Akiko Suwanai's debut at DFP. Stunning!

8th march 2008, Saturday 8:30 p.m

Adams: Short ride on a fast machine

Sibelius: Violin Concerto

Copland: Symphony no. 3

Akiko Suwanai made her Malaysian debut on 8th and 9th March 2008 with the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra. Previous season she was scheduled to perform Dvorak's Violin Concerto but she cancelled last minute due to sudden illness. Unlike other soloists who cancelled and never made an appearance again, she came! Now that my friends is what I call professionalism. I know musicians are contend to perform in elitist venues (read: London, Paris, Vienna, Tokyo or Beijing) instead of some obscure location somewhere around Singapore. But I digress, so how was the performance? Stunning in every bit of word.

First of all, she is tall, baby - six feet. Not monstrous but daunting enough like standing alongside Uma Thurman. Concertmaster Markus Gundermann looked like a hobbit when he went and shook her hand lol! Clad in silver-coloured dress, she stood out like an ice queen throughout the performance. Indeed because she's performing a violin concerto composed by the most famous Scandanavian composer ever existed.

Now in her biography it states that she's currently using a Dolphin Stradivarius that was used by none other than the legendary Jascha Heifetz. No wonder the tone that emits from her violin sounded so familiar. Among all the violinists whom I heard live, her sound oozes with pure luxury. Technically she isn't as virtuosic as Heifetz or even Christian Ferras who recorded the concerto with von Karajan but every note she played was flawless and if you've seen her fingers stretch coping with Sibelius' difficult octave leaps your jaw would've dropped. Kevin Field's tempi for the third movement was too quick for her but she managed her solo pretty well. Thankfully the Malaysian Philharmonic accompanied her very well.

After the intermission despite some sloppy playing (especially from the string section) Kevin Field and the MPO managed to give a very spirited rendition of Aaron Copland's Third Symphony. Serge Koussevetzki praised it calling the work the greatest American symphony ever composed. Copland's use of folk melodies and songful writing for the strings made it quite moving at times. The last movement was an inspiration for Copland's famous work "Fanfare for the common man" and credit should be given for good work by the brasses.