Kota Kinabalu Jazz Festival 2nd Night

Blessed birthday to Sophia.

Tonight before we went for jazz again, we went to Little Italy for dinner.

It was one of the best Italian dinner I had. Ma ma mia. The food was truly al dente.

Everything we ordered tasted absolutely divine except for the beef in the Beef Lasagne was overcooked and therefore stuck to the bottom of the serving dish.

Zuppa di Mare

Garlic Bread

Beef Lasagne

Risotto di Mare

We arrived at the Tennis Arena at Sutera Harbour Marina Club slightly after 7p.m. and not many people had arrived considering it was a Saturday night.

The line up of the performances was as follows.

1. SIA (Sabah Institute of Arts) Jazz Syndicate – both of us nearly fell asleep

2. Rimba – first two gigs we nearly fell asleep. The third one was saved by the violinist and after that the performances improved.

3. Double Take – with Mia Palencia and Roger Wang on the guitar. One of the best local talent.

4. Nah Youn San – this soft spoken Korean lady who was backed up by musicians from KL brought the house down. She is truly a talented international performer. I enjoyed her performance the most.

5. Junk Unit – the drummer who hails from Macau also sang. Very ‘rocky’ but more enjoyable as compared to Son2Nos’s performance.

6. Jamming session by most of the artists.

In between the six performances, the ‘Jazzerinas’ repeated the same two performances they did the night before. *yawn*

A group of students along with their lecturers from Universiti Malaysia Sabah performed twice on the saxaphone.

There were more people dancing tonight compared to the night before. Elizabeth Chung wanted to dance but did not go out to do so. I was too lazy to even get out from the seat.

We left around midnight and decided to go for supper.

Sophia suggested Fook Yuen bread shop at Damai Phase IV. There were still people sitting around but there was no food on sale except for their famous bread.

I think this was the first time I had supper at that time of the night in my entire life in KK.

Eliz came to join us after dropping her friend home.

Arrived home after 1a.m. and did not go to dreamland until 3a.m. The supper was taking it’s sweet time to digest.

Kota Kinabalu Jazz Festival 1st Night

I was so happy I finished my assignment. I do not have to think about it anymore. And I can let my hair down and enjoyed myself tonight.

Sophia and I attended the KK Jazz Festival at the Tennis Arena at Sutera Harbour Marina Club. This was the third festival. (Both of us also attended the one held at Jesselton Point a few years back).

The line up of the performances was as follows.

1. SIA (Sabah Institute of Arts) Jazz Syndicate – comprises of students from this institution. The performance was a bit too ‘rocky’ for me.

2. Jonathan Tse – an ok performance and he was backed up by different musicians from different parts of Sabah. Cannot hear some of the lyrics he was singing.

3. Six 2 Eight – a capella group comprises of three men and four ladies. One of the men looks like a nerd but he sang very well.

4. Son2Nos – a Venezuelan group who could hardly communicate in English. The lead singer was begging the audience to dance but hardly anyone heeded his call.

In between the four performances, there were a group of ballerinas who called themselves ‘Jazzerinas’ performed.

The night was an extremely hot one especially during the first part. Towards the end the wind started to blow.

Overall Sophia and I still had a good time.

Kian Kok Middle School Concert Band

Before Sharon Lai, Monica Leong, Elizabeth Chung, Alice Hiew and I went to the concert, we had dinner at Upperstar, Damai Plaza. Elizabeth fetched the rest of them. I drove since I live the furthest from the rest of them.

Sharon and Elizabeth shared a pizza consisted of four different types of toppings and so the name Four Seasons. Monica had Fish and Chips. Alice had Spaghetti Cabonara while I had Nasi Lemak.

The pizza was not that great. The Fish and Chips were too oily. The Spaghetti Cabonara was a bit sweet while the Nasi Lemak was quite nice but would be a bit spicy for whoever who does not take spicy food.

The tv at Upperstar was showing EPL so the ladies told the waitress to change to other channels but to no avail.

