On Friday, April 5th, my friends and I attended UBC Choir’s “One World” performance at the Chan Centre. After seeing them perform last semester, we made sure we attended their final performance. My attendance was that much more mandatory as it was the final grad conductor performance for my choir conductor, Steven Hamilton. Working with Steven this year was the best musical experience of my life as he (and Tiffany Chen) were the first music performance instructors I have had since elementary school. Steven was a pleasure to work with and his enthusiasm and passion for music is carried throughout the not only the choir, but the entire auditorium he is working in. I had to be there for his grad performance!
Perhaps one of the most interesting pieces he conducted was a part of Iain Grandage’s “Three Australian Bush Songs” (i. Dawn ii. Birds iii. Sunset). The middle piece, “Birds” was so interesting because of the bird sounds the choirs made. They sounds the choir were able to make imitated those of wild birds, that at first I thought that there were actually bird calls being played! At one point, a flurry of birds seemingly fly out from the stage, signaling the migration of the birds home for bed at sunset.
The choir sang another song that imitated non-music sounds. In the Chinese folk song, “Diu Diu Deng”, the choir breathed the song chugging of a train, from standstill to constant pace. The chugging from the choir was so spot on, most likely not necessarily due to the sounds themselves, but the tempo at which the chugged, and the gradual transition imitating the sound of the train speeding up. They even included a part with the alto voices making a steam engine’s whistle! The rest of the song was a happy folk song, with contrasting male and female voices. Paired
with the train, it painted an image of a rice fields and happy farmers working their crops in peace and good will. It was a very happy-go-lucky song with very vivid imagery.
With that being said however, I don’t think the song would have had such an impact and as vivid imagery as it did if the conductor did not give an insight to what to expect beforehand. With that being said, I guess one could consider this piece to be considered as being program music. With this in mind after learning it in class, it really allowed me to reflect on just how impactful program music was for its time in having audiences know what to expect as opposed to hoping they’d just understand.
The last piece that stood out to me at this concert was not necessarily the choir itself surprisingly, but rather the cello accompaniment by Susie Yoo in Imant Raminsh’s “In the Night We Shall Go In”. There is just something about string instruments like the cello and viola that are able to strum at my heart chords. I found it interesting to see that the cellist was not playing all the time, but rather intermittently throughout. This honestly made her parts that much more impactful, as we were not bombarded with its sound and instead fed it bit by bit, as if it were pleasantly teasing us.
The whole concert was a great time, and I had a great time cheering on and supporting Steven Hamilton, the wonderful conductor of the show. I also had a great time doing these journal responses throughout the semester, as they allowed me to reflect upon the music I’ve seen and gave me greater insights into the class itself via the real life examples I’ve seen. I look forward to continuing to experience musical performances, and recommend all my colleagues push their music interests and check out shows such as choirs and K Pop. I promise you will not be disappointed!