The announcement of TAR UC Choir – Voichestra winning the Silver Award during the virtual session of the festival.
The recorded performance of TAR UC Choir – Voichestra in 2019 which was submitted for the festival’s competition.
Amidst lockdowns and physical restrictions, TAR UC Choir - Voichestra continues to be victorious. The latest achievement of the Choir is winning the Silver Medal in the Non-Virtual Choir category of the 3rd Bandung Choral Society (‘BCS’) World Virtual Choir Festival 2021. The festival was organised by BCS and was held virtually from 30 April to 7 May 2021.
For the Non-Virtual Choir category, participants were required to submit a recorded performance. “We decided to take part in the Non-Virtual Choir category as the students were busy preparing for their semester examinations. If we were to produce a new virtual choir video, we could only do so during the semester holidays which, by then we would have missed the submission deadline. Therefore, I submitted a recorded video performance of the Choir singing the song “The Sky is Dark”. We performed this song during our participation in a Chinese choir competition in Taiwan which was held in October 2019,” said Ms Ang Yaw Feng who is the advisor cum conductorof the Choir.
Both Ms Ang and the Choir’s assistant advisor, Ms Regina Ong Ween Yen decided to participate in the competition to gain more exposure in international competitions. “This festival attracted choirs from 17 different countries and by far, this is the largest number of participating countries in a competition which TAR UC Choir has also participated in. Therefore, winning the Silver Award is a great encouragement and confidence booster for the Choir members. In addition, Regina and myself see this competition as a great platform to not only showcase TAR UC Choir- Voichestra to the rest of the world but it is also a way for us to uplift the spirits of our students who have not been able to sing together physically for quite some time. In addition, as participants of the festival, Regina and myself were able to attend several vocal and choir workshops conducted by singers and choir conductors from other countries where we gained valuable lessons,” Ms Ang continued.
Tan Ming Kit who is studying the Bachelor of Computer Science (Hons) in Data Science and also the Vice Chairman of TAR UC Choir, was very happy with the achievement. “I am very proud of our achievement as we faced stiff competitions from choirs from other countries like Indonesia, the Philippines and Spain. I am grateful to the Choir advisors, Ms Ang and Ms Regina for being proactive and thoughtful of us, the choir members. Although the Choir couldn’t meet up physically to sing together, they found other ways to help us keep our spirits up during this pandemic and also during our semester examinations by submitting our previous performance for this Festival. I enjoyed watching the video of our previous performance being shown during the festival as it brought back fond memories I had with the other Choir members. With this latest win, we now have another great memory to be cherished forever as TAR UC Choir-Voichestra,” he shared.
