Wednesday, June 20, 2007 , 12:25 PM

><))o> PLAY! A Video Game Symphony

I know it has been the longest time since i last blogged....let's see...the last time i actually did the "finger workout" was *amy refers to previous post* 22nd Oct 2005. Wow...that was nearly 2 years ago! Ok...i am really sorry for the near 2 years hiatus from blogging...life has just been crazy and busy! But this particular post is one that i definitely have to blog about. It is none other than the PLAY! A Video Game Symphony Asian Premiere concert.



PLAY! A Video Game Symphony Asian Premiere concert, which took place at the Esplanade Concert Hall on 15th and 16th June, was scheduled as part of the month-long Singapore Arts Festival. To make this concert a reality, NAC specially invited PLAY! Music Director, Arnie Roth to Singapore. NAC also put together a Singapore Festival Orchestra and engaged The Vocal Consort as the chorus. Since NAC wants an 80-strong choir and consort has only roughly about 40 active members, we got NUS choir to perform with us.

From the performer's point of view: the concert SO TOTALLY ROCK!

First of all, we got to work with the internationally-renowed Arnie Roth who was a Grammy award-winning artist and possessed a wealth of experience in orchestra conducting as well as symphony music composition. He was the person who single-handedly arranged all the video game songs into symphony music and made PLAY! a reality. Recently, my niece was at my house for a family dinner and she was watching the "Barbie Princess movies", what seems to be the lastest craze among primary school girls her age. Anyway, i was watching the film as well (cos the animation and music are really magnetizing) and at the end where the credits appear, guess whose name i saw? Arnie Roth! I was thinking back then "Wow...this guy is really something.."

The chorus along with the orchestra met Arnie Roth for the first time during our second combine rehearsal, just two days before the actual performance. In person, Arnie Roth was such a nice person and there was no air around him at all! Even when the chorus or orchestra screwed up at certain areas, he would tell us nicely and request that we do it again until we got it right. And he smiles alot, which certainly puts us at ease and made the performance much more enjoyable. His style of conducting is accurate and precise, toned down at the right places like the piped organ solo for Final Fantasy's Dancing Mad while bursting with energy for other pieces like Chrono Trigger/Cross, Metal Gear Solid.



Hafiz, Arnie Roth, me and Michelle



For those of you who went for the last performance on Saturday night, did you know that you were the only crowd who got to experience the second encore? Arnie Roth didn't have the second encore piece for the previous two performance but decided to do One-Winged Angel again for the last performance! He's just a really great guy through and through!

Secondly, I got to meet really accomplished composers like Yuzo Kiroshi and Takenobu Mitsuyoshi.



Hafiz, Yuzo Koshiro, Takenobu Mitsuyoshi, me



Remember those primary school days when we used to go to the arcade and even before you enter the arcade, you will hear this familiar tune "Daytona....Let's go away! Daytooona...!!", blasting from the Daytona USA racing console that is always strategically placed somewhere near the entrance of the arcade?

For me personally, 1. Daytona USA has always my favourite racing game (its the ONLY game that i play and play well at the arcade), 2. I loved the theme song "Let's Go Away" because it really give you the "high" feeling while you are playing the game. So can you imagine what happen when i found out that the composer cum singer of Daytona USA, Takenobu Mitsuyoshi, was in the house? I went ballastic! And the best thing of all? He performed an item during the concert. With the exception of the matinee on the Saturday afternoon, he sang "Let's Go Away" for the other 2 concerts. Without fail, the crowd would always get so high after his rock-style performance, screaming at the top of their lungs. Without fail also, he would bring with him onstage, a stuff Sonic, which he would hurled (always in the same direction and at the same angle : stage right, roughly 30 degrees)into the audience.

During the last performance, he did a little gimmick : turning around and pretended to throw the stuff sonic at us and quickly did a 180 degrees turn, and threw the sonic at the audience. We groaned and grumbled, a display of our disappointment, much to the delight of the audience i supposed. Overall, Takenubo Mitsuyoshi's high-octane guest performance and energizing personality made the concert alot more unconventional!

In person, Takenobu Mitsuyoshi was especially a super hyper, awfully-nice and humble person!! When hafiz and i approached him at the backstage for his autograph, he readily agreed and even made small talk with us, complimenting on our performance. He even offered a handshake (talk about true star quailty!). I was star-struck for an least half-an-hour after that (how could i not be when i grew up, playing Daytona USA and singing to the theme song?). During the last performance intermission, when we bumped into him at the backstage, he recognise hafiz and told him that the chorus was "very good" and did the "thumbs-up" sign.



