Onwards, Choristes!

Ong Yu Ting

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Our Activities:

2007
We organized a 4-Day camp during the March holiday in 2007 to build bonds between the members, especially for the Secondary One students. Repertoire building was also on the camp’s agenda to prepare for the upcoming SYF competition. After long hours of intense training with our choir conductor, we clinched the Silver Award with commendable effort. Our biannual concert entitled ‘Euphony’ with Queenstown Secondary School was a fruitful and enjoyable collaboration.

2008
A 3-Day camp was organized for the new members which included games so that we could bond together and know one another better. The juniors and seniors got closer together. We had a joyful time. The games were fun requiring us to go around the school in search of items. Besides playing games, we had practices held in the music room

Our Events:

2007
25/04/2007-Participated the secondary schools’ SYF and achieved a silver Award.
12/07/07-SYF showcase during school assembly.
20/07/07- Performance for student exchange programme( Beijing 156 Middle School) in school hall.

08/08/2007- Performance in the National Day Celebration & Awards Presentation.

 23 /12/2007-Combine school Concert with Queenstown secondary school.

2008
The first event that we participated in was The Rhapsody. It was held at Singapore Polytechnic, on April 11th. It was a concert organized by our school which showcased all the performing arts groups in our school. Our choir sang various songs of different languages like Cantate!, Gloria and Ye Lai Xiang. The performance was amazing and the audience responded vividly. It was a very enriching experience. Each of the performers received a certificate to show our participation in this event.

The grandest performance we took part in this year was Asean Serenade, an evening of music, song, dance and poetry. It was held at the Esplanade Concert Hall, on 5th July along with other 2 school choirs. All respective choirs are under the conduction of Ms Khor Ai Ming. This event was organized by a well-known organizer and it was honour of Mr Alex Abisheganaden. It was an enjoyable process and a good experience for us to observe how professionals perform. Due to our participation, we received free tickets to attend the Singapore Arts Festival concert.

At the end of the year, on December 8th, we went to Hong Kong for a performance at Disneyland and for a school exchange program with Cognitio College. During our trip we stayed in a 4-star hotel. On the first day, we toured around Hong Kong and had a wonderful time. The sceneries there were simply breathtaking. On the second day of the trip, we spent an entire day in Disneyland enjoying various exciting and hair-rising rides. On this day, we were joined by Queenstown Secondary School at night for a combined practice before a performance on the next day.

The day finally arrived where we held a performance with Queenstown Secondary School in Disneyland. We felt a rush of adrenaline as we walked to our performing stage. It was very successful. The audience loved it a lot. After that Queenstown and us went our own ways. We went to Cognitio College for the school exchange program where we were warmly welcomed. Each school held a performance. The next day we spent half of it in Ocean Park enjoying our last few moments in Hong Kong. After that, we departed for the airport and left Hong Kong returning back to Singapore. It was a very fruitful trip.

Our Achievements:

Silver Award for 2005 Singapore Youth Festival Central Judging.

Silver Award for 2007 Singapore Youth Festival Central Judging.

Bronze Award for 2009 Singapore Youth Festival Central Judging.

SYF 2009 Experience:
by Clarabelle Liang

This year, is another busy year for GESS choir. After months and weeks of consistent training under the baton of our choir conductor Miss Khor Ai Ming, we participated in the SYF competition held earlier in April in the Victoria Concert Hall and clinched the Bronze award. We savoured every moment on stage as we belted out the SYF set piece, The White Horses and two of our star pieces, Light Snow and Song of Pounding. The journey towards SYF was tough and we sacrificed most of our free time after school to practice. Though the results we got were not to our expectations, we did our best on the stage. The choir had been united and we had gained an invaluable experience, hence the hard work was all worthwhile. Undeterred by the outcome, we are even more determined to work hard to unravel the sterling silver beneath the surface of the bronze.