LIFESTYLE

Music

Matthew Quek:
My Romance (2009), If I Loved You (2001),
Someone Like You (2002)

I first heard of Matthew Quek when his sister Dorcas (who is a District Judge in the Subordinate Courts) attended  a concert entitled “Letters Home” where I was singing and accompanying myself on the piano at the Esplanade Concourse in December 2009. Dorcas told me that her brother Matthew was a singer too, and that he had recently released an album, “My Romance” with the legendary Jeremy Monterio and his band under 2009 True Grace Records. I went to the Esplanade gift shop, bought a copy of “My Romance” and another compact album that Matthew and Dorcas had collaborated on – “You are the One”, featuring original compositions by Matthew and arrangement by Dorcas.

I managed to get in touch with Matthew via e-mail and got the opportunity to find out more about his work  on “My Romance”. Matthew explained that Dorcas was studying abroad when he was working on the album. He had sent his demo to Jeremy Monterio and the rest was history.

Jeremy decided to collaborate with him after hearing him sing. Although he and Dorcas had produced four albums together, Mathew decided to take on the opportunity to work with Jeremy as Dorcas was furthering her studies in law.

I decided to take a closer listen to two of the albums that Matthew and Dorcas had produced in the vein of musical theatre. In “If I Loved You”, released in December 2001, Matthew sings Rodgers and Hammerstein favourites such as “Oh What a Beautiful Morning” from Oklahoma and “Some Enchanted Evening” from South Pacific with Dorcas accompanying his melodic vocals on the piano.

Matthew and Dorcas both have a seemingly classical approach to the music with little improvisation to the written score. Matthew’s high baritone pitch is spot on, and Dorcas is a very good accompanist to her brother’s singing. My favourite part of “If I Loved You” is the very song itself from the musical,  Carousel. Matthew sings it both tenderly and passionately, except I did wish more of the tracks played longer as the short lengths only slightly satiated. 

In the second album of musical style theatre that Matthew and Dorcas produced, entitled “Someone Like You”, released in 2002, Matthew and Dorcas record two songs from French composer Claude Michel Schonberg from “Les Miserables”, entitled “Empty Chairs and Empty Tables” and “Bring Him Home”, and mostly Frank Wildhorn numbers such as “When I Look at You” from another musical, the Scarlet Pimpernel. Again, the style of Matthew is to stick to strict time singing as written while Dorcas lets on a hint of rubato in her piano playing. Dorcas reads Matthew’s mind pretty well, as the enchantment of the melodies show. Matthew seems also to develop a style of singing that breaks out high note ending in slight falsetto. There are a few undiscovered gems in the compact disc (“CD”) such as “When I Look at You” and “Only Love” from the Scarlet Pimpernel, which might attract the avid musical theatre listener too.

Matthew and Dorcas had also recorded two other albums of original compositions  entitled “Treasures of the Heart” in December 2001 and “You are the One” in 2002, stretching this sibling duo’s talent range to include writing original music too. But I shan’t be commenting on these two CDs.

For “My Romance”, Matthew recorded with Jeremy Monterio and his band of musicians comprising  Tama Goh on drums, Christy Smith on double bass, Andrew Lim on guitar, Shawn Letts on tenor saxophone, Fabian Lim on flute, and Mohamed Noor on percussion. I asked Matthew to describe his recording experience with Jeremy and here is what he said:

Well, it was definitely a great honour to have recorded with the great Jeremy Monterio. It was also very demanding because Prof Monterio and his musicians had the highest of musical standards and I felt that I had to push beyond my normal boundaries to keep up in a sense. It was also interesting as we saw how we could learn from one another. The jazz musicians, who were not too familiar with musical theatre observed how I interpreted the pieces like “Better than I” and “Music of the Night”. At the same time, it was an eye-opener for me as I saw how the jazz musicians could simply swing to the beat and improvise notes off the back of their hand. The experience has proven to be a life changing one and I really do not know if I will ever get a chance to do such a momentous project again. I, for one, have greatly altered my singing style and interpretation for the better after this recording experience.

In “My Romance”, although there exists a slight tension between Matthew’s strict time classical style and the laid back rhythms of Jeremy Monterio and his band, there are also adventurous moments such as the song “Perhaps Love”, a folkish pop number – popularised by the late John Denver – that put both Jeremy’s accordion and Matthew’s singing together to make sheer music without having to typify genres of whether a song should belong to the category of musical theatre or a typical jazz standard. Like what Jeremy Monterio also says on the album cover, a great number of what we regard as jazz standards are in fact from the great Broadway musicals.

The music in the album is meticulously arranged by guitarist Andrew Lim and shows off each and every one of the musician’s best moments. Kudos should go to Jeremy Monterio’s leadership and awesome piano solos, Tama Goh for his brushwork and syncopated drum accents, Christie Smith for his walking bass on “On the Street Where You Live”, the swinging saxophone solo by Shawn Letts in “Love” and the romantic guitar riffs in “Perhaps Love” by Andrew Lim. I also felt that Matthew fared best on slow songs like “ All the Way” where he croons with conviction in his voice.

“My Romance” is certainly worth a listen, to get acquainted with an up-and-coming local talent like Matthew Quek. It is also a milestone in his music career, as it signifies that he could perhaps consider a foray  into  jazz besides singing songs from Broadway musicals.

Rosita Ng
ChingCo Law Corporation
E-mail: rosconcert@hotmail.com