After months of hard work and almost ignoring all my school work for a few weeks, our band(hciband) managed to achieve Gold With Honours!
It was my first time participating in the SYF... Fortunately I have participated in NBC last year(which I freaked out on the stage and couldn't play properly), I was not so nervous this time. I slept at 9+ the day before Thursday just as Mr Kiang told us to, but I still couldn't get enough sleep as I was fidgeting in my bed the whole night thinking about SYF tmr.(I blame the random sms that woke me up at 10+...)
I was very glad that I wasn't very nervous, which made me feel more confident, which made me feel less nervous(so it's a cycle you know). I played, just like how I played during rehearsal, of course with slight nervouseness. At first I thought we screwed up. Cos The clarinet parts of Overture 1 was really soft from where I was seating and I started to panic. Of course I still play my part well through the whole piece. Then we played the choice piece, machu picchu(I hope I've spelled it correctly...), it was nice through out and my lips were burning towards the end(especially when I tried to sustain the high F). A sudden feeling of emptiness almost striked me immediately after I finished the last note. I've just presented what we've been practising so hard over three months to the judges!!! SYF is officially finished for us...
We went out(with seniors telling us that we did fine), and reentered the concert hall. We watched one band played (and the conductor had such 'unique' style of conducting.) The judges then left the hall to discuss about the score and that was when I started to clench my fist to ease my nervousness. After a really longgggggg wait, the judges reappeared and I started praying. We were the third last band so I knew I would still have be tortured for a few more minutes. Many bands cheered when they heard their results(which I had not much interest to know as I only wanted to know HCI band's results). Finally I heard: 'Band 86, Hwa Chong High School band-'. I started chanting 'Gold with Honours', 'Gold with Honours'... and I heard 'Gold~'. Yes I know we can get a gold and I am expecting something else behind it!!! Please award us with GWH, please! 'with honours!'. Instantly, the whole band jumped with joy. We cheered loudly and many were shouting 'YES!' 'YES!'. It was so touching to see the whole band being on cloud nine with the GWH result and even the Teachers i/c hugging each other with joy( shows they put in a lot of effort also). We left the hall and continued cheering.
I was excited throughout the way back to school. My friends of String Orchestra congratulated me too. We took some photos in the band room and went to Mac for our victory lunch~
I am really touched by the band's hardwork and I feel this GWH is a motivation to push us even further. It's really the best thing in my life!
p.s: The best thing about SYF is that I get to skip school for one day and of course there won't be CCA training in the afternoon(it's a Friday)! XD and sorry for making this post so lengthy... I dunno how it became like that and I'm too lazy to shorten it so please bear with it~
Horn section from left to right: Jeremy, Lionel, Po En, Jie Xuan:
SYF participants+teachers i/c:
Victory lunch: