Hello guys! It's Cockroach here doing a review on the RICO concert we watched recently. It was significantly our last section outing together (albeit with the missed presence of Jiani and Jaime), so my post will not purely be about the concert alone... What was worth a big mention was that our dear prawn Shawn came with us even though she had Prelims! It was great seeing her since Qing Gong Yan, don't you think? :)
Okay, so the concert was held at Singapore Conference Hall at 7.30pm on the 31st of August last Sunday. Titled "Voices of the Dragon IX"... Okay let's skip the mundane details. We obviously turned up to catch RICO Percussion's rendition of Qin Wang Dian Bing, amongst other things. Why?! Because we played it for our own concert some weeks ago too, right?! Haha I feel like I am conversing with myself (having rhetoric questions).
I must say their rendition is vastly different from ours largely in terms of style and arrangement. I mean, compare their synopsis and ours (I wrote it okay haha)! It is already miles apart! I am not saying any which is better, but just reminding everyone their playing will of course be different from ours since we all started out from different playing fields! Inevitably, the instructor matters too... So you can hug Mr ET if you think we did well or kick him if you think we didn't. Or you can pretend I didn't say this. -_-
RICO Percussion (and notably instructor Mr Ngoh Kheng Seng) revamped the age-old Qin Wang Dian Bing and gave it a novel polishing. Their version had traces of other renowned percussion pieces like Long Teng Hu Yue, Gun He Tao, and even Lao Shu Qu Qin. The result is actually rather new-age... to a certain extent quite raw. Nevertheless, the attempt was quite commendable. Next time if we can consider this too, though I think we're still better at the "follow-score-play-original" mould! :D
Other than that RICO also had many Xianyue items (2 solos and 1 ensemble), a Dizi trio, a pipa solo (Long Chuan, though it was shelved because the poor lad injured himself quite badly, I heard), a Tanbo piece, and the orchestral items. Remember Wang Chen Wei from MOECO Camp? I was pleasantly surprised to hear that he is RICO alumnus - He composed yet another tinkling piece for his alma mater. I think Wang Chen Wei, with his soothing pop-melody tendencies and careful instrumentation, is going to be a new star in the CO composing scene! Maybe he can make CO music as popular as Beyonce! Lol.
They had two pieces from Luo Wei Lun and another from (someone I forgot). The latter was a piece about some statue infront of Raffles Institution. Indeed, their repertoire is really quite interesting! The "Long" piece by Luo Wei Lun was very exciting... In the style of "Fen Yong Qian Jin". In this aspect I think their orchestra is really lucky to be trying out all the new pieces by (living, haha) composers. Mrs Ee tends to favour the older orchestral pieces. The orchestra must be ready too! Look at our Meng Zhi Bali... it shows that our orchestra is still not that receptive to new musical concepts! Haha, jiayou NYCO!
Meng Zhi Bali... Lin Lao Shi! Aaah as the conductor of RICO he is really adorable :D In the non-romantic sense, of course. I think I had said this a lot of times but there is a lot to learn from every different conductor, and what Lin Lao Shi really conveys to me is the great sense of... power. Haha. Maybe because his actions are always big and swishy (compared to Mrs Ee). Or maybe because he is a male. But Lin Lao Shi is always really energetic! I don't know about you, but when he conducts I feel like the Sha Di Er hero - so powerful! Haha.
That's about all... We also saw Mrs Ee, Hazel, Lisa and some NYSE members there! Of course, compared to HCCO or other NY Peforming Arts concerts this was much less a social event. It was hard to miss our whole mafia of yellow dudes. Running around the MRT station, getting chased away by silly narcisstic MRT gun-helming personnel, or falling asleep on the train simultaneously. Heh, Chan, time for a new tee after EOYs! However much my design concept is vague! Haha. :D
Bye "fwens"... Study hard for EOYs and after that we will go out for endless outings and ace a certain... event... Haha! MUACK!
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