It was one of those lazy days after a long holiday (and sick by the way) did I slog my butt up to college to so called "study and to prepare for my moots.
At approximately 2 pm, I stepped out to the empty computers in attempt to "unwind" myself from all the craziness thats happening in my brain and I stummbled upon the funniest post on the Young KL Singers blog...
I am clearly clueless as to who some of these souls are myself but I sure did enjoy looking through the entire list and hopefully there will be more to come in the near future...
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
More interesting facts ! (compiled version)1. Chi Hoe and Susanna made a mistake during one of the shows for Beat It! Sing It! and left the audience with a few seconds of silence wondering what was going on with choir members sitting still on stage (with occasional slight head shakes) and the conductors looking frustrated because (as Chi Hoe put it) his magic was not working that day. Chi Hoe was trying to get the choir to stand when we were actually supposed to sit for that song.
2. Idzam, Yeow and Chi Hoe (to some extent) are famous for making up lyrics on the spot. Idzam - 'This is the moment, the moment, the moment'...Yeow - miming watermelon' over and over throughout 'At the end of the day' for Through the Barricades... Chi Hoe - In Penang for Musical Treasures singing 'Some Enchanted Evening' substituted lyrics for different verses. Result - 'You can use a stranger...'
3. At the beginning of 'Going Home', YKLS saw the least soprano members ever - below ten members with only four Sopranos 1. Thankfully, after the auditions, that number grew.
4. In the Through the Barricades production, there were two Annettes (Annette Soo and Annette Christie) and three Jeannies (Jeannie Cham, Jeannie Cotter and Jeannie Ling? Not sure of the last one...). We have also had two Melanie(s) and two Li Sun(s) - the other is actually spelled Li San.
5. The youngest member of the YKLS was Melanie (can't remember her last name - she was 10 yrs old), and the oldest was 40+ (won't mention the name, nor the exact age either)
6. The YKLS yahoogroups was started on Nov 18, 2003 by Wai Fun. The other current moderators of the e-groups are Regina and Carrie. The purpose of starting the e-groups was so that there will be no need to insert so many e-mail addresses each time the choir members wanted to ask each other something. Current membership of the e-groups is 135 members.
7. The tradition for the Cast Party was started after "Through the Barricades" production. The venue was at Strawberry Fields in Subang Parade. It was a last-minute decision by members who had just wanted to have some "bonding time". Susanna did not attend, although Chi Hoe did. Less than 20 members attended that dinner. The following production had 40+ members at the Cast Party
8. Tyler Chin has the distinction of being the only male member of the YKLS to have been kissed by most of the female members of the choir during a production (on the face, no less). The reason being that he refused to wear make up on that day, and the femalemembers decided to do it for him by kissing off their lipstick on him... :-)
9. There were only three Soprans 1 during Simply Andrew Lloyd Webber production, nicknamed "MC square", short for mong, cha and cha. For those who don't understand Chinese, please ask someone who does.
10. The different languages sung by the YKLS include:- Mandarin- Malay- English- Spanish- French- Swedish- Estonian- Mongolian (solely consisting of sha, ding, di & li)- Indian (solely consisting of na)- Hokkien- German- Maori- African- Japanese- some South American tribal language- nonsense languageThe only major languages not attempted appears to be Arabic and Russian.
11. Besides the four husband-wife teams, we have also had a pair of twins (Vicky and Lisa), a pair of sisters (Stephanie and Sharmaine) and a brother-sister pair (Yeow and Kah Yan).
12. Some of the "foreigners" that have sung in the YKLS include Bruno, Valentine and Amandine (French), Bruce and Sue (English), Gabrielle (Australian), Farah and Fakhry (Indonesian) and Rachel (American). I'm not including those with mixed parentages.
13. Yeow and Maximillan Lim appears to have the largest vocal ranges among the YKLS, having sung as a Tenor 1 as well as a Bass 2. Kenneth Law has also sung as a Tenor 2 and as a Bass 2.
