Crazy Singing Gathering

The wine bar is open...

Helena Li, our vocal music teacher loves to organize singing sessions at her home. Basically, we hire a pianist for the whole afternoon, we take turns singing, nibble together with a constant flow of wine. According to my theory, singing and wine go together very well...

Year of the Ox

It has to be a better year, it has to be... it has to be! It's the Year of the Ox. I sincerely wish everybody in good health.

Performances cancellation due to the COVID-19

The deadly COVID-19 affected my singing progress badly this year, The following concerts had been cancelled:

10/01/2020 Pre-match Master Class Series at the 72nd Hong Kong School Music Festival. I was supposed to learn something from those Singing Masters.

11/02/2020 Sing For Joy (Foreign Art Songs Special). If I could come out alive, I should be able to sing for the annual Best of the Best concert like last year in October. It would be my moment to shine, but no more!!! It was then re-scheduled on 14/04/2020, then on 27/06/2020 again but eventually it was cancelled after all! I missed a chance to show my talent.  

18/03/2020 Tuen Mun City Hall, The Auditorium. It was supposed to be the first time I sang in the Tuen Mun City Hall! I was told that the Auditorium was one of the best in Hong Kong.

27/03/2020 Tuen Mun City Hall, The Cultural Activities Hall. ChunLan(春蘭詠唱) supposed to give a full night performance here, but again not any more.

10/05/2020 Sing For Joy (Grand Operas Special). Did not want to repeat the worry for more cancellation, so I decided not to join any more singing in solo this year.

11-14/06/2020 An invitation to perform in Shanghai Music Hall. The organizer postponed the event until further notice.

12/07/2020 The great German composer and pianist, Ludwig van Beethoven was born in 250 years ago. The Hong Kong Cultural Centre prepared lots of programs to celebrate his birthday. One of which was that the Allegro Singers (明儀合唱團) organized a few hundreds of singers big and small to perform Beethoven's No.9 Ode to Joy / Ode an die Freude. Obviously, we all ended up at home instead!

11/10/2020 The annual concern of Hong Kong City Choir (HKCC 香港城市合唱團) usually took place in October every year, however this year we could only sing in front of a mirror at home!

Obviously, all the weekly Monday and Saturday dress rehearsals for singing were cancelled.

Since a lot of brave people risking their lives doing all sorts of things to protect us from this virus, these cancellations were a minor thing only. Salute to the brave people! Salute to Wuhan! Salute to China! Salute to the world!

The Sixth Singing Contest

第六屆國慶盃歌唱比賽初賽

What?! A singing competition... sure ...there was no harm to step out of my own cocoon and tried something new. For whatever reasons, my program delayed by two hours. By the time my glory moment came, I was already half frozen and very hungry.

There were lots of interesting very young people and quite a few of them seemed to know each other from other competitions before. Some people even came with their parents and/or friends. It was like having a family gathering to witness their little ones growing up.

Talking about kids, my primary school was full of country pumpkins like me. We all had outdoor looked and unruly short hair with a wrinkly school uniform on. Despite all these, I also loved music! I once asked my mom for piano lessons. In replied, she said something about the rats at home might finish the piano well before I could finish my learning. I was confused by her comment, was it a yes or no?! Although I never had a chance to fire up my career with music at all, nevertheless I had done other things which were far more interesting than just music in my life. <<MyTravel>>

Tour in Guang Xi, Gui Lin

廣西桂林參訪團

Gao Xiao Lian (高校聯) invited everybody to join this big outing to Guang Xi, Gui Lin (廣西桂林), Gui Lin was famous for the karst mountains and caves.

Details could be found at the following site:

高校聯組織廣西桂林參訪團

There were many funny and heart warming incidences during the trip. However, the most memorable things were the friendships and the chances that we got to know each other better. Most of our singers were well over 70s and each of them had his/her own interesting stories. They went through the hardest periods of Japanese war, World War II and the cultural revolution. Many of them were Overseas Chinese from South East Asia. I guessed whoever interested in recent Chinese history would know how much those people had been suffering. It also explained partly why did so many Chinese left their motherland and settled all over the world. 

For those who were interested to know about this part of history could view the following documents, Xia Nan Yang (下南洋). By understanding others' backgrounds, one could accommodate each other better.

What does a group of singers will do in a long distance bus journey? They sing …. proudly and loudly!

BBQ during Mid Autumn festival

中秋燒烤

As I said before, the Chinese loved to celebrate everything with a big banquet. 1,200 of us celebrated the Mid Autumn festival with a BBQ in Wu Xi Sha (烏溪沙). Details could be read in the following site, BBQ.

BBQ?!

It was a fun day out and we had a good mixture of young and older people together. Our chorus group also had a moment of glory, we were invited to sing a few songs.

Happy Memory

葫蘆絲演唱「金風吹來的時候」(Flute Concert)

敖包相會 (Meeting in front of the stone heap)

Joined Celebration for the Concert in Quan Wan

「情濃大地中國心」大聯歡

It was true that one never needed any excuse to have a banquet. In order to celebrate the successful performances in the Tsuen Wan City Hall (荃灣大會堂), we did exactly what the Chinese were good at, had a big feast together. In order to celebrate in style, we had more singing before we ate! 

More songs:

歌唱祖國 (Ode to the Motherland)

游擊隊歌 (Guerrillas' Song)

Q: Where is a tenor's resonance?

A: Where his brain should be.

Wandering around in Europe

After working for the whole summer selling shoes and cakes in central London, I managed to fix a holiday with a few friends in Europe. Since my younger days, I dreamed about being a singer and toured around the world with my guitar. Obviously, this had never been materialized. So while my friends were doing the cooking, I sang on the road side to entertain them in return and hopefully earned a few bucks for our next meals.

Here were some of the songs that I had sung:

Donna Donna

Vincent

And I love you so