By Keng Yi, Nicole (25S03S)

As a chorus of voices rise and fill the Concert Hall of the School of the Arts (SOTA), the world seems to dim to the warm limelight of the stage. 

But for the performers on it, these next fifteen minutes will be “almost inconsequential”—compared to the hours of preparation that came before it, the climax itself feels, well, anticlimactic. 

Sing Yu Ze (25S03S) agrees that “the performance goes by really, really fast… what you remember [most are] the memories you made when you prepared for it, not the actual performance itself.”

Still, the crowd of friends and family gathered on this Wednesday afternoon are listening eagerly. What they’re about to be presented with is more than a vocal performance: it’s a reflection of a kind of devotion that music cannot contain.

From home / I will carry these songs

The performance kicks off with the set piece What is that I hear? by Singaporean composer Diana Soh. Left intentionally open-ended, the intro section of the song is a combination of wind sounds, insect sounds, and bird calls that the choir was given the freedom to arrange themselves by “socratic seminar”. 

Carrying strong themes of longing for home and the search for a common identity, the piece is especially fitting for the Y5s as they transition into defining the next chapter of the CCA.

Following the juniors’ arrival in February, there was a short runway of just two months leading up to SYF. To compensate, Chorale held long rehearsals and often had extra practices on Fridays outside of CCA time to get the juniors up to speed. Still, the Y6s have nothing but praise for their proteges, citing their talent, receptiveness, and passion.

For a member of the Y5 batch, Hannah Chua (26A01A), one of her favourite memories from the preparation period was “singing our SYF pieces in Block A’s corridor—I couldn’t stop smiling […] it was so special.” 

Overall, the members describe the process of preparation as “arduous but in a good way.” Isaac expresses his pride for his juniors “having come so far in such a short period of time […] We’ve come out so much more bonded as a CCA and as friends.”

The journey wasn’t without its challenges, though. Kwie Yun Yi (25S07A) describes a “sop crash out” (short for “soprano crash out”) in the week leading up to SYF where “we kind of got really stressed.. we realised we were not prepared.” Anxiety that their entrances were messy and their vowels did not match led them to ramp up practicing even further.

Reflecting on the crisis, Yun Yi admits, “[Even] when you’re ready for a performance, you never feel prepared until it’s over.”

Chorale’s pre-performance ritual is simple but effective: before leaving school, they stand in a circle, put their arms around each other, and “sort of pray”. Or as Isaac puts it more eloquently, “we did a prayer circle in school […] and expressed our hopes and gratitude for the journey that led us there, and thankfully our hopes were realised!”

Wings that carry dreams / “Hope”, that very phrase

When asked for their favourite piece out of the three, the members all reply without hesitation. Tsubasa (Japanese for “Wings”) by Tōru Takemitsu is the clear choice. “By elimination,” jokes Yun Yi.

Drawing forth images of the word “hope” being etched upon the distant sky, Tsubasa feels like a promise. The members describe how their conductor, Mrs Yap Shing Min, encouraged them to imagine “flying together with the choir” while singing.

More technically, Isaac expresses his appreciation for its flowing melodic lines where, as a Bass 2, he gets to “sing very nice low notes (that the adjudicators commended us on specifically in the feedback)”.

Reflecting on the song’s themes of freedom and dreams, he acknowledges it as “an apt reflection of what we all want to have as we move through this transitional period of JC.”

Yu Ze reminisces on a moment where, after practicing Tsubasa, Mrs Yap asked the choir about their interpretation of the song’s meaning of hope, encouraging the Y6s to share their hopes for their juniors. “I remember someone said: we hope that you make magic in the memories, and the friends, and the music that you make.”

You were a beacon to us… / You were loved 

The final piece, Rondo Lapponico by Gunnar Hahn, is almost Christmassy in its sound, but carries similar themes of connection. Based on the nomadic Sámi people’s traditional song which “declares their kinship” with the nature that surrounds them, the coda of Rondo is “dedicated to the reindeer—the most precious [Sámi] possession.”

To Yu Ze, “it’s very tiring to sing.” Still, with some of its Finnish lyrics alluding to appreciation for what has passed (“You were loved from the land of the fairies”), it’s an apt finale. 

For Hannah, one of her most vivid memories of the performance is “smiling at my friends in the audience, and feeling like crying for a bit as our last chord hung in the air.” 

As the applause draws to an end and Chorale makes their way off the stage, the bouquet-laden crowd of supporters exit as well, preparing to swarm the performers on the steps of SOTA’s main entrance. Sure enough, it’s difficult to tell if anything has changed since half an hour ago, before the performance—the energy in the air feels mostly the same, a mix of trepidation and joy.

When asked what Chorale means to him, Isaac’s answer is simple: home. To him, SYF is “an excuse to create those magical moments when everyone’s tired but laser-focused on that one objective: to create music and to create magic.”

Printed across the back of this Chorale batch’s jackets is their motto, a lyric from ‘The Road Home’ by Stephen Paulus: ‘There is no such beauty as where you belong.’ Referencing this line, Isaac asserts that “most, if not all, of us can attest to this sense of strong belonging; it’s a wonderful thing to feel so closely tied to a group of people as large and diverse as Chorale.”

Hannah expresses that “I didn’t know what it was like to truly and immediately feel completely at home in a group of people before I joined Chorale […] getting to create beauty with them is a joy I will never take for granted.”

As the Y6 batch’s penultimate performance before HOMERUN as “An Achoired Taste”, SYF could easily feel like a goodbye. Instead, it feels like a natural exhalation. Yu Ze ends off with a quote from Chorale’s teacher-in-charge, Dr Ruth Rodrigues: