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The International Festival Chorus (IFC) was formed
in 1974 as the adult choral body of the United World College of
South East Asia. At present it consists of thirty-three members
drawn from the local and expatriate community, representing no less
than sixteen different nationalities! Truly it deserves the adjective
"international" that appears in the chorus's title, perhaps
more than any other chorus I have seen. While this chorus has a
long and distinguished history, this was their first concert under
the direction of musical director Ng Eng Kee (Huang Rong Ji), a
highly accomplished baritone singer as well as conductor trained
at Singapore's Nanyang Academy and in Oklahoma and Houston in the
US. It is obvious that Ng's expertise and
experience played a major role in enabling this highly diverse and
"multicoloured" chorus to come together as one body and
achieve such a beautiful sound in this concert.
This was truly a delightful and unforgettable concert,
much enhanced by the beautiful and acoustically superior milieu
of Chijmes Hall, an ideal venue for a concert of sacred choral masterworks.
There were three things that I personally will not forget about
this concert: the well-balanced and well-selected programme of musical
works, the ethereal sound, and, last but not least, the irrepressible
smiles of two of the chorus's members. Yes, I have to mention this
last point, because it greatly increased my enjoyment of the concert.
Two attractive female choristers in the second row were so totally
into the spirit of the music they were singing that they smiled
in the most charming way throughout the entire concert, as if they
simply could not suppress for a moment the overflowing joy in their
hearts. I have never been so deeply impressed by the power of a
smile in my life. If a few more members of the choir had been able
to look somewhat less serious some of the time, it would have further
enhanced this effect.
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on the IFC
From 1996 Ng has built a distinguished performing
and conducting career in Singapore, performing at arts festivals,
appearing with the Singapore Lyric Opera and other groups,
and singing a leading role in Li Lie Gang's original Mandarin
musical, Serenade, performed at the Kallang Theatre in late
May, 2001.
Classical and sacred music lovers should be
sure not to miss future concerts put on by the IFC, the next
of which will be their annual Christmas concert in late November,
also at Chijmes. Check out their web page at http://communities.msn.com.sg/InternationalFestivalChorus
In addition to supporting them by attending
their concerts, it should be noted that they are much in need
of financial support from sponsors, and that they are also
soliciting new members to join the chorus - without even requiring
an audition! The IFC can be contacted by e-mail at ifc_uwc@hotmail.com.
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But smiles or not, what mesmerised the audience was
the clarity, balance and harmonic beauty of the sound of the chorus
as a whole. There were few cases where an individual chorus member's
voice stood out too much, and I noticed no off-key notes or sloppy
entrances. There were times in every piece the chorus performed when
all the voices blended beautifully together, and if one closed one's
eyes, with the high domed arch of the church ceiling above the choir
catching, shaping, and reflecting back the sound to the ears of the
audience, one was transported into another realm of pure music, pure
sound, beyond the corruptible physical world, which has always been
the goal of music written for the church.
The chorus began their programme with an incredibly
clever staging device, which I myself had never seen done by a chorus.
Instead of filing onto the stage for their first song, William Byrd's
five-part verse anthem "Teach me, O Lord," the chorus
came in slowly from the back and sides of the hall and arrayed themselves
in the aisles in three well-spaced rows along side of and in the
midst of the audience. As a result, everyone had one or two voices
very close to them and could get a very personal experience of the
music. There was a soloist at the front of the hall, but at least
from where I was sitting her voice did not come through very prominently.
What delighted us was not just this unusual and creative mode of
beginning a concert, but the experience of hearing the individual
voices standing near us with particular clarity and intimacy while
at the same time being conscious of listening to a multi-vocal choral
performance from within the performance itself. This was the first
experience in my life of real "surround sound" - to capture
that kind of effect with a stereo system you would have to have
not just five or six or eight tracks, but ideally a separate track
for each individual chorus member. And the voices we heard with
such individual clarity were very fine voices indeed.
In addition to works that are familiar to most of
us, such as excerpts from Mozart's Requiem, the concert introduced
us to masterpieces of sacred music that many of us had never heard
before, but will certainly want to hear again. Composers represented
included Antonio Lotti (1667-1719), Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847),
Charles Stanford (1852-1924), Benjamin Britten (1913-1976), Gilbert
Martin (b. 1941), and John Rutter (b.1945). I expected to be moved
by works from famous names like Mendelssohn, Britten, and Rutter,
even though as a Baroque addict I do not know their music very well,
and I was not disappointed. For me Britten's Te Deum in C Major
was particularly unforgettable.
Yet it was even more delightful to discover little
gems from composers I had never heard of, such as the two ethereal
pieces from Stanford's Three Motets for Unaccompanied Chorus, Op.
38. As the programme noted, the first piece was deeply meditative
in style, while the second was "gracious and fluent, making
imaginative use of a six-voiced texture." The meditative serenity
induced by the first piece prepared my spirit beautifully for the
soaring music of the Beiti quorum via, which "could be thought
of as a miniature symphonic movement for choir." This was one
of the times I closed my eyes and felt my spirit carried up and
up into the peak of the domed arch, where I am sure there was a
coterie of angels hovering in sheer delight. The only thing that
would have further increased my enjoyment of this concert would
be the inclusion of the original Latin lyrics of the songs in the
programme, along with the English translations. For myself at least,
to fully enjoy any vocal music it is even more important to be able
to follow the lyrics in the original language than it is to know
their meaning.
BARRY
STEBEN sings a lot as well.
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