Friday, January 28, 2005

Nice refreshment during orchestra rehearsal's break

Once again, orchestra rehearsals have resumed after the Yellow River Cantata performance.

Rare it is that nice refreshments are served during the orchestra rehearsal's break. Anyway, there was a good spread of food and refreshment served tonight during the rehearsal break.

This evening, the orchestra had its Annual General Meeting. (In Singapore, where there's generally a rather fast pace of life, we would rather use acronyms for nouns which contain long strings of syllables. So most of us would use "AGM" to refer to "Annual General Meeting".) The main purpose of the AGM is not to report to the members what we have done for the past year. We won't be so interested in verbal report than to play music. Anyway, tonight's AGM was intended for the members to vote and elect the orchestra's team of executive committee members.

Being a university orchestra, it was expected that the key people in the executive committee should ideally be under-graduates of the university. Furthermore, the graduates and the guest members are likely to have more work commitments. As such, graudated-members like myself were spared from being elected as executive committee. Anyway, I have already contributed my services to orchestra during my undergraduate years.

It took about an hour and a half to listen to the speeches by all the nominated candidates and to vote. While the votes were counted, all the orchestra members were treated to a delightful spread of refreshment during the break. There were Korean-style kimchi (preserved vegetables), grilled chicken wings, fruits, bee-hoon, sushi rolls and sausages. There were also drinks to go along with the food, though I did not drink a single drop.

For a moment, I thought that it was a good idea to arrange for the refreshment. That would entice people to come for both the AGM and the rehearsal that followed thereafter.

After the break, we sight-read the first movement from the Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony. There were a few passages that I felt I needed more practice. I asked my stand-partner for a few tips on how to play those passages better. I hope I could do the parts better the next rehearsal.

During our reading of the symphony, there were a few camera-men trying to film us in action. I wonder why they were here? Mystery for me for tonight.

Right now, I am just trying to force a closure to this post. It is already 12.25 a.m. past midnight. Good night.

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