The world is now seeing more of top talented Thai musicians than just the internationally renowned conductor Bundit Ungrangsee. We have found four of them in Singapore.
The Singapore Art Festival 2009 just ended with a loud applause for a series of magnificent performances, especially “Distant Worlds: Music from Final Fantasy,” in which Grammy award winning composer Arnie Roth and leading Japanese composer Nobuo Uemutsu wowed the audience by turning the classic Final Fantasy game into a symphony piece.
The 105-minute show of fantasy, excitement and romance, was performed by the top ranked Singapore Festival Orchestra, in which four of its musicians are Thai.
We had a chance to talk to them – “Ben-Nutthapong Veerapun” (Trumpet) “Note-Charkrit Songtorsrisakul” (French Horn) “Suan-Kittiwut Suantan” (Tuba) “Mek-Miti Visutthammaporn” (Viola) after the performance ended at a pond next to the durian-shape Esplanade Concert Hall. The smiles on their faces demonstrated their pride that they had made the audience happy.
Each year we have about 3 to 4 top performances as the organizers want to keep musicians in top form,” Chakrit said.
Singapore Festival Orchestra is a place of best people in the region, having 40 percent of its members from China, Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand, while the rest are Singaporeans.
“The members are picked from their past performances. Each position must have at least five years of experience,” Nattapong said. “It is like a football team, in which the coach will pick who are the best players for what positions,” he added.
The foursome said “Distant Worlds: Music from Final Fantasy” was a great experience for them, in which they had learned a lot from the globally renowned conductor.
“It was very challenging for us. We Asians had to show to the world that we were seconded to no one,” Kittiwut said. “Some foreigners may have underestimated us, but that was a blessing for us to do our best to prove that Asians play the Western instrument well.”
But their roads were not rosy as they had to go through training ordeals and pressure from friends and families. All of them made their tough way to graduate from Singapore’s No 1 music school, Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, although they had some degrees from Thai music colleges.
Asked about their ultimate dream, all of them with a grin said they wanted to be known globally.
“We have our own brass quintet called B5 brass “www.b5live.com”, which we play brass instruments along with our colleges from The Conservatory. Our Goal is to be well-known international brass quintet group based in Singapore” “We know everyone in our group well just like we know our instruments” That’s our advantage, Nattapong said.
