The fruit of TAR UC Choir’s labour is the Silver B Award in the Open Category.
TAR UC Choir singing harmoniously during the competition.
TAR UC Choir set a new record in the Malaysian Choral Eisteddfod (MCE) National Choir Competition by winning the Silver B Award in the Open category of the competition. Held on 22 June 2019, this year’s win marks the 13th time TAR UC has won in the said competition. Noticeably this was the second time that TAR UC choir was represented by current students and TAR UC alumni and went by the name “TAR UC Vocal Ensemble”. The 39-member choir consisted of 29 current students and 10 alumni.
To fulfil one of the competition’s requirements in performing a Malay song, TAR UC Choir performed Perwiraku as well as a Tagalog folk song from the Philippines titled Katakataka. The Choir received encouraging and positive comments after presenting both songs. In particular for Perwiraku, the judges commented that TAR UC Choir sang beautifully with the right tone and the perfect harmony of voices as well as good facial expressions. The second song was more challenging to perform but the judges remarked that the Choir demonstrated good dynamic changes and wonderful expressions with generally good intonations. The judges also shared that the Choir could improve on balancing overall voices in singing Katakataka.
Every Choir member was committed to giving their best for the competition, as observed by Ms Ang Yaw Feng, the Choir advisor cum conductor who conducted several hours of training sessions on a weekly basis in preparation for the competition. “It was challenging for the Choir to present the 8 vocal-part of the Katakataka song as it was our first attempt to do so and rehearsing within a short period of time added to the difficulty of performing that song. Moreover, some of the members of TAR UC Vocal Ensemble could not attend rehearsals regularly due to work commitment. However, these challenges only motivated the students and alumni to make the best of every rehearsal session and thanks to the additional training sessions conducted by our external trainer, Ms Susanna Saw, the Choir picked up important lessons and tips to improve their performance for the competition. I am very proud to see such high level of dedication and commitment among TARCians to go all out for the competition,” Ms Ang shared.