Takenobu Mitsuyoshi's autograph



Takenobu Mitsuyoshi also composed Sedge Tree for Shenmue and Shemue II, which has a captivating melody that seems to speak of a poignant love story. It was a genere that is completely different from Daytona USA, displaying Mitsuyoshi's wide spectrum of musicality.

Another composer that we met was Yuzo Koshiro, the composer of The Revenge of Super Shinobi. His composition received the highest number of votes, in the GameAxis online poll, as the extra bonus theme to be performed at the Asian Premiere concert. He was kind of reserved person...I didn't get to cross path with him much though.



Takenobu Mitsuyoshi's autograph



Thirdly, there were 3 large-size screens suspended above the orchestra, broadcasting all the scenes from the video game titles.




These includes the old school favourites like Super Mario Bros., Super Shinobi, The Legend of Zelda to some of the more sophisticated animations like HALO, World of Warcraft and the newly-released Lost Odyssey. The screens provided another dimension to the concert. The videos aired were a feast for the eyes and when accompanied by the symphony music, it was a cinematic experience for us and the audience!

Fourthly, the Singapore Festival Orchestra played beautifully. With each performance, they just got better and by the time we had our last performance, i was swooned over by the music and found myself swinging to the rhythm, especially for the piece Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross. I fell in love with the song. I have attached a YouTube clip below...listen to it and you will understand why this is such a captivating piece.



Lastly, the audience was such a hyper-active bunch. During the first night, which was supposedly attended by some the Ministers, the SVIPs and VIPs, the crowd was more subdued, more reserved. But the audience for the two performances on Saturday was just incredible, especially the Saturday night one (somehow i have this feeling that gamers make up a large proportion of the concert-goers for these two performances). There were truckloads of woof-whistling, screaming, thunderous applause from the audience for almost every piece that the orchestra did with the classic Final Fantasy's One-Winged Angel, receiving the most shouts and applause. When we did the song as the second encore, the crowd was went mad! Three seconds into the song, the crowd finally realised that arnie roth was doing One-Winged Angel again and the screaming/clapping came...(as a rule of thumb, clapping during mid-song is considered rude in a conventional concert. Then again, PLAY! is anything but conventional!). After we finished singing the song, there was a standing ovation from about 20 to 30 odd people.

At that instance, i felt really honoured to be part of this production. That night, the orchestra were really good (especially the strings, percussion and the keyboard), we the chorus made minimal mistakes as well (the entries and singing were precise), arnie roth looked extremely happy and pleased with us. For me, it was one of my best experience as a chorister, apart from the one where consort won the Open Mixed Superior and Folklore Category during the Olomouc compeition.

I am happy that possibly my last performance at Esplanade ended on such a high note.
There is even a newspaper review on the performance! Click here to read it.

I even spent S$40 and bought the More Friends: Music from Final Fantasy as a keepsake and got Arnie Roth to autograph...Woo~



Arnie Roth's autograph



To gamers (if you are reading this): there are some talks to bring Dear Friends concert to Singapore. Watch for it! If Nubuo Uematsu makes a guest appearance for the concert, it would be so cool! I would definitely want to be part of the performance!

Looking back, being part of consort has given me the opportunities to go places and meet incredible people. I cannot be any more thankful!

Below is a short clip of the actual performance:


Saturday, October 22, 2005 , 8:25 PM

><))o> End of syllabus = EXAMS!

#I was so looking forward to the end of my syllabus especially for the very irksome Biophysical chem and introductory bio that i kinda forgot that exam soon follow suit.

Damn!

#Busy like hell...wont be blogging for a mighty long time! To all my aj gang :me and intan really miss u guys really lots! All the best for exams~


Ok...LET'S MUG!


Tuesday, September 13, 2005 , 11:27 AM

><))o> Guess what is a dunkey?

#Dunkey-noun: prounnced as DUNG (yeah that thing that comes out of your backside) KEY.

#An animal, belonging to the mammalian family. It is a four-legged animal, feeds heavily on carrots (i think) and looks like a horse.

#Often used as a form of transportation for goods through perilous mountains, rough terrains.

