Ave Maria

I was supposed to be studying this weekend, but it didn't seem to be working out very well. Hell, it's not working at all. I guess I'll start tomorrow, I hope! Yesterday I went to see the ACS(I) Chamber Orchestra's performance with Pei Suan. She just came back from Holland along with the band people. All right! We got a &*%$ing gold!! Well done, people! It was good to see her after so long. Anyway, I met her at Bugis. I was late, so she went to develop her photos from the WMC trip. Plenty of scenery and architecture. Among the photos are those of some churches. Apparently she bought some postcards for me, but she left it with her friends from another band. No prizes for guessing where they are now. We were late for the concert, since the photos took so long to print. Looking at streetdirectory.com, I assumed that it would take a lot of walking to reach the school. Never did I expect that the bus stop was just in front of the gates! In any case, they didn't let us in until the intermission. Shit! That's half and hour of concert! So we just stood around outside. There were some aunties (parents?) selling some food. Oh, the concert was meant for fundraising for campus extension. Yeah, I prefer Maris Stella's toilets to ACS (I)'s. But wah lan, they are a rich school! And they need to raise funds? That's kind of laughable. No offence to all you ACS people reading this! Then, their interval was half and hour! And it ended at 2100, when the ticket said 2130!! Then, they didn't give us any program booklet or anything. Sigh, I think they really need the money. But all this was redeemed by the fact that they put up an excellent performance of Schubert's Ave Maria. Yeah, call it Catholic bias if you must, but it was really fantastic. The soprano was this girl from the Singapore Lyric Opera's Childrens' Chorus (they were performing too). Ave Maria - composed in 1825 by Franz Schubert (1797-1828) Ave Maria Gratia plena Maria Gratia plena Maria Gratia plena Ave, ave dominus Dominus tecum Benedicta tu in mulieribus Et benedictus Et benedictus fructus ventris Ventris tui Jesus Ave Maria Ave Maria Mater dei Ora pro nobis pecatoribus Ora, ora pro nobis Ora ora pro nobis pecatoribus Nunc et in hora mortis In hora mortis, mortis nostrae In hora mortis nostrae Ave Maria! Excellent! Then they had one more song followed by a medley. The encore was disappointing. They merely replayed one of the parts from the medley. And PS remarked that the flutist was horrible. The sound came in at the wrong timing, and the note sounded a bit off. In any case, we went nearby to have a drink before going home. Sigh, I haven't began studying yet. Common tests are a bitch. Well, there's always tomorrow.