By Gillian Yeong (17A01A), Vice Chairperson

Pictures by Angela Sun (17S06M), Raffles Photographic Society, from 2016 Annual Concert “Memento”

So you may ask, what is Chamber?:

Chamber
/ˈtʃeɪmbə/
1. an enclosed space or cavity.
• “a burial chamber”
• a large underground cavern.
• the part of a gun bore that contains the charge.

is what you will typically find in the dictionary. For those wise enough to scroll, you will find:

2. of or for a small group of instruments.
• “a chamber concert”

Chamber music is defined as instrumental music played by a small ensemble, with one player to a part. And in this cozy environment of Chamber Ensemble, you will find people who enjoy creating music coming together doing what they love doing – regardless of genre (on party days we do Gaga,  on good days we might attempt…Schoenberg). However, Chamber Ensemble isn’t merely about creating music, it is also about the experiences and people we create this music with.

Firstly, the experiences – we have had several performances and milestones in 2016. On top of our annual concert, Memento, we also took part in a CIP activity where we performed and interacted with elderly at Ren Ci hospital. With our hope of spreading the love for music to our peers, we performed rousing pieces during National Day. We have also hosted Good Hope School from Hong Kong with whom we shared a fun and interactive collaboration! We have also had collaborative concerts with both RISE and RGSE in 2015.

As for the people, on top of the very cool seniors you’ll get this year, we have had the privilege of receiving immense support from a few very important people.

Our experienced teachers-in-charge, Mrs Er-Tang Mui Kee and Mrs Lim Bay Swee Lian, have been with us for few years now and have been providing much needed guidance to us every step along the way.

We are also immensely thankful for the patient tutelage of our tutor, Ms Judy Tay, adjunct faculty at SOTA, as well as our conductor, Ms Marietta Ku, an accomplished violinist-cum-violist with the SSO who enjoys arranging music and mountain climbing.

For those who are wondering what joining Chamber would look like, we have combined every Wednesday 2.30pm-6.30pm, and sectionals are arranged within your respective sessions. In addition to our practices, we also value the exposure our members receive. On top of volunteering for CIP activities and exchange programmes, we frequently seize opportunities to catch performances together (sometimes, at a discounted price). And though a large majority of these performances are performed by string ensembles, we assure you that we do not restrict outings to SSO concerts exclusively.

We hope this write-up has made you more informed of what Chamber is about and we hope to see you at our auditions :)