Aaron, The Kadazan Kid: Barts' Choir

Here's a proof that I'm part of it. Heh. The booklet = £2. My name inside = priceless (click to enlarge, if you still don't believe me =P)

Barts choir is the largest classical choir in London. Would you believe if I say that there are about 300-400 people singing together? And I was part of the team. Just had choir concert, performed by Barts' Choir, singing Berlioz' "Te Deum" yesterday.

This concert is held annually in support of SHAPE, a charity which works to improve access to the arts for deaf and disabled people

"Shape is the largest arts development charity working with disabled and deaf people in the

. Since 1976 Shape has played an active role in the disability rights movement, pioneering the active involvement of disabled and deaf people in the arts and cultural industries – as participants, artists and audience members."

Was conducted by Ivor Setterfield. He's no ordinary man. He's one superb, famous conductor in the classical music realm!

And the concert was performed at the world-renowned Royal Albert Hall. Yeah, THE Albert hall. I had been on the STAGE, performing.

Yeah, this is mine.

Aaron. Right: that's Yi Wen, the person whom I stole almost all of the pictures from (including this one) in this blog entry .

Here are some pictures, how Albert Hall looks like. Thanks to Yi Wen! The pictures from my baby not-so-good-multipurpose-PDA-camera which 'illegally' snap some shots inside the hall are not great. I should have just brought my camera into the hall; many (from both audience and choristers) made obvious flashed snapshots across the hall despite photography being prohibited inside there. Argh!

During the rehearsal, few hours before the concert. Have you a seen red piano before?

Red piano

The audience arena. There are seats at where the bright lights are. You pay £12 for that level. Below that layer is the £35 per seat - the most expensive of all tickets - of course with the best view and acoustics.

Empty stage from audience view. You pay £18 to get this view

The Almighty Organ. You must have wondered what's that huge brown stretch across the stage from the picture above, right?

Royal Albert Hall before the concert started

Concert time! (From stage view). Those people in black suits were the performers (i.e Barts Choir - us! me!)

The Audience - Almost a full house that night!

The concert itself was beyond words. It was just extremely fun to sing such a challenging yet wonderful piece!!!! I'll most probabbly join the summer term concert, although that won't be in Royal Albert Hall. But there's gonna be in November. The reason being for my contemplation is finals (yeah, the big "F") and work (if I get one) in July, and Clincals in November. These actually are not much of a problem. Besides, they are not even here yet. So, why worry? Just give it try.

It just occured to me that how much I really wanted to learn back playing an instrument - the piano and violin in particular. I awed those talented musicians whenever I see a concert, this concert being the most recent one. Not that I cannot play the piano; I simply whacked them without actually needing to sight read any musical score. I can't help but continously longing to be drenched with feeling. If only I was a lot more persistent in learning the instrument when I was 12 years old (that's when I decided to stop learning). I stopped learning not being equipped completely with the adequate music skills I wished I had today.