So..can you guess what is a dunkey??


Ok ok...one last clue...it mates with horse to produce a sterile offspring!





Got it?


























YEp! Its a donkey!!
Dunkey is a mispronunciation of the word donkey! (its was made by a lecturer during the lecture for one of my modules...haha)


Wednesday, September 07, 2005 , 10:46 PM

><))o> I'm so faked?

#Firstly to intan and fiz : Thanks guys!

First msg:
Nick: ihateamy
Date/time: 04.09.2005, 17:25:29
IP: 165.21.154.10
Msg: u r a faker, who is so fake.

Second msg:
Nick: ihateamy
Date/time: 05.09.2005, 16:25:49
IP: IP: 165.21.154.8
Msg: that is crap.


#I'm fake? Can you please be more specific? What is it that you find it "fake" is it my appearance, my personality? For the record, my appearance has not been nipped nor tucked...I don't come out of the barbie doll factory so there's nothing fake about my appearance. As for my personality, people who are close to me and know me well enough will know what kind of person i am. If you are 1)not close to me, 2)dont know me well, I don't think you are in a good position to make such a deflamatory judgement.

#And to hide behind a nick is really not honourable at all. And dont bother changing your nick or tag me from elsewhere. I will still know its you and i have a very good idea who are you too.

#After tracking down the IP address, here's what i found:
165.21.154.10
bbcache-10@singnet.com.sg
Location = (Singapore)
lat/lon = 1.16n, 103.51e
source = DOM whois.nic.net.sg [singnet.com.sg]
type = guess
place-key = sg [capital city]
geo-key = sg-singapore -> .\data\geo.vdb

#So the person is defintely from Singapore (oh well, i guess it) and using Singnet (well...may be some public or school computers but....hmmm...)


Wednesday, August 31, 2005 , 3:29 PM

><))o> Into the 6th week of school

#I'm finally settling down at school...no more sucky situations...just the occasional 'late for practicals', 'give the wrong answers during prac', 'spill my steaming teh onto the canteen floor', 'drop my pencil case during lectures' that sort of thing...other than little embarrassing situations like these, i'm happy to say that i've acclimatised!

School's been really busy lately....with all the ongoing lectures and tutorials...there's hardly a time to take a breather! Hence, i seldom blog now...there simple isint time to! Or rather, there isint time to daydream about what i can blog...thoughts come and go...by the time i want to blog about something interesting, its gone from my mind- totally wiped out from the face of this earth. Nevertheless, i've something to blog about today!

Its about a book i've read.

And nah, its not a boring Biochemistry 100th edition book.
Rather, its the book 'A Walk to Remember' by Nicholas Sparks.

You know that movie with the same title starring Mandy Moore??



Yeah...thats the one!

#Apparantly, i've been told that the book is very very different from the movie and i got to find out for myself when i borrowed the book just weeks ago. To my surprise, the book is indeed miles apart from the contents of the movie! (Now, for the next part, if you haven't watch the movie, dont count on your lucky stars that you will understand what i'm talking about!)

Difference no. 1: In the book, Jamie's(Mandy Moore) dad had her only when he was like 50+ so by the time he married her off to Landon Carter, he's already a 70++ man which is FREAKING OLD! In the movie however, he's like some typical dad - middle age, handsome-looking and stuff~

Difference no. 2: Landon Carter was not as rebellious as the movie had portrayed him to be...instead, he was supposed to be a rebel only when he was young...and even so, all he ever did was to make snide remarks about Jamie's father while hiding behind some bushes and chew peanuts in the middle of the night at graveyards...he was even elected at the President of the Student's Union Club~!

Difference no. 3: The play which Jamie and Landon starred in...Jamie did not sing (as the movie had been).

#Well..there's about the major differences i could think of at hand...SEE...the movie's kinda different yeah? However, one thing remained unchanged and that is Jamie has Leukemia and she died eventually of course...and i remember crying about it (i was previously on the verge of tears when i watched the movie)...and as always...the quote...that ever moving phrase:

Love is always patient and kind.
It is never jealous. Love is never boastful and not conceded.
It is never rude and selfish.
It does not take offence and it is not resentful.
Love takes no pleasure in other people's sense of delight in the truth.
It is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope in doing due work, whatever comes.


#Awww....I've just got my Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (borrowed i mean) from the library!! Cant wait to start on it!!

Till next time......TataZ


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