I decided to leave the car at Damai Plaza and go in Elizabeth’s car since there is only limited parking space in Kian Kok School. I was glad of my decision because by the time we arrived, parking bays were rare to find.

The MCs consisted of two young ladies who spoke fluent Mandarin and English. They have the caliber to be in the debate or oratory team.

The band played various kind of music the whole night and was conducted by their in-house conductor Mdm. Chow Yen Ching and invited guest conductor Mitsuo Nonami from Japan. The band played his composition - The Star of Friendship. Among other songs were selections from the movie Mamma Mia, arranged by Michael Brown.

Just before Intermission, one of the MCs announced the number plates of two drivers and one happened to be Elizabeth’s. (Later she related to us when she went to move her car, she did not see any driver wanted to get out from the parking bay or that her car was blocking another car. As soon as she moved out of the parking bay, another car parked. She had difficulty in finding another parking bay and was going to leave only to Alice to call her to see how she was. She was thinking of going home but realised that we had all come in her car and therefore she could not go home yet. Poor lady.)

After intermission, the jazz club in their Hawaiian outfit played The Girl from Ikanema and In the Mood. They were moving their body to the beat of music.

A former student Ms. Ng who went to Taiwan to study music appeared next singing an Italian song - Nel Cor Piu Non Mi Sento.

Before the night came to an end, we heard the following.

1. The Witch and the Saint.

2. First Love – Addicted to Love.

3. Goodbye My Love.

4. I Could Have Danced All Nite.

5. Selection of songs from Broadway with emphasis on Cha Cha, Dixie and Swing Styles.

6. Copacabana – The most entertaining as some students were dancing and while others were playing and moving their instruments.

The band gave two encore songs, each conducted by each conductor.

We had an enjoyable night and the students together with the conductors did a fantastic job.

Happenings of Last Saturday

On Saturday I did the following.

1. I managed to nearly finish updating the company accounts. Next month end will be the end of the financial year and therefore the bosses want to see the draft net profit figure to see how much they can spend between now and then to decrease the tax to be paid to Inland Revenue Department.

2. I had the car service at the workshop below the office. For a long time the windscreen wiper had been making sound whenever it was being switched on when rain came down. The sound is quite annoying and therefore I decided to get a new one. Now the new wiper does not make any sound.

Last year the mechanic suggested to me to put a layer of window tint at the top of the windscreen but I did not ask him to do that until two days ago.

3. I left the office to come home at 3p.m. The house next to our house was bought over by new owners and since three weeks ago, a contractor has been doing renovation. The noise has been quite deafening for me during the weekends that I have been home with the sound of drilling and hacking going on. That’s why I did not want to come early during the past weekends unless I was too tired to go elsewhere.

4. I watched the Russian team won the Sychronized Swimming ahead of Spain and PRC at the Beijing Olympic before having an hour nap.

5. That night my sis-in-law Ros drove her parents and mum to attend a dinner at Ocean Seafood Restaurant while both us went to Yayasan Sabah Auditiorium to listen to The UK South Norfolk Youth Symphonic Band organised by the Rotary Club of Kota Kinabalu. On the way to Sabah Foundation, there was massive traffic congestion at the Coastal Highway.

The programme is as follows.

First Session

Star Wars: The Phantom Menace – John Williams arr Michael Story

Highlights from Moulin Rouge – Eden Ahbez arr Michael Brown

The Children of Sanchez – Arr Tom Milford

Selection from Chicage – John Kander arr Ted Ricketts

Sir Duke – Stevie Wonder arr Naohiro Iwai

Miss Saigon – Claude Schonberg arr Warren Barker

Second Session

The Cowboys - John Williams arr Jay Bocook

Queen in Concert – Brian May arr Jay Bocook

Selections from The Lion King – Elton John arr Paul Lavender

Irish Party in Third Class – Gaelie Storm arr Richard Saucedo

Pirates of the Carribbean – Klaus Badelt arr Ted Ricketts

Third Session (Combined with Tshung Tsin Secondary School Band)

Four Norfolk Dances by Philips Sparke

Asian Selection II by Mitsuo Nonami

Since the concert was performed by youths, my expectation was not that high. Nevertheless these young people did a good job. The conductor was Mr. Mike Booty, who is also a Rotarian. At the end almost half the people in the hall gave the band a standing ovation.