14. The venues for the practice sessions for the YKLS have included:- The Actors Studio @ BSC- KLPac- Plaza Damas - a dance studio in Bangsar- the top floor of Tropics shopping complex in Damansara Perdana
15. Some of the training sessions conducted by Susanna have incorporated elements of (besides singing):- yoga (ppl really regretted having worn jeans that day)- how to sit down and stand up (dunno what Method)- dance (step left, step right, etc.)- how to teach children to sing (1,2,3, Johnny caught a flea, etc.)- play (jumping, hopping, skipping, etc.)
16. Starting from Through The Barricade production (our 4th production), the Co-Producer for that show started the "crying tradition" on the stage at the final show. (Who is the Co-Producer? Ask around and you will know) YKLS is the only performing choir that I know who will have "crying orgy" on stage in front of all the audiences.
17. So far, from 2002 til now, we have "produced" an estimate of 6 couples among the members itself (straight, curly etc). Most of this relationship blossomed in the middle of production. Whether it is a successful relationship is another story lah.
18. In Four Season production, Susanna and Chi Hoe started a chamber group in YKLS but the effort was put on hold at the next production due to time commitment. Maybe we can have the chamber group revived again next year?
19. Raslan, Idzam, Albert, Bruce were the only "true" Tenor 1 we ever have along the years.
20. Music Bring Us Together (2nd production) is the only production where we had a "true" Bass 2, Bruno (a French guy) who can hit extremely low note.
21. Four of our members actually shares the same birthday in September and they are Chelsia, Wai Fun, Regina and Jim
22. From the starting until now, we have had 4 husband-wife team joining the choir including Chelsia & Kenneth (our current narrator) and the latest addition Leonard & Hilda
23. By joining YKLS, a few of our members (Max, Alia, Tyler, Ian etc) are also inspired to take on performing arts as their career or further their study in this industry
24. A number of our members also tried out the audition for Malaysian Idol, One In A Million and Astro Talent Quest. Some managed to proceed to the second and third stage. But majority just flunk at the first stage. Most of them were given the reason "You do not have the X Factor". What the hell is the X Factor?!
25. In KLPac's last year pantomime Cinderella and the current musical Broken Bridges, we saw a handful of our members got a role in it including Stephanie Driessen, Sharmaine Driessen, Cheryl Tan, Joanne Poh, Tony Leo. (Forgive me if i spelt "Driessen" wrongly)
26. We started off with only 4 Tenors in Music Bring Us Together and Malaysian Affair saw the most Tenors in YKLS history.
27. Susanna pronounce DOGS as LOGS occasionally and Chi Hoe pronounce BREATH as BREAST, among other things.
28. During a trekking trip to Rainforest World Music Festival 2004 over in Sarawak we had Live wiggly fat Sago worms for dinner.
29. We also had JENG NIGHT in conjunction with the our last day of our stay at the forest festival. We would all dress up with leaves, garbage bags or whatever we can get our hands on, even wearing undies outside and have ourselves painted in all sorts of colors and then dance like a madman all night long.
30. We had our 1st Halloween party last year at Yin's house.( should we have another? )
31. A day before our Simply Andrew Llyod Webber production The Actors Studio Dataran Putra was hit by flash flood and most of the props were destroyed.
32. When we were busking at KLPac to promote our ticket to the Pygmalion crowd one member actually fell asleep, standing and singing and then ZZZZ.
33. We were known to be singing anywhere and everywhere when there is more than 3 YKLS members gathered. (including mamak stalls)
34. During YKLS's first visit to the Rainforest Festival in 2003, the members slept in longhouses. Each longhouse "room" had one bathroom, which was shared by 10 females (the guys were housed in a different longhouse). The following year, each bathroom was shared by 20 females. However, following the YKLS spirit, not many complaints were voiced (I dunno what ppl were thinking in their hearts though...)
