high school ensembles…

phew… long day… had the opportunity to listen to a high sch ensemble (HSE) play today… it's seriously been a long time since i last heard one.. probably during my own syf days itself. 

had originally thought it was gonna be a total string concert. was a bit disappointed to find out that it was a combined-with-choir one. left a meeting early for it, should have stayed for the meeting… ignored mind over heart. argh. God must be trying to tell me something. i should trust Him more next time.

anyway the concert on the whole was rather… =.=… for the choir.. could tell the pieces which were very well-rehearsed from those that weren't. i liked the one abt the twelve tribes of Jacob… super interesting piece… would like to get a hold on the recording… the piece from the alumni choir was interesting! wow the conductor's singing was really good.. 

couldn't wait for the string e. cos that was what i was there for. hmmm… not v. impressive i would say… guess cos i was going there with a slightly different viewpoint… i wasn't there to support a friend in the orch… it was just to see what's the standards of HSEs are like…

the last time i heard a HSE was during my syf days itself.. and can say i was rather impressed with other HSEs back then cos i guess i was young and impressionable. heck, what i thought we played well during our jc concert, i cringed hearing it again two years later….

i wonder if it's cos the standards have dropped or i've just been exposed to better music and understand more abt intonation/ phrasing more now… i would believe it's the latter. 

hmmm it's made me wonder abt how kids are being pushed nowadays… not only do they have academia to contend with, but music too… some of the friends i have who used to play have been turned away completely from music. and only a handful remain playing, out of which a fingerful actually major in it.

syf - for the gold or for the betterment of the individual's musicality?

the sinf conc. was interesting. made me think a lot. despite soloists' lacking in some areas, they played with something that i never really had - confidence. my flaw is that i worry too much. worry abt what this person would think of me… whether there's a person in the audience who plays better than me… whether my notes are in tune… whether my phrasing are correct.. if i tongued it correctly… and then i get stage fright. even now. the only way to get over the SF is to pray. and so far all the time it has worked. the times which i didn't pray.. i just screw up. 

kinda felt that T's conducting was rather static during the string e. guess cos it was a comparison between the choir conductor and him. it's different, cos the choir had memorised their pieces and could look at the C always. whereas the SE had their noses in the scores and i guessed most of the shaping of the music was already done during the rehearsals.. 

all in all… i guess it's not bad for a HSE. after all it's quite an elite school… so should have standard one right? i wonder how my alma mater sounds right now… LOL.

wish i had a recording of my batch's HSE SYF… i wonder how i would sound to myself right now. 

 ARGH. exam tmr.