Monday, December 17, 2007
MI Symphonic Band Concert
On 15th December 2007, my band, Millenia Institute Symphonic Band had our first ever band only concert entitled Sleigh Ride. Our band practiced VERY hard for this concert. The songs we prepared for the audience were Sleigh Ride, Disney Movie Magic, White Christmas, O Come O Ye Faithful, Last Christmas, Pop Culture, Enka Medley, and Jersey Boys. Songs like Disney Movie Magic, Pop Culture and Jersey Boys had short versions of famous movie themes making the concert a little more worthwhile.
The concert was due to start at 5:30pm but it started at 5:40pm instead. Probably to wait a little longer for the audience to come in. Due to last minute ticket selling, we couldn't get full house. All the VIPs I invited came though. All except one who went to a Japanese karaoke like a gay fag. When the audience was entering the Center Stage, my band mates spotted my brother immediately. They were like "I saw your brother James" or "Isn't that your brother?". Tae Hyung e hyung and Sae Hyung sat next to my brother too. While waiting for our conductor to start us off, I noticed that my 3 brothers were laughing uncontrollably while waiting for the concert to start. I kinda knew they were laughing at me since they made funny hand signs to me and looked at me straight in the eye. I thought they were making fun of the Santa hat everyone was wearing.
And so eventually our conductor, Mr. Lim Lip Hua, entered and started us off with Sleigh Ride. Our first piece started off nicely. So did our second piece, Disney Movie Magic. For this piece, I played 2nd Clarinet. And the last 2 pieces before the interval which were White Christmas and O Come O Ye Faithful, I played 3rd Clarinet. I came up with the suggestion that we, the Clarinet section, switch parts =D. It was to let my section mates have a chance at playing the 1st part which is usually more challenging. However, I still got the first parts for the more harder pieces like Last Christmas and Enka Medley. The Clarinet section was busy switching seats because of this though... Our conductor always wanted the first Clarinets to be seated at his left and the third Clarinets to his right.
So after playing those 4 pieces, the body percussion came... Basically, body percussion is something like self mutilation. Or if you put it in nicer terms, its to create music using our bodies. I had to beat my chest, belly, knee, and clap my hands along with 11 others. C.Y.'s and Tze Kiat's* solo parts were funny though. They really looked as if they were gonna fight or something.
So the interval came after that and I went straight away to meet my lovely parents and my 3 brothers. I found out that they were counting all the mistakes the band/body percussion made, making fun of me hitting my chest and how I cleaned up the stage and set up the stage again before the intervals. My brother took a video of me cleaning up the stage... He should have took video of the band playing so that I could hear what we sounded like from the audience's perspective. They also said they memorized the body percussion parts as soon as they looked at it XD.
Anyways, the second half of the concert started off with us playing Last Christmas. A familiar piece to most people who listen to Christmas carols/songs. I made a mistake during this song when I was looking at Tae Hyung e hyung and Sae Hyung. I forgot to watch the conductor so I went straight into Coda when I was supposed to repeat. Fortunately for me, the Coda part and the repeat part was almost the same so people couldn't really hear my mistake. This happened through out the second half because Tae Hyung e hyung told me to look at them when I'm playing. They said they were gonna do something funny. So in the next song, which was Pop Culture, I memorized 4 bars of Flinstones just to look at them. I think I made eye contact but none of them did anything... -_-.
Then my favourite song of the concert came. Enka* Medley. AKA Chinese grandma song by Tae Hyung e hyung LOL. This song was the song my section forced me to play since it was one of the more challenging pieces... I wanted Yvonne or Yi Zhen to play though... They didn't want to in the end, although they were able to play the piece... Enka Medley was my favourite because it had lots of running notes, and the tempo became fast for some time too. I love fast, catchy songs. The last song listed on the program booklet was Jersey Boys. We played this song without any mistake also (at least thats what I think...). After the song ended, our conductor smiled at us and went backstage. The smile was to tell us something like "Do you think the audience will shout encore?".
The audience, except a few people like my brothers, parents, friends and a few others I don't know, WERE ALL DEAD. Oh my God... They didn't even clap properly (according to my brother). So my brother had to clap as loud as he can to get them to actually clap. Even though the audience didn't shout encore, our conductor came out and told the audience that we prepared one last song for them. The last song was called Santa Rocks the House. This song was super fast too. I think the audience liked the song alot too since they clapped very loud after the song ended.
So that was the end for the concert. Friends I invited all left so early... I couldn't get a chance to thank them face to face... Tae Hyung e hyung, Sae Hyung, my brother, and my parents stayed all the way though and for that I'm grateful =D. Haha I got to give Tae Hyung e hyung his birthday present too =D. Hope he will like it XD. Haha now I'll like to thank everyone who came to the concert to support me XD. THANK YOU ALL!!
After all my supporters have left, I took lots of photos with my band members. Especially with my lovely, angelic, Clarinet section, and the guest players. I'm gonna miss them when they're gone... Especially Tina, Liyana, Derek, Edward and others. We will keep in touch though. Especially with Tina since we both support Thailand in the Sea Games XP and since she's my one and only TINA XD. For Liyana I'll see her whenever we have Clarinet section outting or barbecue XD. Derek and Edward, I can keep in touch with them through my brother in band, C.Y. XD.
Oh well, I can't wait for our next concert with them =D. People who came to support, once again, THANK YOU SO MUCH =D. Hope to see you on our next concert too!
JaMess out
SHUT UP.
8:41 PM