35. A lot of YKLS members travel great distances to attend rehearsals. Chi Hoe travelled each week from Penang, and Sylvia each week from Ipoh. Other "long distance" travellers include Denise and May Yee from Kajang, and Yeow, Roy, Leonard and Hilda from Klang. The biggest group stays in Subang (commonly known as the Subang gang)
36. During the Rainforest Festival 2003, a male YKLS member commented that he had trouble sleeping at night due to the "harmonized" snoring in his longhouse. There were apparently 3 contributors; the late Uncle Phillip with a long, bass "horrr"; a middle-pitched one and a higher pitched one (can't remember who, but I think one contributor was Max). The snores had different tempoes (rhythm), which would finally culminate in one big snore, therefore “harmonized" snoring.
37. During Through The Barricades production, Chi Hoe played the role of Jean Valjean, an older man that should be in his mid-40s or 50s. To age Chi Hoe, Yeow put talcum powder on his hair to whiten it. The first show had a light sprinkling of powder, but Chi Hoe's hair became progressively whiter as the shows progressed. Besides the hair, Yeow would also draw "five o-clock shadows" on Chi Hoe's chin and cheeks, which also became darker and longer as the shows progressed.
38. Yeow has been the costume designer for the YKLS since 2003, and maybe even before that.
39. Also during the TTB production, Susanna was at her fiercest. She would constantly scold and berate the members for not being "emotional" and "angry" enough (the production was about revolution and war, and she said that the members had very pampered lives in KL, and so was too "nice"). She was 5 months pregnant when the show was held, and it is now believed that little Regina inherited some of her mother's "fierceness" displayed during the run-up to the production.
40. Sylvia played the role of Mrs Thenardier during the TTB production, and one of her scenes included having to bump chestfirst into Mr Thenardier (played by Charles Pooley). In the final show for TTB, she bumped herself so hard that she fell on her bottom onto the stage (Charles Pooley is actually quite slim). You can imagine the expressions of shock on the members faces (they were singing) as well as Susanna's. But Sylvia gestured to Charles to pull her up and continued to play her character perfectly.
41. Charles Pooley was notorious for not remembering his lines (much worse than Idzam), until the Stage Manager taped his lines onto the speakers at the front of the stage (which is facing away the audience).
42. Also during TTB, the scene after intermission involves the members keeping absolutely still on stage as the audience comes in and sits down. We were commended on the Kakiseni forum by an audience member for displaying such discipline, which could last 10 minutes or more (depending on how fast the audience sat down).
43. YKLS has several members that left and rejoined the choir again, which includes:- Idzam- Raslan- Annette Christie- Wendy Liew- Wendy Moh- Yeow- Ian-Ryonn- Aaron- Raymond Chua- Evan and ...
44. Yeow has a very distinctive laugh. Some YKLS members tried to "cure" him of this laugh, by attempting "harmonized" laughing. Whenever Yeow laughed, a member would laugh in a soprano-pitched laugh, and another in a bass-pitched laugh in the exact same manner as Yeow, thus "harmonized" laughing. Yeow was "cured" for a while (he would put his hand to his mouth to prevent himself from laughing), but the "cure" did not last.... Chi Hoe also sometimes emit "pig-like" sounds when he laughs, which can also be considered as "distinctive".
45. Several audience members has commented that it is actually more entertaining to watch Susanna during shows (in Susanna's words: "jumping like a monkey") than to watch the YKLS.
46. The first time Wai Fun met Yeow, he introduced himself as a porn star (in a serious manner). Wai Fun found it quite convincing. It was only later she found out that he was an animator.
47. I first heard the statement about "Chi Hoe's derriere (or butt) tightens when he sings" during the Rodgers and Hammerstein production (Chi Hoe was singing the solo in "Oklahoma" in that production). Apparently this female member had better powers of observation, who was working as a forensic scientist at that time.
48. Wai Fun first found out about the YKLS from her brother, who had attempted to join the choir but failed the audition (Yes, ppl can fail the audition, but Susanna tells me that it's very rare, about 5%).
49. Susanna got the nickname "Mamasan" during the rehearsals for the opening of Ikea Mutiara Damansara gig. The rehearsal took place in a recording studio in quite a secluded part of PJ, so the place was rather dingy and dark. Some members commented that it looked like the place where you would find "ayam", and so Susanna became "Mamasan".
