Below are some of the video recordings from our EMS 2017 Autumn Concert.
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There are a lot of "interesting" stories behind of each video, especially for the percussion section...... The video for Wager - Elsa's Procession to the Cathedral is missing due to some technical issue, though the last minute of full percussion in action are recorded, but given it is not the full piece of music, I have decided not to put the partial video online.
The video for Mussorgsky - Pictures at an Exhibition certainly exists here with me. However, once again due to technical issue, some of the movements are missing at the moment. The 10th movement (last movement) in fact is the most "interesting" during the concert, as the percussion section has "failed" pretty miserably, in a funny way, and everything was being caught on the video closely....... It came cross my mind to put this video up, and in fact just give it a title as "Percussion Section Fail for Pictures at an Exhibition", maybe I need to be more convinced that it is a good idea to do this, though it was in fact quite entertaining to watch that video, feels like a percussion comedy show!
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My sincerely apologies for almost all videos I have below are missing the first 30 seconds of the music due to some technical issues, also the location of the camera wasn't at its best. Apart from that, the videos featured me a bit too much...... obviously the photographer misunderstood the purpose of film full size orchestra concert...... My apologies on all of these.
EMS 2017 Autumn Concert Videos
EMS Symphonic Winds performs Astor Piazzolla - Street Tango
My apologies on making couple of mistakes on vibraphone. It was at very early stage of the concert, and I obviously hasn't warmed up enough yet, especially as a first-time vibraphone player......
EMS Symphonic Winds performs Selection From "Chicago"
Great trumpet solo work by Andrew Coote. Vibes great for our whole ensemble.
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My sincerely apologies on messing up the end swing part. I got a bit too nervous as that swing part was meant to be important, and seems like the more important it is, the more nervous I get...... I also probably over practiced the piece a bit, therefore ended up rush a bit for some of the parts. Once again, my apologies as a poor first-time xylophone player......
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EMS Symphonic Winds performs Holst - Second Suite for Military Band
The video recording is not very smooth between four movements of the piece, as audience started clapping after each movement, therefore the recording was stopped and resumed again.
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It was such a pity that the video recording is missing the first a few seconds of the music. Apparently during the first 10 seconds of the music, our timpanist who sat at the back had a really "dramatic" fall, knocked over two chairs, kicked a metal water bottle, plus fell back himself off the edge of the stair...... But most amazingly, he managed to draw least amount of attention to himself, and fixed everything so calmly! Wish we caught that on video!
At the end of the first movement, our snare drummer might got a bit confused due to the concert nerve, and therefore decided to move to the drum set and ready to play the other piece of the music......Therefore, there was some interesting moving and pointing around happening there......
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For the third movement, we couldn't get access to an anvil for our percussion section, therefore, a cowbell was used as the replacement......
EMS Symphony Orchestra performs DvoÅ™ák - Overture Carnival
Once again, my apologies that due to the technical issue, the first a few seconds of the recording is missing.
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This was the first piece for our symphony orchestra part after the interval, before we started, our dear conductor David Reichman turned around to the audience and said: "I just want to say, my father in law passed away last night......" Then he turned around and did this great job on conducting.
Nice Timpani work by Daniel Tiong!
Also fabulous work on triangle is Josef Keuk with great professional training in percussion!
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We are not a very professional orchestra, please forgive us on some of stumbles in the middle of the performance. I understand there were quite a few mistakes, the struggle for high notes for string section, very noticeable cor anglais solo fail, lack of bass section, etc. We've all been trying hard, but it happens with concert nerve.
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Also I would like to apologise on some of the tambourine work were a bit of the struggle. That tambourine in fact cut my thumb just before the concert during sound check, and I was in a lot pain throughout the performance...... Also I think due to some of the parts I rushed a bit, I certainly effected triangle work next to me a bit as well. My sincere apologies.
10th movement of Pictures at an Exhibition stories...... The whole piece was challenging enough for Ravel's arrangement, then throughout the whole performance, surprisingly my fellow percussionists in the section were constantly stare at me for cue rather than following the conductor.
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As the 10th movement started, one percussionist tried to fill in for bass drum part at the beginning under my instruction, but then the snare drummer came over and took over the beater away from him to fill in, which was very confusing...... After that, the snare drummer threw his music on top of mine which completely messed up my nervous counting process...... Therefore, I freaked out a bit and did my best to play the first two notes by heart, then tried to take my music away to put on different music stand.
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After that, the Tam-Tam percussionist moved his music over to the Tam-Tam section, and then facing me for cue...... Therefore I tried to play my notes on cymbal every second bar, turn around to cue him in, plus asking him to play notes louder.
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Towards the end part, the tuned percussionist moved back to us and fill in for the triangle, while the same time he was highly considerate and took over my responsibility to cue the Tam-Tam percussionist in. Therefore, he had to play on the triangle, then at the same time kept waving his arm to cue Tam-Tam......
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In the end, due to blocked space, I couldn't reach to suspended cymbal, therefore missed the last nice cymbal roll. As our timpanist always joked: "We are ok as long as we get the last notes correct!" Therefore, sadly I missed the last notes......
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So yes, with a lot of these dramas, watching the video of the last movement of Pictures at an Exhibition was certainly like a funny percussion comedy show! It made me laughing in tears so much! If anybody wishes me to show that video, you'd really have to try to convince me then!
EMS Symphonic Winds performs Wagner - Elsa's Procession to the Cathedral
Our conductor Murray claims this was his favorite piece during the concert. I suppose it was ok, not much percussion, but when it's there, it was certainly great!
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