Book Launch : China's V-Day Parade, Exhibition Centre

<<中國抗戰勝利日大閱兵>> 大型書冊首發儀式

We were very honoured to be invited by Wen Hui Bao (文匯報) to join this event, The Book Launch Ceremony of the “China's V-Day Parade Photographs” in the Exhibition Centre, Wan Zai. We kicked off the event with the following two songs:

Yellow Knot (黃水謠)
This song was the Xian Xinghai's (冼星海) masterpiece and was one of the songs from the famous "Yellow River Cantata (黃河大合唱)". The "Yellow River Cantata" was used to promote the revolutionary spirit in 1939, as an important large-scale vocal work of Chinese modern creation. Impassioned songs, inspired and served the War in China.

In The Taihang Mountains (在太行山上)

The song started with, "The red sunshine is all over the East (紅日照遍了東方)," was a very strong and powerful melody, as one could image the red sun was rising slowly from the East. Later, it was depicting a picture of those brave and resourceful guerrillas image fighting among the mountain jungle.

When I was young, I was quite puzzled as why did various countries commemorating victories in important battles or wars. I thought those soldiers died during the wars and that was that. Besides, those were history! Obviously I was so wrong about the veterans. All those people who fought for their own countries for peaceful purposes should be respected by all. Without their sacrificed, we could not possible to have a good life now. Also, whoever committed war crimes, but still did not rectify their wrong doing were the worst kind of people on earth. It was very important to know our own history, we should always, thank the war veterans who sacrificed their lives for us. Let's treasure the peace we had now and moved forwards to the future!

There an ARMY guy and a Marine in the bathroom taking a leak, The Army guy zips up and starts to leave. The marine runs to stop him and says..."You know, in the Marines they teach us to wash our hands AFTER WE PEE." Then the Army guy SAYS..." In the Army they teach not to pee on our hands!"

A singing master with a flamboyant style...

One thing I had found common among the musicians, obviously, that most of them came from a reasonably good background and learnt music from their young tender days. Instead, I came from a perfectly normal, ordinary, but no thrill family. I managed to get a degree in England while I was working part-time to support myself, met Mr. Right and progressed along with my career slowly. Now in my retirement stage, funny enough, we all met again and shared our lives together. There was a Chinese saying “That is the fate of it ” (那就是缘分吧).

Master Wu inspired me with many new singing techniques and opened up my eyes/ideas about being a professional performer in a musical world.

LCSD Choral Concert in Tsuen Wan, Man Yue Building, Central Plaza

荃灣满樂大厦中央廣场

My first and formal performance took place in the Tsuen Wan City Hall on 2012 December. This place gave me a sweet taste in my heart! Anyway, this time we were in somewhere even more exotic than last time in Tsuen Wan again!

After that show, our piano accompaniment expert Xu Hao (徐浩) would be leaving us. He graduated from his PhD in Mechanical Engineering recently and his time had come to expand his own horizon in his chosen field in life!

I would like to take this opportunity to thank him to be our chorus group's piano accompaniment for so long and had all the patience in the world to cope with our demands. I wished him good luck in his future job and more importantly, to have a wonderful and meaningful life.... 

After raining for the whole night, the weather had brightened up just before we started. What a joy!! It was very tiring with all these singing and dancing, we had a big feast in the nearby local restaurant. Everybody had a fabulous time together. We ought to do this more often, I meant the eating part!

To be fair, we could have done better tonight. We had to maintain a certain standard, otherwise LCSD could cancel our license. So I better practised more often at home to start with!

Internal Exchange Program III

内部交流 III

Vedrai, carino : No. 18 from Act II, Scene I of the Italian opera Don Giovanni by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. After Masetto had been beaten up by Don Giovanni (who was disguised as Leporello), Zerlina found him and asked what had happened. He replied that Leporello beat him up and Zerlina promised to soothe his wounds with her love.

I was delighted that the Internal Exchange Program occurred eventually. It was such a big thing for me! I had this urge, tendency and need to sing in front of the others. My conclusion was that when I sang, I should use my head/brain more often and at the same time, let my inner emotion flowed freely! The logical and emotional feeling should co-exist and connect at the same time in order to sing well. Did that make any sense to anybody? Hellooo?!

                      

In the end, I was happy with my own performance, but I could and I should improve in the following areas:

• singing with more emotion;
• better vocal resonation;
• grasp the rhythm naturally;
• improve the voice placement
• stage demeanour.

First review on my singing progress...

I had been singing with a chorus group for three years already. It was time to review what had I accomplished so far. 

I spent a reasonable amount of time learning the music theory which was quite boring. However, if you wanted to be better than average, you had to work hard! Also, I often sang with different parts of my mouth and listened to myself carefully. After thousands times of trying, occasionally you would find the right combination of your mouth movements which gave you the best of your singing voice... and sadly to say, this was only the first step.

 

There were two major areas that I needed to focus on: sight singing and breathing with the diaphragm. As a matter of fact, a lot of good quality chorus groups expected you to do the sight singing. Also, singing without the technique of breathing with the diaphragm would be impossible to improve your singing further. 

In the end, I just had to think and practice more... 

Songs that I had learnt during this period: 

葬花吟

紫藤花

O mio babbino caro

Vadrai carino

LCSD Choral Concert, Chai Wan Park Clock Tower Plaza

柴灣公園鈡楼對出廣場

It had been very cold for a couple of weeks until the day before the show. I was a bit worry whether our dresses would be warm enough for the bitter cold! I certainly would not want to see anyone of us caught a cold during the performance. Luckily, the temperature went up to around 25 degrees in the morning on the day. The trees around the stage provided plenty of shading and we all had a wonderful day after all. A few audiences came up to me afterwards, saying 'well done' to us all. Thank you!

The Hong Kong Government provides this kind of entertainments regularly all over Hong Kong. It was a very good opportunity for the general public as well as the unprofessional entertainers like us. As a matter of fact, most of the general public might not be willing to pay for any theatre ticket. After all, the price of a ticket was more or less equivalent to a day of their hard work! An arrangement like this was good for all parties. As an unprofessional singer, we also needed the opportunity to show off and to improve our skills further.

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