WE WON A SILVER! WE WON A SILVER!
The category that we were in, the Asian Open, has no medals - they just have diplomas, and there are 10 categories to each diploma. So we had a Silver V, which, considering we have been practicing for just 17 sessions for this (just over a month after our production ended), is good enough for us at this point!
One of the other choirs that took part from Malaysia - the Dithyrambic Singers - did the entire country proud by taking the Gold in the Asian Championships for the Contemporary Music category. We went -nuts- cheering and waving the flags we'd brought, and hearing the national anthem being played like that was just...an experience I wouldn't have missed for the world. Never thought I was that much of a patriot but apparently competitions like this just bring it out in everyone!
Secondly: I've been absent for longer than expected because EVERYONE came home with a parting gift from Indonesia - the flu. I've never been this sick for ages; it's been almost 2 weeks and I'm practically the new choir bass at the moment. I -did- manage to take some 80+ photos in Jakarta but I haven't uploaded them yet - I will though at some point and toss them up.
So in order to play catch-up (and inspired by Marcos, Marcelo, Armand and Paul Lasaine's -gorgeous- work over the past few days), here's a snippet of the stuff I managed to sketch while being indoors with the competition choirs just about every day. The selection here is an entire afternoon's worth of choirs who competed in the Musica Sacra and the Mixed Vocal Ensemble categories; they were back to back in the same hall. If you're wondering why I was sketching when I was supposed to be listening to the choirs, well - a) after a while you do get sleepy when there are such lovely soothing songs b) I'm a lousy photographer at that distance.
The pink scribbles are fairly self-explanatory for each of the choirs; their costumes, I must admit, were -fabulous-. For larger images, click on the picture.
Maznur Chorale Kupang had an eye-boggling array of traditional costumes; this was only two of the many they were dressed in. I had to pick and choose -quick- before they finished singing their 4 songs and went off-stage.
