Finally some time to blog!

Here's an update as to what has been happening/ happened over the last few weeks since I last posted:

Firstly, my condolences to the family of James Khor and 郑丽真老师.

• James, a primary school friend left us all unexpectedly on 1st Nov.
  

• 郑丽真老师, very good primary school teacher to cancer - mid Oct.

Thank you for being a part of my life.

Now.... the updates:

• Watched "Michael Jackson's This Is It" on the 30th Oct with DH. Was amazing....

• Had my 1st gig with "Once bitten twice shy" on Halloween night. Was.... well let's just say it was an interesting gig.
• Had a rehearsal for the new band " Once bitten twice shy" - 28th Oct, 7.30pm - 11pm (till noise control came!)
• Handed in my last folio and assignment for my B.Mus
  
• AWO concert and premiere of 'The Pensieve' - 18th Oct. A good concert. Will upload an mp3 of the piece later.

• Started teaching 2 more schools. So now my schedule evolves around 4 Primary schools, 1 intermediate and 3 private students - which is very nice :) more work = great summer. The kids are great, love teaching them.

That's about it really. :) One exam done, one more to go - Monday 16th. can't wait and am now reading "The Sister's Keeper" before I watch the movie :) It is very very good. Can't put the book down!

One more down!

Been staying up all night doing my Music 301 - Analysis assignment!!!!! had to analyse 2 Beethoven's piano theme and variations. One was Piano Sonata Op. 111 -Arietta and the other was the Diabelli 33 Variations.

Don't think I did too well... but o well at least another assignment down. Now I've only got my composition folio to go! wooot 5 more days of uni!!!!

Still at uni, waiting for the Lilburn Prize Concert which starts at 7.30pm. Might go for a drink with some mates and chill before the performance lol.

It has just begun....

Ok soooo uni and all has been very crazy lately as I head into the 2nd to last week of my B.Music lectures but it has been somewhat rewarding. As most of you know, I am a Composition student at uni - this semester's folio requirement was to write two pieces of a total duration not less than 10 minutes.

One piece has to be a vocal ensemble using 5- 7 nonsense poems by Edward Lear as texts and the other piece is of more than 4 intruments of any intrumentation with structure. For the vocal/ choral piece I'm writing for a barbershop quartet/ male choir TTBB - have finished setting 5 poems but still have some work to do on it - ie fixing some of the harmonies, adding dynamics etc.

For the ensemble piece however, I decided to go wild and wrote a piece for Wind Orchestra/ Concert band. Now here's the exciting part!!! We were advised/ encouraged to get our pieces performed and recorded and hand it in together with the music score for the folio. And as I play the saxophone for Auckland Wind Orchestra, I thought I'd give a shot and ask the conductor and the committee members if they could please do one play through to record my piece - "The Pensieve" during one of the rehearsals. And they agreed! AWESOME!....

We ran through it for the first time 4 weeks ago - before I bring my friend along to the next rehearsal to record the piece for me. Ok sooooo... after a week or two, I got an email from conductor R. Youens asking if it was ok to add my piece into the upcoming concert which will be a programme of music by NZ composer's as there have been some request by some of players to perform the piece. - I SAID yes...

So there... my first major composition premiering on the 18th October by the Auckland Wind Orchestra! I have always just been writing for university and my compositions have always been performed only within the Music School or have been written but not been performed. I have just started to get a taste of what it's like to be a composer..... learning and hearing what works and what NOT! After listening to the piece being played by AWO during rehearsals, I have decided that I WILL need to rewrite/ orchestrate certain things differently coming summer!

I'll leave you with an interview conductor R. Youens had with Radio NZ Concert FM today.

Lilburn Prize Concert - 16th Oct

Will be conducting a quartet for this concert. There are about 10 new pieces by composition students, so don't miss this exciting evening :)

Venue: University of Auckland - Music Theatre, School of Music, 6 Symonds Street, Auckland

Time: 7.30pm

Host: School of Music

Cost: Admission is free. Bookings not required.

Bungy Jumping off the Auckland Harbour Bridge

On 16th Sept, Weds 9am Nat and I went bungy jumping off the Auckland Harbour Bridge for her 21st birthday. I had to say I wasn't too nervous until I was standing at the edge!!!!