When we arrived home about 11p.m., mum and Ros’s parents were not home yet. They only arrived home at 11.15p.m.

Christmas Concert at Yayasan Sabah Auditorium 9 December 2007

This Christmas Concert was organized by The Association For Members Of Chinese Church Music Kota Kinabalu.

I invited Tang Lee San to join me and we sat with Lily Tan, Stephanie Chong and her sister Fui Na. Since we bought the RM30 ticket, we were seated higher up than when I was there during the Jesselton Philharmonic Orchestra’s performance. This time there was no way I could video the performance. So I resorted to audio recording only.

We started of with singing carols ‘All Come All Ye Faithful’, ‘Joy to the World’, ‘Noel’, etc.

There were solo, duets and trio performance in singing or instruments and both together.

The highlight of the evening was the presentation by the Choir of The Association For Members Of Chinese Church Music Kota Kinabalu accompanied by the Yap Ling Ensemble. I really enjoyed myself and I was glad Lee San enjoyed herself as well.

Lily Tan was trying to take photos using her new digital camera throughout the performance. I gave up with mine after two shots because they did not turn out well.

MPO at Petronas Philharmonic Hall 10 November 2007 (Photos)

MPO at Petronas Philharmonic Hall 10 November 2007

A few weeks before I went to Kuala Lumpur, I already bought the tickets to listen to MPO through the internet (MPO website is http://www.malaysianphilharmonic.com). The time stated for the performance at the website was 8p.m. All I knew were the names of the conductor and soloist. I did not have any clue what was the theme that night.
The train was supposed to arrive at Setia Jaya at 520pm but it didn’t arrive until 540pm. When I looked over to the LDP Highway, the road was still congested.

I arrived at KLCC around 6.30p.m. and met Tracy. We went to collect the tickets and only realised then the actual time of the performance was 8.30p.m.

We decided to try out California Pizza Kitchen (CPK) at KLCC again. (A year ago we came to this restaurant to eat on recommendation by Andrew Chan. We ordered the original barbeque chicken at the time and it tasted absolutely mouth watering).

CPK is located at Lot 140, Level 1, KLCC.

This time we wanted to try something different so I suggested peking duck. What a big mistake that was! This fusion really did not go well at all. No doubt we finished the whole pizza but the taste and oomph were missing. So disappointing!

There were a lot of people outside the Petronas Philharmonic Hall when we arrived. The programme was not given free of charge, so I paid RM5 for it. Only then I discovered that the theme for that night’s performance was all 007 The Music of the James Bond films. So cool!

The Petronas Philharmonic Hall can sit about 900 people. Somehow the Hall looked bigger in the website.

Our seats were in the middle of the six seats, second row from the front on the left side of the Hall. The view was not that fantastic but for RM40 a seat, what else can we ask for? Seated on the right in the same row with us were two young ladies. The people on the left of us did not turn up at all.

By the time the performance started the whole hall was almost full. Some people were wearing quite formal while others smart casual. Three people were late but the usher still allowed them in.

Announcements were made concerning that all handphones had to be switched off and no photography was allowed. No handphone was audible that night but some people who were seated at the upper stalls took photos with their flash but they did not get caught since they were seated so high up.

The conductor was Carl Davis (www.carl-davis.com) while the soloist was Mary Carewe (www.marycarewe.com). The majority of the members of MPO were Westerners with only some Asians. The storyline of James Bond movies and theme songs were narrated/presented by Samantha Schubert.

The music being played that night included Dr. No, From Russia With Love, Goldfinger, Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Diamonds are Forever, Live and Let Die, The Man with the Golden Gun, The Spy Who Loved Me, Moonraker, For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy, A View to a Kill, The Living Daylights, Licence to Kill, Goldeneye, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World is Not Enough, Die Another Day and Casino Royale.

