A Casual Concert at Singapore's Esplanade Concert Hall.

Singapore’s Esplanade Concert Hall is as beautiful and as acoustically pleasing as any concert hall built anywhere within the last 20 years.

Singapore. November 20, 2011. Two of Singapore's main attractions provided a very enjoyable Sunday afternoon in this island country: the magnificent Esplanade Concert Hall and the equally magnificent Singapore Symphony Orchestra. Designed to attract families with a low ticket price, a 17.00 starting time, short pieces, an orchestra dressed in white shirts with shirt tails hanging out, and a running commentary by the orchestra's conductor, Jason Lai, made for a casual atmosphere, but there was nothing casual about the music as this was a full symphony concert performed by musicians who took their playing seriously. Two overtures, which couldn't have been more different, Mozart's Overture to the Marriage of Figaro, and Brahms' Academic Festival Overture, provided the orchestra an opportunity to show just how well it played. Soprano Ee-Ping sang three operatic arias with beautiful voice, but a little too weak to rise above the full orchestra. The concert concluded with the fourth movement of Dvorak's New World Symphony, surely played too often, but its excitement was just right for this casual family concert.