LIKE SUNSHINE / an RGSChoir(2008) production / 10th july, 7.30pm / acs (barker) mrs lee choon guan concert hall / tickets at $15

okay, the mandatory before-concert post cannot wait anymore. (at any rate, allow me to reassure myself that this is not considered slacking because i am multitasking and typing this over dinner. yes i am a good girl. :D)

i really don't know how to start this; there's just so much that i want to say, and so much that i unfortunately can't put down properly in words, but maybe it's just that every time an RGSChoir concert comes around, i feel that i'm part of something really big, really spectacular, really awesome. like just yesterday (or was it saturday D:), i dug up all of last year's concert recordings (with esplanade's fantastic reverbs and all, ahhhh) and it was just one amazing rollercoaster ride of wonderful memories. (: standing along the aisles for the cataract of mount lu with all the cricket chirping and msloo's 'surround-sound' idea (+ the sop1's really awesomely cool high 'b's); the triumphant 'alleluia' at the end of salmo; the rush of emotions, plus all the overlapping and blending of voices during itsuki; the touching simplicity of mid-winter; even the awfully short fragment of jaakobin...there's always something so magical about the music we make as a choir - the immediacy and impact of the emotions that we put in, the solidarity as one choir, and i guess, above all, the amount of love that we infuse into our music.

and that's what has always made RGSChoir so special to me, for the music we make is not merely for making music's sake per se, but something which represents a personal involvement on each and every person's part, something that comes directly from the heart without any inhibitions. plus all those goosebump-y moments when all the chords and harmonies fall nicely in place; those moments are just, pure brilliance. (gosh ahhhhhh i swoon.) speaking about repertoire, i'm just so, so glad for the pieces we're performing this year. there's a healthy dose of those good ol' send-thrills-down-your-spine-because-the-chords-are-so-gorgeous songs (te quiero! soleram! cantemus!); and then there's also those quirky, off-beat pieces like la cucaracha - which has irritating rhythms but nevermind we shall prevail, hahaha, diu diu dang and las amarillas (haha, 'cuatro por cinco son veinte' in the lyrics means five times four equals twenty, i challenge you to beat that xD), rounded off with those rousing, oh-so-choral stuff like ba jun zan, gloria (!!) and look to this day. (: i missed out hotarukoi (and i think something else D:), but i'm just so thankful that we've been exposed to choral music of so many different genres, so many different time periods, and so many different styles - it just challenges you to keep redefining that stilted definition of music you have in your head, and every piece is always so much of a journey of exploration. :D of course, it helps that i happen to be standing directly at the intersection of sop1 and sop2, so there's that higher sense of awareness as to how the different voice parts interact by enhancing or conflicting with each other, and that just totally gives choral singing a whole new dimension. (: (hurhur my brain is not thinking proper music jargon, but you get the idea. -.-) above all, there's always ms loo working all her wonders with the music, and the way she treats the music, interprets it and finally shapes it through our voices is just nothing short of amazing.

do forgive the incoherence, but every time we go down for saturday practices for sectionals & busking and all that there's always so much joy and happiness and love bubbling through me that it's almost too much to bear, hahaha. xD i think when i was in sec1 i didn't really like sectionals a lot, because it entailed us doing choreo...? (and i'm the kind who has an aversion to dancing - because i can't. :/) but well, after having msloo continually emphasize about how important it is to set yourself free of all those dreadful fears, to dare to express yourself in the biggest ways possible, i guess i've been more than suitably psyched into doing weird stuff for the fun of it - i mean, it's not as if i get a lot chances to be really random and end up getting applauded for the randomness, innit. xD so i end up reveling most proudly in the silliness of it all - and it is a whole lot of fun, i say. but what makes it a whole lot of fun is also all the cool people in your section: hilarious seniors with all those wacky ideas about choreo, amusing juniors who are obsessed with thumb games and other weird games like the kind which you used to play in primary school and thought you'd gotten over in secondary school, only to find them haunting you thanks to your juniors, and of course wonderful batchmates, the people whom you can go to to talk about forming a gang of dance-phobics when certain steps elude your grasp, hurhurhur.

