Saturday, April 12, 2008
hahas so heres the concert....
This concert was organised by toh ban sheng and is named "i believe", starring Dunman High choir, Catholic JC choir and St Anthony Cassonian sec choir.
It bore this title because mr toh ban sheng supposedly said the words "i believe" to the dunman high choir that spurred them to the state they are today.
Well the choirs are good, so is the conductor, mr toh. But many ppl hate him. Firstly, lets talk abt his good points. He is very dedicated to teaching choirs and sacrificed a chance of a professional solo career just for it. He may very well be a tenor or countertenor soloist and earn big bucks, but he didn't and chose conducting instead. Scondly, he has a vast knowledge of vocal pedagogy and experience in teaching choirs, even much more than mdm yeong. Thirdly, he has an excellent voice(as heard from jeanette) able to sing bass(maybe?), baritone, tenor, alto, mezzo and soprano. This makes his range to be around 4 octaves. His sopranino range is unheard of but it may very well be there(if it is then his range would be 5 octaves). I for one have experienced the power of his voice when he came once to teach our choir last yr. His soprano voice, sung in falsetto, can reach up to a deafening fortissimo while reducing to a light pianissimo as well, truly breathtaking vocal and breath control.
The bad thing abt him is his abuse of his ego. He that time come and teach our choir once, and he tell the school that he don't want to teach. He say that if he was to teach our choir, he would have to start from scratch. True, i agree that we aren't good, but how can one speak so foully? All because of ego. He also is too dedicated to choir that he set very high expectations to those in it. He holds 3 practices a week ending very late each time. And if near a competition, even tell ppl to sacrifice their church time and duties to come to practice. This is atrocious as it actually infringes on the right of religion. Lastly, he does not correct ppl's mistakes while scolding them, but tell them to figure out themselves, as opposed to mdm yeong. Proud and arrogant, with such a voice, it's no wonder ppl call him gay.
His mug, taken from facebook
So the went to the mrt station around 6 to meet farah and charmaine. Tehy were taking the mrt from angmokio to bishan then to city hall. I was supposed to meet them in the last cabin. But tragedy happened, i boarded the wrong train and go the wrong direction! =(( so i later then chase up and met them in city hall. then we reached victoria concert hall just in time for the concert.
The concert opened with a song sung by the st anthony choir we were very familiar: The peace of god. We sung that for our founders day. It was truly an enlightening experience, hearing the same song our choir is singing being sung by another choir. It reminds us of how much we still have to improve. Every dynamic was carefully expressed, every harmonization was carefully balanced, it was an excellent performance.
After that came legions of songs sung by dunman and cJC. the first song that had a soloist was the "circle of life" from the lion king sung by dunman. Farah was mesmerized by the guy's "sexy" voice(tenor). Sigh... Girls... =P The dunman choir was easily the biggest choir i've ever seen, with around a hundred members. I heard from mr niam their history was that when mr toh just came, it was as exactly like our choir! small with only one guy. hahas. Then slowly they changed and soared, achieving gold in various events. Now they are a SATB choir(soprano, alto, tenor, bass). All because of mr toh's "I believe". Hope mr niam can do that to our choir too, after all, he is mr toh's disciple.
Then the grand finale, all the choirs combined to fill the whole stage. It was a spectacular sight. Then the song was nice too. it also included various solos of bass, tenor and soprano parts. Then the male soloists came out and danced with female soloists and everybody all like "awww..." lololol so funny. Charmaine was head over heels abt a guy soloist also from dunman, because he very shuai... lol, she said that last yr dunman choir came to our school, she didn't have the guts to talk to him. hahas jiayous to her la....
So after everything ended, and mr toh went to the back stage, the choir was stil standing on the stage. The audience have alot of the friends of the ppl in the choirs, so they cheered and ask them to sing one more time. lol they insisted so vigorously that mr toh actually came out again to conduct for one last song. hahas joke sia... i dunno he so kind de. But then some of the ppl are like, "sian... why one more song! go home already la..." hahas =P
So after the concert ended, we headed home, on the way back we took some pics. hahas
I sort of miss mdm yeong... =( lol
stop looking down
brightness will break through, and SHINE @ 2:36 AM
Jireh