August 23, 2019
The series of exchange concerts between NUS Symphony Orchestra (NUSSO) and Berlin Konzerthaus Audience Orchestra (KAO) was a special one to both orchestras. In addition to bringing two orchestras from two continents together, it was also one of the key events in NUSSO’s 40th Anniversary year.
The exchange involved a delegation of 10 NUSSO musicians, along with our Resident Conductor and Music Director Maestro Lim Soon Lee, travelling to Berlin from 11-17 June 2019 to perform with KAO during the Konzerthaus Open Day. The KAO then travelled to Singapore to perform with us again, together with the addition of the Singapore Wind Symphony Percussion Ensemble at Singapore Victoria Concert Hall.
This meaningful collaboration involved over 100 musicians, reaching out to more than 1500 people in both Berlin and Singapore.
Experiencing the music and culture of Germany
One place that all of us enjoyed was the Berlin Musical Instrument Museum, which houses a variety of rarely-seen instruments (such as Baroque wind instruments and the precursors to the string instruments we use today) and historically significant instruments (such as a Stradivarius violin).
Visiting the museum was really an eye-opening experience for us as it was the first time many of us even thought about the development of instruments over the years. One of the interesting exhibits consisted of a tuning fork mounted on a bendable piece of wood. By striking the tuning fork and gradually changing the shape of the wood, we got to witness how the shape of the wood affects the resonance, something that up till now, we have only been taught in theory by our music teachers.
Though we could not touch most of them, we were fortunate to hear the museum staff demonstrate a few of the instruments. In the center of the museum was also a gigantic organ, said to be one of the biggest of its kind, which produced a huge variety of sounds meant to serve as audio accompaniment to silent films.