Brand New Day: The Best of Broadway and West End Come To JCPAC

This October, Sunway Group officially unveiled the Jeffrey Cheah Performing Arts Centre (JCPAC), a new venue at the heart of Sunway City with ambitions of becoming Malaysia’s premier performing arts hub, aiming to enrich the city’s cultural landscape and contribute to the country’s wider arts scene. And through the New Day: A Symphonic Broadway Celebration event, HSBC was the first to join hands with JCPAC to offer its Premier Elite clients an exclusive performance.

The concert took place in JCPAC’s Grand Theatre, a 1,200-seat proscenium auditorium distinguished by its faceted timber walls and ceilings, their seams traced with light. The architectural language draws inspiration from the tin-mining landscape on which Sunway City was built, recalling the terraces, exposed earth and channels shaped by the water and machinery of its industrial past.

For the inaugural performance, 104 artists took to the stage: 22 singers, eight dancers, and the Tutan Festival Orchestra, a collective of professional Malaysian musicians led by conductor Kevin Field. They were joined by an ensemble of principal vocalists, including British-Malaysian actor Stephen Rahman-Hughes, Malaysia’s own Queen of the ‘Belt, Banter, and Bless,’ Elvira Arul, and performer Sean Ghazi, who also directed the concert.

“This production began almost a year ago as a conversation and a dream with my collaborator Sean Ghazi, to fill our new stage with the sound of a symphony orchestra, the music of Broadway, and artists and collaborators from Malaysia and around the world,” said JCPAC director Melissa Teoh.

Across two 40-minute acts, the production brought together familiar favourites from Broadway and the West End, with stirring renditions of Les Misérables, The Phantom of the Opera, West Side Story, Wicked, Dreamgirls and The Greatest Showman. 

Among the evening’s highlights was Lara Maigue’s soprano performance of ‘Think of Me’ from The Phantom of the Opera, delivered with a soaring clarity that lent the number an emotional poignancy. She was joined by her newlywed husband, Gian Magdangal, for a duet in the Miss Saigon medley.

Ghazi and Rahman Hughes also served as comic relief between performances, keeping the atmosphere light and friendly. Together with the full orchestra and ensemble, the performances showcased the range of talent assembled for the occasion, from intimate vocal moments to the grandeur of a full-scale symphonic production.

As an opening statement, Brand New Day offered a fitting introduction to JCPAC’s ambitions: a venue where international production standards meld with the depth and diversity of Malaysian talent. It signalled Sunway City’s growing cultural aspirations and the role the arts can play in shaping a community’s identity.

“My hope is that Malaysian artists will find here the support to pursue their ambitions and the opportunity to work alongside some of the finest talents in the world,” said Tan Sri Jeffrey Cheah. “JCPAC’s true worth will be found in the quality of the work presented here, the opportunities it opens to others, and the place it comes to hold in people’s lives.”

(HSBC)

Photography by Saufi Nadzri