SSO@Vivocity
Today we went down to Vivocity to listen to our Singapore Symphony Orchestra play for free. What a great place for outdoor performances! Nice sea breeze, open air… We went early and arrived by 5:30pm thinking that the place could get crowded. Lucky we did that cuz it ended up really crowded with lots of people standing.
The SSO played a few classical scores and a few National Day songs (since it’s a National Day holiday weekend), there was even a couple of violin solos by this local prodigy (See Ian Ike) who’s now studying in the US.
I’ve always wondered what a conductor does waving the baton while everyone plays. They never look up! For show? But as I watched I noticed his waving is slightly earlier than the notes being played. Maybe the musicians take cues from him?
They are next performing at the Botanical Gardens. Do catch them if you can.
The players will look at the conductor for the entrance note. After coming in, they will look at their score to play. Conductor is very important to control when the respective instruments start to come in in case some of them lose count of the beat. Tat’s y his paycheck must be damn thick.
Btw, normally 2 ppl playing the same instrument & part share 1 scoresheet as scores can spawn into multiple pages, 1 player turn the page the other will continue playing so that the there will be no lost of sound here n there :)