Middle Schools Band Festival

Photographed by me.

The Advanced Category rocked the theatre.
Advanced Members from Sri KL: Me & Zhoe June (of the saxophones), Ivan (of the trombones) and Steffi and Calvin (of the clarinets, and both didn’t perform for some reasons)

Junior Members from Sri KL: Wei-Jun (of the trombones), Jonathan (of the percussions), Chee Kin (of the horns), Zhi Lynn (of the flutes), Siew Yee & Pei Xi (of the trumpets) and another one which I don’t want to talk about.

I remember dreaming of this day in my sleep somewhere last year. The theatre which we performed in the International School Kuala Lumpur (ISKL) looks exactly like what I saw in my dream. Coincidence? You bet it was.

The day started off awkwardly. The Advanced/Senior members were told to go to their respective section room for practice, depending on the instruments played. In case we can’t find our direction, there was a man around the corridor who could give a little help with the directions. Zhoe June and I were lost and we decided to ask the “Pathman”. Ay, he wasted our time by giving us the wrong directions, TWICE. At last, we asked a lady and she gave us the RIGHT directions. The section room for the Alto Saxophones was kind of hidden.

Zhoe June: Stupid man..

Right, we weren’t late when we got into the section room. I was kind of surprised to see the same instructor I had last year (same event, yes). And hey, the songs are pretty difficult to play. Those four boys from Singapore on my left were super. I kid you not.

Food. The canteen ladies in ISKL sells stuff which costs quite a [miniature] bomb. I got myself macaroni with some kind of spaghetti sauce and absolutely no cheese. Unfortunately, it costed RM 4 and didn’t taste good. With RM 4, I could actually buy four packets of nasi lemak in my school. The food sold at Mont’ Kiara International School was much more better.

There was an all-together practice session in the theatre after that..and my God, the music we played was enjoyable. It’s painful to play the difficult parts, though. If there are tough parts, Zhoe June and I will either play softly or just put our saxophones on “silent mode“, secretly.

The Juniors played “The Curse Of Tutankhamen“, which sounded really good, “The Great Escape” and “The Ring Of Fire“. For the first time in front of my eyes, there was a small boy playing a huge sousaphone. Well, small is powerful.

I know that I’m repeating this, but the Seniors played “Convergence“, “First Suite in Eb” and “Cartoon Symphony“. Sadly, I don’t have any videos for any of the performances, but I do have audios (recorded by an ex-trombonist, Boon Hua, and Wei-Jun wasn’t able to record the stuff).

I can’t seem to put up the recordings here, but I’ll give the links to the songs:
Convergence
First Suite In E Flat, Chaconne
First Suite In E Flat, Intermezzo (1)
First Suite In E Flat, Intermezzo (2)
Cartoon Symphony (1)
Cartoon Symphony (2)

Sorry about the splitting of the music..I was unable to put them together, strangely.

..But anyway, enjoy the music played by the Seniors!
(If you think there are string instruments being used in the songs, you’re wrong)

P.S.: Bassoons are pretty. And so are bass clarinets.