Siam Sinfonietta (SiSi)

It began with a request. In 2010, a group of gifted young Thai musicians came to the composer Somtow Sucharitkul and said they wanted an orchestra that played real music: whole symphonies, the kind of concerts they could watch online but never take part in at home. That year, Somtow, conductor Trisdee na Patalung and the Bangkok Opera Foundation founded the Siam Sinfonietta. It first came together at the “Bach to the Future: Science through Music” camp.

The early rehearsals were held every Saturday in the office of Dr Soonthorn, Thailand’s “dentist to the stars.” The players already had real talent and solid technique from some of the country’s best teachers. “They were well versed in the how of music,” Somtow said. “What we needed was to show them the why.” To do that he built a new way of teaching, now known as the “Somtow Method.” It takes the players deep into the history, philosophy and subtext behind the notes, and teaches them not only to master their own parts but to listen closely to one another.

It worked faster than anyone expected. In July 2012, only two years after it was founded, the orchestra travelled to Vienna for the Summa Cum Laude International Youth Music Festival. There it played Somtow’s new transcription of music from Mahler’s unfinished Tenth Symphony, reconstructed from the composer’s sketches. The Viennese judges unanimously awarded the young Thai orchestra first prize for Viennese music played to a Viennese audience.

The world opened up from there. The Sinfonietta toured California and played in Berlin in 2013. In 2014 it made its Carnegie Hall debut and went on to Berlin, Prague and Abu Dhabi’s Emirates Palace under the auspices of Thailand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 2015 it appeared at the Festival junger Künstler in Bayreuth. The orchestra has since returned to Carnegie Hall twice more and played Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. It gave the European premiere of Somtow’s opera The Silent Prince in Bayreuth, was broadcast across Europe on Slovak Radio-Television, and walked the red carpet at the Oldenburg Film Festival in 2021. The orchestra has also appeared on screen, in the award-winning The Maestro: Symphony of Terror and in Todd Field’s six-time Oscar-nominated Tár, starring Cate Blanchett.

Its repertoire runs from Monteverdi to Ligeti. It has played the Mahler symphonies and all three of Stravinsky’s great ballets, and it plays in the pit for Opera Siam’s productions. It gave the Thailand premiere of Mahler’s Third Symphony with the Siam Philharmonic Orchestra. This season it carried Mahler’s “Titan,” Beethoven’s Ninth, Górecki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, The Rite of Spring and the season’s closing tribute to Her Majesty Queen Sirikit.

The Sinfonietta has never believed that great music belongs only in great halls. It has played Bach in an upcountry street market, Strauss in a shopping mall and Beethoven in a modern art museum. It has also given concert-lectures for new audiences at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre. And after the unrest of 2010, it played for reconciliation and healing at “Together We Can” and at “Healing through Harmony” in front of CentralWorld.

The Sinfonietta holds auditions every year for musicians aged 12 to 25, and training is offered on a 100% scholarship basis. Talent is the only thing that counts, whatever a player’s background or family’s means. Many members go on to Thailand’s professional orchestras, including the Siam Philharmonic. The orchestra is funded entirely by government support, corporate sponsors and the generosity of individual donors.

Sixteen years after those Saturday mornings in a dentist’s office, the Siam Sinfonietta remains a proud ambassador for Thai artistry, and a place where the next generation learns not just how to play, but why.

To support the Siam Sinfonietta, write to us at contact@operasiam.com.

SEASON XVI members