By Koh Yin Jie (18S03Q), Chairperson, Erhu

Hear the name Chinese Orchestra and you will immediately think of old men clad in silk attire playing ancient instruments, or perhaps you will get reminded of the same boring Chinese New Year songs you hear every January, or maybe you will associate it with a concert full of exotic-sounding pieces that you only go to because your classmates begged you to.

Well, there’s no denying that the Chinese Orchestra does entail those things mentioned above, but RJCO is much, much more than that.

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By Yu Shangchen (18S02A), Chairperson, Zhang Chang (18S06F), Vice-Chairperson and Sally Yang (18S05A), Secretary

No one really knows what “CLDCS” stands for. For one, the “L” in the “CLDCS” has been given a wide range of meanings, including Literature, Language and Linguistics. (Officially, it is “Literary”). Funnily enough, this says nothing about what CLDCS actually does – we are neither a book club nor a Chinese Writer’s Guild. In fact, CLDCS is a performing arts CCA with three unique divisions: Calligraphy, Drama and Songwriting.

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By Caleb Leow (18A01A), Vice-Chairperson
Photographs by Raffles Photographic Society

Everything about school-based string ensembles screams pretentiousness: from the French “ensemble” (meaning “together”) with its nasal “en” and muffled final syllable, to the glossy Western suits which hang baggily over the young performers, to the smug way a self-proclaimed student musician tells you the difference between a violin and a viola. Replace the word “String” with “Chamber” – which is by definition a small group of musicians – and the ensemble sounds an octave higher in its exclusiveness.

Yet in Raffles Chamber Ensemble, one finds none of this snobbery.

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