Cool Concerts: Beautiful Sunday - Symphonic Broadway

It's another Beautiful Sunday and another concert by the Singapore Wind Symphony Youth Winds. This time they bring us Symphonic Broadway, giving us hits from Broadway like Miss Saigon and Les Miserables. Momo Dear is a fan of Les Miserables and very much wanted to listen to its songs. Therefore we rushed down to Esplanade to catch these talented musicians perform these hits. Other songs from Annie and My Fair Lady were performed too. We were not familiar with these songs but enjoyed the performance nonetheless.

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Cool Concerts: Beautiful Sunday - Dreams of Disney by Mus’Art Youth Wind Orchestra

Dear was looking forward to this for a long time. Being a fan of everything cute, like Disney characters, she wanted to attend this concert by hook or by crook. We went to the Esplanade as early as 2pm to queue up for good seats. Therefore we got the seats we wanted at the Circle 1 area, which offered a much higher view of the stage area. It definitely gave a much better view than those at the foyer area.

This time round, it was a full-house. Even the seats behind the performers were used, as can be seen in this picture. This was the first time we witnessed such an attendance that they actually opened up those seats behind.

Cute Mickey ears on almost every performer.

And once the performers marched in, we could see almost every one of them wearing some cute little Mickey ears to go with the theme.

Dear really enjoyed herself as they played songs from many famous Disney cartoons like The Lion King, Tangled, and of course the most popular animation to date, Frozen. Wonderful performance by these youngsters.

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Cool Concerts: Beautiful Sunday - Symphonic G-on! by AudioImage Wind Ensemble

We finally got to watch a Beautiful Sunday concert. The last time we wanted to watch a Beautiful Sunday concert back in January, we missed the entry time by ten minutes or so. This time round, we reached at 2:20pm, about forty minutes before the concert started. It's a free concert, therefore it's recommended that you reach at least an hour before the concert starts. We were ushered into the Esplanade Theatre around 2:30pm, and proceeded to choose the seats of our liking. It's our umpteenth time watching a concert at the Esplanade Theatre.

Another Beautiful Sunday!

Freaking awesome performances for the day. The songs were based on games from the past to present, such as Kingdom Hearts, Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time medley, Sonic the Hedgehog medley, Super Mario Brothers medley, The Planet's Crisis and One Winged Angel from Final Fantasy 7, Pokemon medley and even a medley of current smartphone smash hits like Angry Birds and Plants vs Zombies, Clash of Clans, Candy Crush. Truly an awesome experience for a gamer like me who has played almost all of the games that were featured. Really look forward to the next concert featuring games.

Solo performance on an ocarina!

Thank you AudioImage Wind Ensemble.

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Cool Concerts: The Philharmonic Winds Goes Pop! 2015

We love music and going to concerts. Ever since the first time we went to The Philharmonic Winds' concert a few years back on 16 Dec 2012, which was also the same 'The Philharmonic Winds Goes Pop' series, we started liking their Facebook page and even went to their concert in 2014 titled 'Circle of Life - A Night of Musicals'.

This time round, it was also the 'The Philharmonic Winds Goes Pop' series, which featured Singapore's very own musician/composers and Cultural Medallion winners Dick Lee and Dr Liang Wern Fook, as well as Xinyao veterans like Pan Ying and Hong Shao Xuan. Since my mother likes Pan Ying, we brought my parents along to watch this concert.

Taken from: https://www.esplanade.com/events/2015/the-philharmonic-winds-goes-pop

The empty stage before the concert started.

In the first half, we were treated to the really 'POP' music that was so prominent on its concert title and banner. The orchestra performed pop songs from various countries such as South Korea, Japan (they played 'Koisuru Fortune Cookie by AKB48), Taiwan ('王妃' by 萧敬腾, and others) etc. There was also a solo saxophone performance by the orchestra's very own Ang Yi Xiang. We did not know who he was but he should be pro enough to be given a solo performance of his own. And indeed it was.

The second half of the concert featured Xinyao pieces performed by the orchestra and had Xinyao singers Pan Ying and Hong Shao Xuan singing some famous Xinyao songs. Although some of the younger audiences in the theatre most probably do not know of some of those songs, we could tell that they really were captivated by the beautiful voices and soothing music. Later on, Dick Lee emerged with performances of his most iconic songs 'Home' and 'Life Story'. As the concert reached the climatic finale, he also made the audience sing along with him to the tune of 'Rasa Sayang'.

An excellent concert to kick off the Christmas season! Following two encores, the show finally ended with an 'All I Want For Christmas Is You' by Mariah Carey. A wonderful performance with a star-studded list of guest performers. We excitedly look forward to the next concert that The Philharmonic Winds will bring us.

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