We just completed the band camp and we covered quite a bit of ground over the last 3 days. The band came in on Wednesday morning and we began with sectionals, working on difficult passages in the repertoire. The evening session was with the participants of the WYCW 2016. I gave the participants some pointers prior to their coming and I was not disappointed. 😀
The night began with a reading of the 1st and 2nd movements of the Scenes from the Louvre. This piece poses many challenges for the conductor and creating the right atmosphere is vital to the listener understanding and visualizing the sights of the Louvre. Here we see how Jasper work through the 2 movements:
We shifted to the Lincolnshire Posy as some of the candidates we late due to traffic. Zeyu Zhang was assigned the 2nd movement. This is one of the most challenging pieces for conductors to conduct and it is also quite hard for the band. Let’s see how Zeyu did with this piece.
We continued on with the 4th and 6th movements with Teck Kuan Teo. I did not realize at first that he was unwell. As I worked with him through the two movements, I began to see that he was not his usual self… I thought he did well considering how unwell he was.
We got back to schedule after this with Goh Wei Zhen. He did the 3rd movement of the Scenes of the Louvre and the Seas Songs.
We closed the Scenes from the Louvre with Nicola doing the 4th and 5th movements.
After a short break, we continued with the famous Holst Second Suite in F. First movement was conducted by Siti. I took away her score and also her stand! I am so happy she did not freak out… much 🙂
2nd and 3rd movements are short but definitely not easy to conduct. There are so many stylistic and musical ideas that needed to be put across and the picture painted must be clear. Hari did a fantastic job with these 2 movements. Watch him here!
The last movement can be a disaster if the conductor is not able to manage the transitions from 2 to 1. It needs a steady hand and a clear mind. Yong Lin did a great job with this movement. It was sad our Piccolo player was not in town. This made it harder to get the ending needed.
We end the session with Lincolnshire Posy 1st movement. This was conducted by Gena Ng. This movement may seem simple when you look at it but it has so many challenges for the conductor!
Thank you for following the WYCW 2016. I hope you have gained from watching the videos. I know I have. One of the reasons why I do this is because I get to learn from so many aspiring conductors and share with them different perspectives on the repertoire. I may not be correct all the time but the sharing is simply amazing!
Thank you and look out for the update from session 4 on 5 Oct 2016.
Muhamad Yusri 
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