Bangkok Post : Rejoicing progress

NEWS Makers

Silpathorn artists Somtow Sucharitkul and Bruce Gaston are joining hands to organise a concert at Lumphini Park as part of a nationwide tribute to HM the King on September 9, at 9:09am.

Somtow Sucharitkul (left) and Bruce Gaston to join forces for the 9-9-9-9-9 musical tribute to HM the King.

Known as, "9-9-9-9-9 Tribute to HM the King", the event takes as its launch pad the auspicious alignment of dates and times linked with the number "9", which in Thai is the same sound as the word for "progress" or "stepping forward".

According to Somtow, "the idea is that everywhere in the country, business as usual will stop and the strains of the Royal Anthem will be heard in every corner of the Kingdom. Each location is organising its own unique way of marking the occasion and putting on its performance of the Royal Anthem".

For the Lumphini Park event, Somtow and Gaston will be presenting the first-ever collaboration between Gaston's classic Thai-Western fusion orchestra, Fong Naam, and Somtow's internationally acclaimed, adventurous young symphony orchestra, the Siam Philharmonic Orchestra. They will be joined by singers from all over the city.

Three versions of the Royal Anthem will be performed in a row, starting with Gaston's arrangement, which begins with the voice of a single child, heard every day in cinemas across the country. This will be followed by Somtow's four-part choral arrangement accompanied by a full orchestra.

Finally, there will be a countdown to the actual "9-9-9-9-9" moment, and at that moment, everyone will perform the anthem with its full force present at every location. The Siam Philharmonic and the Fong Naam ensemble will be directed by Gaston from the keyboard, while all the choirs and the entire vast crowd, will be conducted by Somtow himself.

Providing the angelic voice will be Nina, who was born at 9:09am on September 9, 1999, and who is now nine years old. At nine, Nina is already a veteran to the world of opera, having worked with both maestros already: with Somtow in the children's chorus of the 2007 opera, Ayodhya, and with Gaston in the upcoming opera, A Boy and A Tiger, which will premiere in November.

Gaston and Somtow were pioneers in the Thai music circle in the 1970s, Gaston with his fusion of classical and contemporary Western, as well as classical Thai music into a totally new genre, and Somtow whose passion and determination has put opera firmly into the colloquial vocabulary of the Thai music scene. The upcoming concert looks to be an auspicious start to a new period of collaborations between the two.