With its preparations entering the last phase of its trip to the World Music Contest (WMC) in Kerkrade, Netherlands, NUS Wind Symphony will be presenting a pre-tour concert showcase on 8 July, at the Yale-NUS Performance Hall.
“We would like to share our whole experience of what we’ve learned from preparing for the competition with the local audience. This concert seeks to bring together our well-wishers for a celebration, which will in turn help us raise some funds for the tour,” said Xu Yuting, tour head for the wind symphony.
Apart from its participation in WMC, the wind symphony will also be attending the World Association for Symphonic Bands and Ensembles (WASBE) conference, which is also held in the same country, in the city of Utrecht.
The WASBE Conference 2017 is a 5 day festival that runs from July 18 to 22, bringing together top bands and renowned clinicians and offering a program of concerts, performances and masterclasses for its participants.
“We will be performing at the WASBE fringe festival in Jacobikerk, Utrecht on 19 July at 12.30pm!”
“We will also be attending the concert of Banda Municipal De Musica De Bilbao from Spain, conducted by Jose R. Pascual-Vilaplana, and have the opportunity to work with Scottish conductor Mark Heron in a masterclass. We are definitely very privileged to be able to attend the conference with these top notch musicians,” Yuting continued.
The repertoire for the conference was carefully selected with the objective to expose European audience to Asian cultural music.
The three pieces, which will be featured in the concert, will showcase the diversity of wind band music. They include Dance of the Yao People, Selections of Malay Folksongs and Disco Kid.
While it is taxing on the band’s efforts to rehearse for both events concurrently, the journey ensured that its student musicians improve on their own playing to better understand the approach to the music.
“It doesn’t mean that by preparing for WASBE we have less time for WMC – we can always apply what we’ve learnt from WMC preparation to WASBE music, and reinforce the learning outcomes. It is also interesting to take a break from intense WMC preparation to play other music, so that when we return to WMC rehearsals, we develop a refreshed perspective of what each piece of music demands,” explained Yuting.
“Is it taxing? Yes, but totally worth it!”
Traveler: Pre-Tour Concert For Netherlands Tour 2017
8th July 2017
Yale-NUS Performance Hall, 7pm
Tickets: $12, available from bit.ly/NUSWSPretour
Programme
Dream City – Toshiaki Minami
Summer Dances – Adam Gorb
Traveler – David Maslanka
Yao Dance (瑶族舞曲) – Liu Tie-Shan, Mao Yuan arr. Hsu Shuang-Liang
Selection of Malay Folk Songs arr Hadahiro Umetani
A contributing editor at TBP.