hall (nicknamed by locals ‘The Big Durian’). The gala concert was attended by Lee Hsien Loong, Prime Minister of Singapore and son of Lee Kuan Yew, the very first Prime Minister of Singapore. Prime Minister Lee cut a cake and was seen to applaud enthusiastically at the end of the rousing performance Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, which concluded the concert.

Singapore Symphony Orchestra. Photos © Robert Veel

In a speech thanking musicians and supporters, the Orchestra’s chairperson, Goh Yew Lin, traced the ensemble’s journey from the lobbying of Lee Kuan Yew to fund an orchestra, to the first concert by a band of 41 musicians and some of the recent successes of the orchestra at the BBC Proms and in concerts in Berlin, Dresden and Amsterdam.

The concert, conducted by outgoing Chief Conductor Lan Shui, opened with two works that were performed at the inaugural concert in 1979. The first of these was Leong Yoon Ping’s Dayong Sampan Overture. Singaporean Leong studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, and the...