Friday, 27 November 2009
The Yale Spizzwinks (?)
Thursday, 26 November 2009
Christmas Is Coming
Christmas Jam with NANU, 21 November 2009
A brief review:
With a fun and interactive programme, the Christmas Jam featured local band, NANU and special guests. The music consists of a cappella renditions of Christmas music and included new arrangements from the NANU repertoire. There were some jazz harmonies along with the pop hits. The performances were of high standard, and the atmosphere was very relaxed and intimate, which was warm and inviting for the audiences to participate in the show. The audiences not only sang along, they were also very responsive to the performers and the host. The event which was separated into two shows (afternoon and evening), allowed The A cappella Society and performers to better tailor for the needs and interest of the different target audiences for each show.
The afternoon show was a children’s matinee, and had special guest performances from Swiss School’s students and the TAS children’s choir. Catered specifically for children, the performers and host had interacted with them by teaching them a couple of vocal techniques, which included beat boxing. The audiences were asked to practice and even come on stage to show off what they had just learned!
The evening show targeted the youths and young at heart. It also featured Beatz, a group that offers beat box and rap, which is the genre well liked by contemporary youths. Their performance offered an alternative rendition of Christmas tunes. Again, the show was interactive and the atmosphere was every energetic.
The event was successful in bringing the audiences an enjoyable time.
Ticket Sales
The capacity of the location was 245 seats for each show. The ticket sales were excellent, with over half the tickets being sold for the afternoon show and an almost sold out for the evening show.
Audiences
The majority of the audiences were from the schools, which consisted of primary students (afternoon show), secondary students and youths (evening show) and their teachers. Some of these schools had attended shows organized by The A Cappella Society in the past while some had not. There were also parents and friends of the performers. Other audiences included a small group from a girl’s home charity organisation, and the general public who had bought tickets from Keppel nights.
THE PROGRAM
Date: 21 November 09
Times: 3pm-4pm Children's matinee
7.30pm-8:45pm Evening show
Location: Esplanade Recital Studio
TICKETS
$20-$25
Tuesday, 10 November 2009
Beatz at RGS, 30 October 2009
We did a remixed version of Onegai DJ (Miss You) by M Flo, Bongo Bong by Manu Chao, Disturbia by Rihanna and our hit song, Move It. Christopher and Samuel were the beatboxers, Arif rapped and Kathy sang, a bit under-prepared though as Kathy joined the group only a week prior to the event.
The sound system was really bad. We not only did not manage to get a final sound check despite asking for it, the sound crew also lost one microphone, so Christopher had to be left off stage for our first song. In the end, they took out the clip on microphone for Arif, and they did not adjust the sound system for us at all, so we sounded pretty bad.
The crowd however was brilliant and enthusiastic. They seemed to be enjoying the songs tremendously. They went wild when Sam, Chris and Arif did a special with Triple B- dancing to Beyonce’s Single Ladies.
We mostly loved Move It and the dance segment, because we managed to hype up the crowd and even get them to sing and dance along.
Monday, 9 November 2009
International A Cappella Festival
Each night, the audience members came out of the concerts asking for CDs from all the teams as well as many well-wishes for the festival. They enjoyed the performances and excellent singing of all the groups.
Ticket sales for the first two nights were very bad though and only picked up for the weekend shows but still remained below expectation. Marketing was limited due to the small budget of the event, which was part of Encore! The European Season in Singapore and the Keppel Nights ticket subsidy scheme. There were also promotional performances by Permanent Fish at NTU as part of NIE's concert series and at ITE College East, which were very well received and led some members of the audience to buy tickets for the Esplanade concert. Rock4 was also interviewed on Channel News Asia's Primetime Morning show.
The audience feedback was very positive and thus we will keep developing this festival for vocal music into one that is of international quality and one with a wide variety of acts.
We will also continue to look for ways to include local groups in the festival to continue in their development in an international context and to provide an opportunity for them to exchange ideas and learn from the international groups.