Making February into Music Appreciation Month

 Pris and I have spent the last two weeks being utterly, miserably sick. I caught it first from my work and enjoyed the agony so much I passed it right on to share. We're not sure what it is since neither of us has been willing to go to the doctor, but since we aren't writhing in pain much anymore and we're only hacking every other minute now, we're sure it'll be fine.

However, our bug has put a bit of a damper on our activities since it's all but eradicated all of our energy and we've been trying to head back early every night we can to rest up. Regardless, we have been able to get out a little bit over the time and have a bit of new stuff to share.

Last Sunday, the 20th, we took a trip to the Esplanade for the 2nd of 3 in the Beautiful Sunday series, a series of free concerts performed by a few different orchestras. This month's concert was from the Mus'Art Wind Orchestra in celebration of Valentine's Day with a selection of love songs from Japanese, Chinese, American composers and others. The venue should be pretty familiar to those who've already been through our blog, we were there for the first concert too!

This time we arrived more than two minutes before the performance was set to start and ended up with not such high seats. The venue itself is gorgeous and worth a trip out, even if photography isn't allowed.

(they weren't too happy with me sneaking a shot or two. at least i wasn't fined.)

I can't lie, as far as performances this one was far more fun than the last. The conductor even had the audience clapping along for a few songs. Or...trying to clap along anyway. As it turns out, the Singaporean crowd in general had about as much rhythm between them as a  single person should have and the offbeat clapping led to more than a bit of laughter.

But all in all it was a very fun show and we'll definitely be there to catch the last in the series on the 6th of March, 3pm for all those interested.

February has been a pretty musical month overall, as the concert at the Esplanade wasn't the only live performance we caught, although the second was quite a bit more down key. Held at library@esplanade, which does have its own performance corner, we caught the NUS Guitar Ensemble for a quiet hour and a half or so recital.

(there were many more than just these guys, maybe 25 or so in the ensemble who took turns in groups or solo performances)

We caught word of this small affair through the monthly library brochure, which often highlights tours, performances and the like people can take either for a small charge or free. You can find some of their listings online here as well. (There's another free tour through Chinatown scheduled this Saturday that we'll likely have to miss, but catch it if you can!)

Unfortunately, there's not too much else to say for now as we're pretty exhausted just from our meager entertainment offerings, so hopefully we'll have some more exciting activities to post about next time!

 (we'll see you out with some music. kind of.)