While a strong tradition of creative collaborative projects was developing at the Yong Siew Toh conservatory in Singapore, notably with the creative projects at the beginning of every new first year (FYCP2019, FYCP2020), the question has arised often how to expand these type of activities further into the curriculum. Cautious connections have been made with theory subjects, chamber music and professional integration, but never with the orchestra. It seemed to be a good next step and would be an ideal playground for experiments. In early 2020 I started brainstorming together with Jason Lai, who is the chief conductor of YST's orchestra, about bringing in elements of autonomous creativity into a regular orchestral program. We imagined incorporating elements of improvisation and group composition, empowering the orchestral players and stimulate them to reflect on their repertoire at the same time. The results would obviously have to be artistically sound and have
enough quality in order to co-exist and meaningfully connect with the pieces from the repertoire.
A first project has now been under way, starting with three sessions in October 2020, where we have taken Ravel's orchestral suite Ma Mere l'Oye as a centralpiece to explore the possibilities for an extension of the program with work done by the members of the orchestra. The first session took place after the students had already played through Ma Mère l'Oye a few times. We discussed elements of Ravel's style and started working in a few directions, initially with break-out groups and later coming together. The project will be continued in spring 2021, with a concert that has been planned for the beginning of April. Due to the continuing uncertainty of the COVID situation it may have to be postponed. A further analysis and description of the creation processes and outcomes will be given in the BACKSTAGE section.
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