'Around the World in One Night' by Jon THO (Singapore)

"I believe Christmas holds a different meaning for everyone, and for the children, it is the season where Santa Claus delivers presents on his sleigh with the help of his flying reindeers. He makes a list of children throughout the world, delivering gifts to the well-behaved children and coal to mis-behaved children. During Christmas Eve, he flies around the world, accomplishing this feat in a single night before the morning of Christmas Day. The intro depicts Santa Claus and his flying reindeers preparing to take flight into the night sky, which leads to the tune in AABBA form. The piece is arranged in the style of a big band where the strings are mostly in concerted voicing and the horns doing background lines. The 2 bridge sections were written with the intent to highlight every player in the ensemble by providing a 1 bar improvised solo over constant structures.

The first solo section features the pianist and it depicts Santa Claus entering the houses through the chimney to deliver his gifts quietly to avoid waking up the family. The second solo section features the 2nd violinist with active background lines to create musical contrast; changes are from AABBA. Following the second bridge, the arranger's chorus was written in a contrapuntal style with the apex note to make it sound like a shout section before returning to the recapitulation. The coda was an extension of the head using 2 dominant chords with augmentation on the motif. The piece ends off convincingly with a tag ending on the piano followed by a loud tonic chord."

This work had its world premier at EBM's inaugural concert, "Christmas Concert 2017" on Monday, 18th December 2017 at Esplanade Recital Studio in Singapore.