my own words of the ipoh trip

Ah, here I am, back from Ipoh.
The youth orchestra had a concert in Taman Budaya Ipoh, last Saturday.

The hall is a cute one, and the acoustic pictures the real level of the orchestra- no frills, no extra echo, and no bustling crowd or super thick cushioned walls that would make your sound disappear into thin air.

I am quite surprised, although without enough practice, we managed to focus, did our best and the outcome was quite satisfying.

Star Wars is an easy version, so no question that it was done well.

Jurassic Park, as tough as it always is, this time we could really create the flow of the song from the beginning ‘til the end. There was a fragment of this difficult tutti main theme, where both of the first trumpeters (including me) didn’t manage to play, but we were rescued by the third player. We got back in line after we caught back our breath.

Phantom of the Opera was done smoothly, with good focus from all players of the orchestra. It was the cleanest piece that we performed.

Sound of Music, despite that we didn’t have enough time to rehearse it, but because of that, we put extra focus while playing it- and no mistakes were heard. We were so into the song that even when one of the stage lamp got a bit too hot and exploded, fell on the stage, we were still in the urge of continuing the song.

Only that the conductor decided that it was hazardous, and she stopped the whole orchestra. The brass went off stage a bit earlier, the technical people swept the broken glass, and the string ensemble carried on with the next piece.

There were few pieces which consist of the smaller string ensemble and featuring a different instrument soloist each. My favorite is the Oblivion, the solo trombonist played it beautifully.

A special extra for just this Ipoh concert is that Nadia the singer sang a few songs, accompanied by the orchestra. All I can say about Nadia- she has improved a lot, her singing is good, and she really saved the concert although there was some glitch on our side.

On the other hand- my personal experience in this trip-

I’m so angry.
I didn’t expect that perfumes are so sensitive to heat.
I brought along my DKNY Apple along with me,
And at the eve of the concert, as I sprayed the perfume on my shirt,
It smelt like a 20 ringgit imitation rather than the real one.
Yes, my DKNY is already spoilt.

I was really angry. It’s still full, it was not even half used!
Maybe I can use it as giant pepper spray to spray anyone who is annoying.