Here I come
All right, after months of intensive preparation (the past few days especially draining the life out of me), the NUS Choir is finally taking off for the 33rd Festa Musicale in Olomouc, Czech Republic.
I'm exhausted beyond words right now, really, due to the crazy packing up and moving out. Yesterday we sang with our conductor Nelson Kwei's other choir that's off for the same competition but in a different category (or categories, since they're singing in two), Anderson Junior College. They were good I have to admit, and the strength of the competition bunch of their choir is almost twice ours. Well, Junior Colleges tend to be richer (I think, or at least they spend more for these cultural stuff), and they still have classes now, unlike in Uni where most everyone has gone home for the holidays. They were good really, and they gave very animated, fun-filled performances demonstrating their youth and vibrance (ours was a more serious and classy[?] performance). But most of all, I was (and still am) fascinated by our common conductor Nelson. His hand and arm gestures and facial expressions vividly contain exactly what he wants from the choir, and he gets it.
I'm packing the third and last chunk of my room into a box I'll give to Arthur for storage over the break (the previous two I gave to Karen and Ferron). Thanks to you all, really. :D
Hmm.. I'm not sure if I should post this, but I hope NUS Choir student conductor Weiwei, and who posted this in his Computing account, doesn't mind. (Hehe I seriously hope so, since I'm gonna share a double room with him in Hotel Flora in Olomouc. =P) OK, I'll risk it and post this up. Hopefully for my friends and family to know what exactly we're doing in the 10 minutes or so we're up on stage over there. Right-click and save these recordings of yesterday's practice:
Credo
Ashita wa Hare kana, Kumori kana
Kucinta
It was bad day for singing, really, yesterday, so our sound wasn't as perfect as we wanted it to be, nor as good as last week's practice. Or maybe because it was early morning. But it's quite good, honestly, and strangely it sounds better on record than when we were performing.
So there, the flight's at 10:55 tonight, and we have to be at the airport at 7:30pm.
To those who wish to contact me while I'm in Czech, you can SMS me at +6590745231. Hehe I can't reply though, since M1 says I can only accept and not receive messages. I don't know about my Globe SIM though, if I automatically get roaming, since I remember applying only for Singapore roaming when I applied. It's +639173341682 just the same. Email me for anything, since hopefully there'll be internet access there.
Please pray for the Choir! This is a very big investment, and we surely hope it wouldn't be a waste. Our competition is not until the 11th though.
Okay, time to go off now and pack up my remaining stuff, including this laptop. I'm actually gonna step on European soil soon! Grrreat. :D Ciao!
