Wasn't it just yesterday?

A Tempo XX was great, truly. Our last concert, after many others. But none so wonderful yet so painful as this one.

To ensure a happy ending, superficial as this may be, let's start with the pain.

Before this it was different. Even after stuffs like SYFs, Investitures, Prometheums, Con Brio, Limelight, Japan Trip, NBC, SIBF, there was always something more. Every Invest had the next year to look forward to. Every Prometheum had next year's SYF to worry about. Every year still had seniors, and it was always certain that next year you would be in their shoes, doing what they did.

Okay, there's still RWinds, but who from my batch is going to play? This year, nearly no one because of A Levels, and who knows after that...

I had a dream once, when I was young and naive (still am). I thought I had found the best, closest, and most supportive bunch of friends in band. I dreamt of friendships that would last forever, even when we were all grown and far apart. Well it was a nice dream.

Please, I have no intention of insulting my beloved batch. You guys are seriously the greatest friends I've ever known, and perhaps ever will. You guys are my best friends, my close friends, and my most supportive ones. My 5+ years in RI so far are filled with memories and thoughts of you all, and I really do not know what life would be if not for all of you. Whether I knew you for 5 years or 2, it matters not. Even to the one of you not in band, I still consider you as part of us XD.

But recent experience has been brutal. I have come to give some acknowledgement to the fact that friendships may not last. Or at least, not in the way we want them to.

More to the point, if that friendship - my strongest, dearest one, which I cherished for 3, nearly 4 years - can cause me so much pain (though I'm perfectly fine now!), then what about my batch? Do we have any chance of enduring?

Depressing thoughts. Well let's go straight to the wonder then.

No concert has been as awesome as this one. It was extremely stressful over the months - what with scores and section to look after - but the culmination was better than I could have ever hoped for. Okay, musically there were screwups, there were parts where my heart stopped, there were definitely parts which I could have drilled my section better on. BUT these matter little in the grand scheme of the whole:

because we played ABSOLUTELY AWESOME MUSIC!!!

All credit goes to Mr Oura for this, but I have NEVER EVER before seen the audience so supportive and so roused. I have never had to literally wade through the hordes of people thronging the stage door, nor have I ever seen so many people cheer for the band before.

I guess that's what made the night so magical. Nothing compares. Thank you Mr Oura, for doing what you did, for our last, graduating concert. As far as I know, you've never ever done anything like that before. And that is what made it so special.

Not to say that we didn't put up a great show: we did XD (at least that's how I like to think!)

Army of the Nile
The song that caused me so much headache. Now also a regular item in our annual concerts, so hopefully it gets better and better over the years. I like it for the clarinet countermelodies at Trio. We did the starting-without-conductor thing which they did at A Tempo XIX, which I thought was very cool. Was okay, I guess, not spectacular but solid enough.

Nightflight to Paris
I like various parts of the song, especially the fast bits. Though we nearly always slow down at the first Agitato during the concert I think we kept the tempo and atmosphere a lot better. Horn solo, sax/trumpet duet, both very cool. Love the last cancan! (though it can get boring after 2x2 repeats)

Asuka
Pronounced with a silent "u". Esoteric piece, but nice once you get it. The piece with my most rests, and my 4-bar solo! The composition of the first two or three sections is beyond me, but the Allegro is a lot more comfortable and understandable.

Cinq Preludes (I, III, V)
It's nice lah, and there are bits of nice melody parts in each of the pieces, but I wouldn't really blame the audience for dozing off. One of our highlights, and definitely a challenging piece where each individual performer holds a higher responsibility, given the slow tempo and expressive nature of the work.

Symphonic Poem "Northern Mother Earth - Praise for All Living Things"
This piece goes on my list of heavy but beautiful songs, among pieces like And Then The Ocean Glows and Saga Maligna. 15 minutes is no joke, and I have less than 18 bars of rest (mind you I'm only playing 3rd clarinet for this one). After the first 5 minutes or so I was thinking omg I'm exhausted and there's still so much to go. But it really is my favourite piece this concert. My absolute favourite part is the entirety of figure G, where the soprano saxophone solo is followed by (in my opinion) the most powerful tutti of them all. I never fail to get goosebumps when playing or listening to that part. It shall be my alarm ringtone once I bother to cut it out.

INTERMISSION
Probably the first intermission I didn't get to meet anyone. Instead I went to the toilet for too long and missed my spot in the line so I entered with the horns lol.

Boys of Wexford
Your typical march. It's interesting especially in the second half when the brass fanfare and the woodwind "Trio-like" part merge. Up till now I still have not mastered the running notes at the start and the end, and therefore during the concert I was pretty screwed.

Warabe-Uta Fantasy
Ugh I don't really like this much. The redeeming side is that its pretty simple in that there's only two main melodies recurring, which both happen to be rather nice. A bit boring though, and a welcome respite from the harder pieces.

Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
As much as its a deceptively "long" piece that can be perceived as rather boring, I like it. It's a beautiful piece, and I really love the however-many-part-canon which its pretty unique. And of course, this was conducted by our favourite student conductor XD.

Arabesque
Very cool flute solo! And everything after that is interesting, because it sounds kinda Arabic but yet has pop beats and cool rhythms which really keep the piece from becoming a boring one. This piece also is consistently challenging to the clarinet high register, and is the first time I've ever seen the B four ledger lines above the stave (would be concert A). Three times too. Was probably flat for all, gah. And this piece just inspires blasting: all the way.

Joh Hisaishi Works 2
Very typical Japanese themes of cuteness and emoness. The cute part was quite nice, while the emo part I thought was pretty beautiful, and makes the list of emo-Jap-symphonic-band-songs, which currently has songs like First Love on it. I agree with someone's opion that the last emo part (horn solo onwards) wasn't arranged well.

Samba Express
Didn't much like the opening (would substitute Takarajima opening in there anyday) but I love the really cool woodwind melodies from E onwards all the way to M. A delight to learn and play, even though memorizing H wasn't easy for me due to my extremely high dependence on the score (ask me one day and I'll tell you how I read notes).

Takarajima (encore)
As good as ever. I would never swap away this encore for anything else (unless we don't have a good enough soloist) because it really provokes the high in everyone. Like Army, this has become/is/is soon to become a staple of A Tempos past, present, and future.

I'm actually waiting for the official photos to come out, but I'll put up what I have. Which is very little and mainly scrounged from other people.

WE DID NOT TAKE A FULL BATCH PHOTO !@$#@(^%#$@^*$% This is really the biggest batch photo I can find and it's missing 2/3rds of the batch.

And I was trying to take individual pics (aka camwhore) with a lot of people but ended up with only four. Ahhhhh.

Of course, there are my two dear section batchmates... I only got to know both of you better very recently, which is a big shame. But you two have been really great and supportive and very fun! Can't imagine sectionals without you two.

More later!

Labels: band