All posts tagged: Choir

Serendipity Are Made of These

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Intellectuals like to think one’s destiny is determined by one’s choices… this wannabe intellectual is feeling (at least for today), that perhaps one’s choices are governed and led inexorably by destiny… Haec Dies: 1. A happy occasion where my old friend, seriously overachiever and talented NAFA classmate gets married! *congrats John!* 2. Two of my adult choirs pull off respectable public performances after having come a very loooong way: 2.1 The STAR Teachers’ Choir’s first public performance @ the Esplanade Library! The small chamber group of 13 (+1 conductor), completely self-led, made up of music teachers in-training and full-fledged music teachers. Do note though that many of them are learning singing for the first time, let alone conducting, leading warmups and organising themselves as a choir etc. I must say for such a group to sing music with 4-part divisi like today is not a walk in the woods!! GREAT JOB and kudos to the two conductors Rebecca Lau (Mayflower Primary School) and Allen Losey (Tampines Primary School)!!! *muacks* Above: The lovely, crazy teachers from …

Goodbye Plaisir Ensemble!

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After 3 days of fun stay in Singapore, we bid farewell to representatives of the Plaisir Ensemble + Hong Kong City Choir (Laurence!) and their conductor Mr Jack Man.  I will miss the long chats with like-minded Mr Man, a thinker, musician and gentleman. You will be missed!

Visit to Universal Studio Singapore

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I first met Hong Kong’s Plaisir Ensemble and their conductor Mr Man (think cantonese) at a choral festival held in Vietnam this year.  It was a happy coincidence that they could be in town en route home from Sri Lanka and we decided to meet up and hang out! Hosting them was a real pleasure…  Not only was there fantastic sharing of food, music, philosophy and ideas etc., it was also a very good excuse to give myself a break and have my maiden visit to the famed Universal Studio Singapore (ya ya, I’m a foreigner in my own country) together with Mrs Tay! While getting onto the monorail en route to Sentosa, we ended up queuing at the exact door where some of my ex-SAJC choir students were waiting to go to USS as well!  It was great to hear how they’re all in university and doing well.  相见不如偶遇, so we took a quick picture once we alighted from the monorail. The ex-SAJC choir gang still hanging out after all these years! More amazing …

Leong Yoon Pin – A Choral Odyssey

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Leong Yoon Pin – A Choral Odyssey 25 August 2009 is a milestone in Singapore’s choral history.  Led by 4 renowned Singaporean conductors, a tour de force of 12 school and community choirs came together for an unprecedented gathering to pay tribute to Singapore’s pioneering composer, performing to an appreciative full-house crowd at the Esplanade Concert Hall in a concert aptly titled “Leong Yoon Pin – A Choral Odyssey”. This featured composer is Mr. Matthew Leong Yoon Pin (b.1931), a respected educator and conductor who is best known for his voluminous output of choral music as well as myriad instrumental works that run the gamut from symphonies, overtures, concertos to chamber works. Leong’s choice of text shows a predilection for poetry ranging from the Chinese classical greats such as Li Bai (李白) and Du Fu (杜甫) to modern English nationalistic poetry by local poets such as Angeline Yap.  His choice of texts is born of a natural affinity for the two languages and filtered by the political climate of the late 1950s – choral songs …