Anyways here are some pics and a video of my jump lolz

Painting for The Bone Feeder

Have just completed my first painting for a Auckland Uni production called "Bone Feeder" by writer and director Renee Liang.

This task was rather challenging one as I never had done such a huge painting of a driftwood on an unusual fabric (we thought it was Rice Paper as the blinds that I had to paint on were called Rice Paper Blinds- turns out it wasn't rice paper) in the Chinese brush style.

I did some research and looked at some chinese paintings before I did some sketches.
Here are some of the sketches which took me about 15 mins each - they aren't the best sketches.

Once I got some feedback from Renne, I started painting with Chinese Black Ink on to the 4 chinese bamboo so called "rice paper" blinds. It all went ok and was done by Thursday night - was still wet when I called it a day. Woke up at about 9.30am on Friday and decided to just check on the painting to see if it dried ok - to my horror, the painting which was black black BLACK was now light grey!!!! OH NO!!!! So I quickly took my black acrylic paint out and repainted the whole thing - used 2 hair dryers and a fan heater to dry it - needed to make sure it didn't fade again! The cloth did not absorb the water and ink, it 'held' them until they evaporated.

PHEW! the acrylic worked though some parts faded - they were the ones where I had to mix it with lots of water to get a lighter shade of grey.

This is what it looked liked before Renee picked it up on Friday noon.
Met up with Renee that very same day in the evening to help put the painting up and did some touch-up and slight changes to the painting.

The next picture is of the finished project.


For those in Auckland, come and watch the Production- The Bone Feeder:

In 1902, the SS Ventnor sank in the Hokianga Harbour with the bones of 499 Chinese miners bound for ancestral graves in Canton. A century later Ben, a young man, arrives in the Far North to try to find some link with his past. He finds more than just restless spirits….

Writer/Director - Renee Liang
Dramaturgy - Murray Edmond
Musical director - Andrew Corrêa
Lighting design - Emma Willis
Music by New Nature (a six-piece traditional Chinese orchestra)
With: Mike Ginn, Callum Stembridge, Ben Teh, Gareth Tiopira-Waaka.
Image by Penny Howard

Drama Studio, level 3, Arts 1
14A Symonds St
7.30 pm 30 Sep, 1 + 3 Oct
4 pm 3 + 4 Oct (no show 2 Oct)
S15/$10

To Book ring: 09 373 7599 x 84226

or email: bonefeeder@gmail.com

with your name, contact number, session date and time and number of tickets. You don't have to pay then... we'll hold the tickets until 15 minutes before the start time, and the box office opens 1 hour prior to each performance.

Those little things are the things I miss most ....

• Going to ahma's every weekend with mum and dad and hang out with the cousins. Spending time with everyone. Used to complain about how boring it is BUT now I understand.
  
• Hiking up Penang Hill's no. 3 with EL and dad from Youth Park, spending time up there enjoying the view and nature.
  
• Celebrating birthdays with all 13 of us, going out for lunch/dinner.
• My room (penang). Lying on the top bunk-bed looking up at ceiling full of glow in the dark stars. Also the 'under-the sea' wall - one of my birthday gifts, to paint my own bedroom wall. :)
  
• Durian, Hokkien-Lor Cintan Mee, Curry Mee, char Koay Kak etc - Penang Hawker food all the way!!!!
• Hearing ahma's voice everyday - she would ring us every evening, if not we would ring her.
• The chinese tea dad makes after meals with his tea sets :)
  
• Mum's nagging - do THIS, do THAT! or else you cant do this or That!!!
  
• Mum's cooking.

list to be cont..........

here some quotes that I find meaningful :)

“If I never met you, I wouldn't like you. If I didn't like you, I wouldn't love you. If I didn't love you, I wouldn't miss you. But I did, I do, and I will.”

“Distance never seperates two hearts that really care, for our memories span the miles and in seconds we are there. But whenever I start feeling sad cuz I miss you I remind myself how lucky I am to have someone so special to miss.”

“I miss you when something really good happens, because you are the one I want to share it with. I miss you when something is troubling me, because you are the one who understands me so well. I miss you when I laugh and cry because i know that you are the one that makes my laughter grow and my tears disappear. I miss you all the time, but I miss you most when i lay awake at night and think of all the wonderful times we spent with eachother;for those were some of the best times of my life.”