Zequilix: 6th Young Singers' Choral Festival

I see that I have not been blogging for the past few days due to my attending of the 6th Young Singers' Choral Festival held on the 4th-7th June 2008 in KLPAC (Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre).

Wednesday, 4th June 2008

I went for violin class in the morning. After that, I ate an early lunch and got ready for Melissa to pick me up to KLPac. Squeezing in the car too were Jhia Yim, Yi Jing and Chi Yi. Coincidentially, all of us were wearing pink shirts. The outstanding one was Yi Jing, who wore a maroon shirt--which was still counted as DARK pink. Luckily, the traffic was smooth all the way so we reached there pretty early (half-an-hour, if I'm not mistaken). We weren't the first there anyway....we thought we were....When we were inside that KL something-like-recreational-park, we saw some weird buildings like a Malay longhouse and 2 interesting buildings (see left). On the right is the picture

of the building through an entrance. It was still early anyway, so we fed the fish near some koi farm and KLPac. Chi Yi got mad with the fish.....it was a real feeding frenzy.We went to the Koi rearing farm just opposite KLPac. The fish there were humongous!!! One fish could grow up to more than approximately 60 centimetres long and probably more than 15 cm width (fat). Not only that....these were highly expensive fish. Kill one and it'll cost you more than RM20,000. It doesn't really look that big in the pictures I've taken but who cares...? You get the point. It's

big...unless you've seen something bigger (Okay, I have. The biggest harmless fish I saw was in Langkawi--waaay back in Standard 1, when it could have gobbled me up easily. It was some oversized Arowana fish--it was metres long). Then there are sharks, whale sharks, bluefin tunas and loads of other fish......BACK to CHORAL FEST. After amusing ourselves with the fishes, we walked over to KLPac. There was some Japanese tinge in it to me....somehow. I thought it would be some grand building which would look like Istana Budaya. Instead, a humble building full of history stood before us. It kind of

reminded me of a green house. Most of its walls were made out of glass-- and it was beautiful, actually. Now that you have been amused by some of the pictures here, I shall continue my story....after waiting for a long time, we finally registered (Well, we couldn't register earlier because Pn Cecilia wasn't there yet). So, we did alot of crappy things like taking pictures of stupid things. The picture of the stairs below (Looong way down) makes me giddy after a while. After we registered, we had to take a green file each. Inside the file were our song scores. These included Sicut Cervus, Bogoritse Devo, Lo Lo Re Babu, Down By the Riverside

and Not Alone Anymore. The file also contained a coloured tag which we would write our names on. My colour was green..at first I didn't know that it would affect the "team" we would be in, but Melissa told me about it. So, she kindly exchanged her purple tag with Jo Li to be in Green Team too. However, I seemed to be getting sick of green. Even in the prefect's camp, I was placed in Green Team. We gave the size of our shirts to Pn Cecilia and after that, we got our shirts. This was the first time I ordered 'S' size because I thought that 'M' was getting a bit too long, hot and stuffy for me. And great thing I ordered 'S'.....the shirts were so big that even with 'S', it felt like it was 'M' (I saw my label properly and it DID say 'S'). Looks like everyone's going to look like toys

when they wear the shirt. Anyway, Yi Jing got a red tag at first, but she had decided to change her tag to green when she gets back home. About 3 something, we were herded to go to the great hall, also known as Pentas 1. The whole place looked like my Rubik's Cube. It was so colourful. *Pause*. I can see that my words and descriptions are too long-winded and have already gone to the future....Enjoy yourself all you can as the next few scrolls you make will have no (I mean 'little', to be precise).

You see, even the fish can't stand global warming!

The lake....side view.

I dare you to kill us!!!

Giddy..............

Foyer outside Pentas 1.

Taken solely because I did not think that photographing was prohibited...

The picture above the colourful chairs is the foyer outside Pentas 1. That is the place where we will be eating throughout the Choral Fest.

The whole event started off by a few speeches. Joe Hasham officialized the festival. And I would say, his speech started off the best...and WAS the best speech:

"You know, the problem with being the last speaker is that the all the previous speakers have said everything that you've wanted to say! Thank you!! *Runs off the stage* Okay, okay, I was just kidding there....*comes back to the stage*"

Actually, I pretty much forgot most of what he said. For all I could make out now, he probably said alot that the first few speakers didn't mention. He came out in Sunday Star, 8th June 2008....something to do with drama.

After the officialization, we were separated into our voice parts to practice in different locations. The sopranos were to stay in Pentas 1, the altos in Pentas 2 (some drama stage) and the tenors and basses went to an unknown place.

This (Pentas 1) is where we (sopranos) would be staying in for the next few days.....and at that time, we were all wondering why our soprano section leader was an eighteen-year old boy named Daryl...

Nothing much happened on the second day except the fact that we were the first to reach the building, a memorable achievement. The food today was the best. Fried rice was served for lunch while dinner was Western food. Group Green, Blue, Orange and Yellow played games today. Pink, Red and Purple would be watching a concert.....the next day would be our turn. Hold on.....we also watched a concert today...and now....we sopranos FINALLY figured out how Daryl got to be our section leader. His pitching even in the high notes were great!!! That was so cool....after that, he became an idol to all sopranists.

Next day, Yi Jing's father sent us there. The feeling of leaving Choral Fest was beginning to sink in.

At night, there was a question and answer session. Someone asked Professor Andre de Quadros to stand on his head. He DID manage to do it.....then, he also said he had 4 passports (1 French....or was it Portugese...[?], 1 American, 1 Australian and 1 Indian). Still trying to get a clear photo of him standing on his head......