I really enjoyed myself and was shaking my head to the tune of the music all throughout the whole performance. There were only a handful of people doing the same thing that I did. The rest of the audiences were just sitting there.

After an hour of performance, there was an intermission of 20 minutes. Visit to the loo almost took 10 minutes because of the long queue.

The spotlight outside the Hall showed the word “007” in changing colours during the intermission but the movement was too fast for me to capture on my camera.

Before the performance ended, there was announcement on best dressed audience for the night. (I did not even know of such a competition). 3rd prize was won by a fair chinese lady in a coloured gown. 2nd prize was won by an Indian lady dressed in an above knee high black dress with mini pom-poms at the bottom of the dress. 1st prize was won by a bald Westerner wearing a white suit with bow tie and black pants who to me is a Jean-Luc Picard look-alike from the Star Trek: Next Generation fame. Thunderous applause were heard as he went up to collect his prize as the audience found it befitting that the prize was awarded to the right person.

Although at the end the audience gave thunderous applause to the conductor, soloist, presenter and the orchestra, there was no encore. All good things must come to an end!

We met Tracy’s cousin Lee San (who had been waiting for us the whole night) at Dome Cafe before taking the train to Paramount station and Tracy drove us home.

Jesselton Philharmonic Orchestra 21 October 2007

I only knew a couple of days before the Jesselton Philharmonic Orchestra (JPO) was making their debut concert at the Sabah Foundation Auditorium on 21 October 2007 through Josephine Hadikusumo’s profile in Facebook.

I quickly asked her where I could obtain the tickets because I wanted to attend. Before she could reply, I text messaged my sis in law and Sophia Tsen and asked them whether they had any knowledge of the event. Both did not know and were not planning to attend. Since they did not want to go, I called up Irene Yong, whom I met through work and who introduced Classic FM UK on the internet to me. She decided to attend with me. (And even if she doesn’t, I was planning to go alone).

When I called Lily Tan, she told me she read in the newspapers about this event and probably Dr. Michael Heng would have the tickets since he would be singing in the choir. Sophia was able to obtain two tickets for me from Dr. Heng. She passed the tickets to me on the day of the performance. That afternoon I confirmed with Irene the time we would meet up and what we would wear for the event. Since she only has jeans in her wardrobe, I decided to accompany her to wear jeans.

30 seconds after alighting from my car, I saw Irene’s car turning into Sabah Foundation carpark. She was happy that I accompanied her to wear jeans.

As we approached the door of the Auditorium, I saw a tall lady coming out from the building. I realised that the person was Josephine Hadikusumo. Wow! Finally we met up after getting to know each other through Facebook for a few weeks. She’s so tall and fair. And she looked so lovely in her black dress as she was singing in the choir for the JPO performance.

Since our tickets were RM30, Irene and I were ushered to sit upstairs. We decided to sit in the front near the aisle on the left side of the auditorium. We chit-chatted before the performance started. I saw some distance relatives, Datuk Adeline Leong, Evonne Foo, Dr. Michael Heng’s family, Mr. Lim (bosses’ insurance agent) and his family.

The Guest of Honour for this inaugural event was Datuk Masidi Manjun, Minister of Tourism, Culture and Environment and he officiated this occasion.

For the first time since I bought my digital camera a year ago, I videotaped snippets of the entire performance because my camera only allowed taping of an hour.

There was an article in the local newspaper Daily Express two days after JPO’s debut performance. Check it out here.

I can say that there are a lot of talents in this city that can be tapped into. No doubts there are rooms for improvement but JPO had done extremely well on their debut and I wish them continuous success.

And of course, no doubt the best performance was ‘Ode to Joy’ From Symphony No. 9 by Beethoven accompanied by the choir. They brought the house down! I also enjoyed the violin, soloist by conductor Yap Ling.

If you want to find out more information on JPO, click here.

If you want to find out more information on conductor Yap Ling, check out his website.