50. Tracy was with YKLS as a rehearsal pianist since the inception and along the way, she also doubled up as the Stage Manager, Stage & Production Crew, concert & gig pianist etc and she did it all with just a small token of appreciation but a big heart for YKLS.
51. Beat It Sing It (6th production) recorded the highest amount of sponsorship ever raked in one production.
52. Simply Andrew Llyod Webber is the only production which recorded 100% ticket sales for all 5 shows. On top of that, we also sold some of the stairs seat (where people basically seat on the steps) at a cheaper price.
53. The only time where Susanna kicked out members was during Through The Barricade.
54. YKLS is the only performing choir in town that accept members with zero music background. However, along the way, we have also rejected a few members. But for one particular girl that came for the audition, she was rejected not because she failed her audition but because of her attitude.
55. Live on Stage concept actually originated from a small scale Valentine production that we did back in 2003 entitled "Love Is In The Air".
56. When Ian and Annette founded Voices of Hope, they only gave the project a lifespan of 1 year. Fortunately, it lasted longer than that and now it is into its 3rd year.
57. Through The Barricade was considered the "evolution" production of YKLS because this is the first production that involved a big budget, sets was incorporated, sponsorship plays a big part and done a whole lot of paperwork and technical work like how a professional production is run.
58. Besides performing in Actors Studio, we have also brought our productions to Ipoh and Penang in 2004 and 2005 respectively. In one of the show in Penang, Musical Treasure, the performing members actually outnumbered the audience. Chi Hoe's father as supportive as ever actually came for all the nights when we were performing in Penang.
59. This Is Acoustic! series founded by Ian also helps to introduce a handful of YKLS member into the singer-songwriter scene namely Max, Tracy, Tony, Joachim and Suk Yin. In fact, Tony found out about the choir in This Is Acoustic Part II and joined us after that.
60. After Through The Barricade production, YKLS is not eligible anymore to contest for Kakiseni BOH Cameronian Award as Kakiseni brand us as a student production since we fall under The Actors Studio Academy.
61. YKLS is the only performing choir that has obtained the Trinity Gold Level Choral Assessment Certificate in Malaysia.
62. Keng Yi has the strict and stern Sound Engineer reputation that scare the shit out of most the stage crew. He confirms information by saying "Roger, roger" as if he is in military. On better days, Keng Yi likes to distract YKLS members on stage during performances (because they get a good view of him from the stage). "I know you can't see this backstage but I've got the dim lamp shining at myself, my hands waving in the air like lalang in the wind, swaying to the music. And they're trying SO hard not tocrack up. This is fun!"
63. In 2005, we celebrated Chi Hoe's birthday by buying him a special chocolate cake. Since he's so gullible and preyable, a prank was in order. His birthday was right after Mother's Day so we went out to get him a cake and wrote `Happy Mother's Day' on it. The idea was to tell him that we just remembered his birthday, went to the nearest cake shop, and all they had were leftovers from Mother's Day, so he just had to deal with it. To add insult to injury, Susanna turned up with a huge white candle (that people normally use to pray or use as emergency during blackout) and said that's the only one she had.
64. When Susanna and I first listened to Ryonn's audition, we just stared at the name list and was like "Ha ? Ryonn? How do you pronounce Ryonn? What kind of name is that? So Ah Beng." Then Ryonn walked in with blondish highlights in his stylish hair and we said "Must be Ryonn".
65. The preparation for Goin' Home (8th production) wasn't easy – in one of the song, it required a few YKLS guys to dance and lift girls and twirl them around. Needless to say, we endured a lot of falls and vows to slim down or maintain weight (poor girls). There were a few collisions and lots of sweat and gender confusion (Jim) and plenty of laughter.
66. When we brought Through the Barricade to Ipoh, we went sight-seeing on the last day to some of the caves and temples. There was a reflexology path at one of them, so we took a walk on it. Then some joker suggested a race and a few of us actually went and did it! As a result, almost all of us couldn't walk properly for the next few days.
Rehearsals...
Backstage... of foundations, gloss, hairspray and of course.. posers...
Poserific...