Yesterday's Band Festival Concert must be the BEST band concert I have EVER been to in my LIFE!! :D
*Squeals just thinking of it*
All right, maybe the beginning was a little slow (although there was this girl drummer on the snare drum in the Bach Festival Band whose roll technique was DAMN good; you couldn't even hear the individual strokes, man), but it got better as the evening progressed.
Rossini Festival Band. When I saw that their first song was gonna be Steven Reineke's "Rise of the Firebird", I was really looking forward to it; I hadn't heard that one before, and was thinking that if it was anything like his "Fate of the Gods", that'd be something. Sadly, the piece didn't last very long.
Explosive but short; it ended before I could even really get the feel of it! So sad... :(
Then there was this Chinese-y piece that they played called "Feng-Yang Hua-Gu".. which translates as "The Flower Drum of Feng Yang" (don't ask; I don't know what on earth that is). Only thing worthy of note here is that Cornelius was playing the Chinese drums! Which I think are supposed to be the focus of the piece. And Cornelius is a fellow CJ Band kid (basically means he's my junior), so ha. :P
Soon Aik and I were looking out for all the CJ kids throughout the concert, lol.
Hm... Wind in the Willows (Rossini band's last piece) by Johann de Meij is also quite a lovely piece. Liked the first movement, "The River", better than the second, "Ratty and Mole"; "The River" had a more... hm, emotional quality to it, I think. It's the kind of piece which has that kind of reflective quality about it, although "Ratty and Mole" really did remind me of those Sunday afternoons when I was much younger, sitting on the couch and watching "Winnie the Pooh and Friends", followed by "The Wind In the Willows". :D
Strauss Festival Band's "Suo Gan" was lovely... it's a Welsh lullaby, although when Soon Aik and I first saw the name of the piece in the programme, we thought it was a Chinese piece, haha.. :P There was an amazing French horn soloist here though; to quote Soon Aik, during his solo in this piece, it sounded like "a lady was singing". AND there was a beautiful English horn solo as well; the cor anglais looks damn difficult to play, and it sure sounds like the sound quality of it is hard to perfect, so this English horn sounding just so amazing is something that I really had to applaud the guy for.
Thing is, it's by James Curnow, and I'm fairly sure that he composed another piece that I love, but I can't remember what piece it is! Something in me believes that it's "And The Multitude With One Voice Spoke"-- which is the first band song that I ever loved-- but I'm not sure!
Aaron Copland's "Variations on A Shaker Melody"; a quiet but lively piece which I enjoyed very much, the theme of which is the melody used for the song, "Lord of the Dance". This song has to be the only band song that I've heard where there's almost NO percussion; throughout the performance, I only saw the timpanis being struck twice (near the ending). And perhaps it's also worthy of note that Imran was on timpanis then. And yes, Imran's another CJ kid. :D
Finally, Liszt Festival Band, which Pam's sis, Anne, was in. :D Their conductor was a Thai, so Soon Aik was very excited; she's Thai too. Well, half-Thai, since her father's Indonesian.
They started off with "Firestorm", which got a few giggles from all over the auditorium; not because of the song, mind you-- there's nothing funny about "Firestorm". It was more because the conductor, Lt. Prateep Suphanrojn, is rather short, and as the piece begins with an explosive, loud note, he did this really big, jerky flourish to begin it, and everyone was giggling at how comical that action seemed on someone of his size. :D
Sadly, "Firestorm" was also rather short, although I think it was more enjoyable than "Rise of the Firebird"; then there was this march that he'd composed himself, which he'd named after his family name: "Suphanrojn March". Nice piece, but I'm not really one for marches, so was rather glad that it was short. :P
Then, what had to be the BEST piece of the evening which made the whole concert really worthwhile: "Krisda Piniharn", a Thai piece which he'd arranged.
This piece was everything that I love in a concert band piece and so much more; it was engaging, enjoyable, emotional; it swelled and dipped in what seemed like all the right places; it just completely carried me off with it.