yeah, batchmates and busking. :D i love how we blend nicely together as a whole, and even though we may be inexperienced i guess it's the process of coming together more closely as a choir batch that truly matters. like on saturday, after combined prac was over and we were all just camping out in the bach room going through costume crises before eventually bursting out singing 'somewhere out there' again, it was just so impactful, how our voices merged as one and how we all seemed to know each other so well - how to phrase the lines, how to blend, how to work hand-in-hand with one another. plus all the most crazy things that we do - the batch song for instance, and all of janelle's (everyone-agrees-they-are) retarded improvisations, hahaha.

at the end of the day, it's those little things that make us who we are, those little things that define us as RGSChoir, and not anything else.

it's how we can simultaneously be all jumpy and random and crazy at one moment, and yet get down to serious business in the next. it's how we put our heart and soul into every note we sing and breathe. it's how all the people in one section can randomly start giggling in the middle of nowhere thanks to some hilarious comment that one person made. it's all the random things that we do while waiting for our turn to sing. it's how we know that we're each part of something amazing, that all of us are in on something that no one else can ever truly undertsand; it's how we make music that resonates deep within us, and which we hope resonates with everyone else who listens to that music.

and all that, every single bit of the experience we share as a choir, is irreplaceable.

okay this is such an unsatisfactory post rawrgh - i've lost all my abilities to write nice emotive posts! ): (english oral speeches must have taken all of that away, sigh.) but all the same, 3 days to concert, 3 days to our taking the stage and sharing our love for music with our audience, 3 days to proving to ourselves that what we've worked hard for the past half a year have been entirely worth it, 3 days to showing who we are, what we are when we join our voices as one. 3 days to the big day, and despite all the anxieties, the worries and the fears we may have now, at the end of it all i'm sure we can look back with much pride, fondness, and above all, a heart full of love. (:

because we're RGSChoir. ♥

or zongmin, in english, chinese or - okay, not really otherwise.

rafflesian
111 (06) | 213 (07) | 414 (09)
tripscience/lit♥ + mep, crab! (:
RGSChoir♥: sop2/alto1 + appassionata!
RGSPB-fior, batch of 'o9! (:
waddlian :D
CAPper'o7!
OBS}hillary!♥
team rgs/nsc08! (:
RGS-ICYL08: FIXcomm!♥
wycf08, satb choir! :D
ISYF@SG09!♥

lives, writes, sings, plays the piano, and attempts to sound intellectual at times (conclusion: fails rather miserably).

loves music (almost strictly classical, hurhur & inclusive of faziolis!), literature (& also the sciences - no they are not in conflict), making hopelessly lame puns, laughter, white/milk chocolate, cheesecake, the world & the people in it. list not exhaustive, by the way.

wants the world to be filled with peace, joy and love, and also wants (perhaps a little more selfishly) to be happy, plus lead a life of purpose. that would be more than enough. (:

oh, and she likes embarking on her own 'free hugs!' campaigns after exams and the like; not really sure why. D: (at any rate, you can tell that she's random enough.)

amanda g.
amanda y.
baozhing
brenda l.
brenda s.
chanel
charmaine
chloe
darrell
deborah l.
deborah z.
elizabeth
fangying
fiona
frances
giovanni
grace k.
grace z.
iris
jacqueline
jane
jiaxuan
jingjie
jovina
kezia
leevoon
lisa
lynette
madeline
may
mengshi
michelle
natalie
nikhita
peiying
priscilla
samantha
sarah
seetteng
shanjee
shiaoyen
shermaine
shze hui
siyi
sophia
stacey
stefanie
suetping
tienli
vanessa
wanhui
wanjiun
weite
xinyuan
yeephon
yinleng
yujia
zeslene

111'06
213'07
rgs choir
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very plain, she knows; but this is probably herself in its entirety - nothing more than a compilation of perhaps-boring-to-you little things (and the occasional Important Event), but also nothing less than all the brilliant memories which constitutes her life, and perhaps yours.

also interpreted as an inability to express with other things but words (nothing more, nothing less!), although even words sometimes won't do enough. but she does like orange.

v2.0 (230208): maybe solid grey isn't that fantastic after all. but wordy is good, all the same. she's weird, she knows.

ver. i-pretend-that-it-is-3.0-when-i-know-it-is-not (070608): i am boring, take that. (:

v4.0 (200908): got bored, so cut down on the quasi-fanciful stuff even more. perfectly plain now, though somehow the background still doesn't work on safari / google chrome. ):