And it just got even better from there. :D
"Magic Beams" which was composed by King Bhumibol Adulyadej; it was a step down from "Krisda Piniharn" in its intensity, but nevertheless still absolutely engaging. Soon Aik said that it sounded better in a full orchestra (which most pieces do, I'll admit), coz Lt. Suphanrojn's arrangement had a lot of snare drum parts in it, and Soon Aik said that it didn't sound as smooth as it does with string instruments.
Speaking of which, I did notice that the pieces that he chose to perform had a lot of snare drum activity in them.
Their last song was "Orient Express", which hey, is an absolute classic, and I loved every bit of it. Especially loved how the percussionists got all the sound effects of the train's movement just right; the whole song was just this smooth, gradual, continuous building of the melody, and it all reached this perfect climax at the end; I LOVED IT, geez, need I say more?!? :D :D
Oh, but the most amusing thing of all was that everyone loved the Liszt band so much that they ended up performing TWO encores for the audience, and at the end of the second encore, the lights immediately came on; I think the organisers were worried that we'd ask for another encore, haha...
We saw Alvin and Miss Soh down in the front block of seats during the interval, so myself, Soon Aik, Wai Lun and Wei Jian went down to say hi and chat a bit; Brother Paul came up to us towards the end of the interval-- he's as scary as ever, man. Haha. Although he looked older, since he'd just had his hair cut and a lot more white was showing in his hair. Poor guy. Must be all the stress back in CJ.
Funny thing is, he remembered Wei Jian and Soon Aik, but not Wai Lun and me, haha. So when I mentioned that we were all from the same batch and that we'd only graduated last year, he got this really surprised/ shocked look on his face and looked semi-worried. Haha. Maybe he was concerned that his memory was failing him. :P
Miss Soh commented that Wai Lun and Wei Jian looked different, and well, yeah, they do. It's the miracle of NS. :P
The most dramatic case of it was with our senior, Kenny; he was rather plump when he was in CJ, but when we saw him the next year, he'd shrunk to about half the size that we remembered him being. O.O He's now very scrawny. Shocking, to say the least.
With Wei Jian and Wai Lun, well, it's just filled them out pretty well. Specifically, Wai Lun's forearms are now about twice the size that I remember them being, although everything else is still the same. He's still mine and Pamela's "small boy". Haha. Although he has grown slightly. Not by much though. I'm still taller than he is. Hahaha.... :D
Wei Jian's chest is broader, but I didn't notice that till Miss Soh pointed it out; I probably didn't notice the change coz I still see him every week for alumni band. But yeah, when she mentioned that, and I gave it some thought, I realised.. yeah; Wei Jian isn't as scrawny as he was back in CJ.
Well, maybe not "scrawny" per se... Wei Jian was DAMN skinny in CJ (still is), but back then he was all wiry muscle and long limbs (STILL is, damnit); now it's like.. there looks like there's slightly more flesh, if you know what I mean, haha. It looks like there's more substance to that body, now that his chest is broader, haha..
Was looking at my jie's blog just now, and saw all those pictures of cars.... O.O Woot.
But no piccies of my own dream car there, so all of you, feast your eyes upon this most magnificent beauty of all beauties:
Maserati Spyder
And from the back...
My ideal model of a Maserati Spyder would be a darker blue than this; prussian blue. Note the "Maserati" reflecting off the hood of the car in this picture. Something about that is just.. damn.. sexy. :)
I've loved the Spyder since the day my cousin taught me to appreciate cars; it's Ferrari incarnation is all right, it's one of the few Ferrari cars that I could actually like-- I don't like most Ferrari models because Ferrari tends to have these large engine "vents" in the hoods of their cars, which, for me, just spoils the whole sleekness of the car.
For comparison's sake, here's the Ferrari Spyder:
Ferrari Spyder; looks good, but nowhere as sexy as its Maserati cousin. :)
After the Maserati Spyder, my second fave is the Maserati Coupé. Yes, I happen to be obsessed with Maserati's cars, but my obsession stops at the aesthetics and its speed and horsepower; I don't go that far in depth. :P
Maserati Coupé
Yet another Maserati Coupé; but this picture shows just what cars like these were made for. :)
Now wasn't that fun. I just spent about an hour gushing about band stuff and cars! :D :D A complete waste of time, but it feels damn good. Wasting time is probably therapeutic or something. :P
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